The concept of reincarnation is accepted by two-thirds of the world’s population, including Buddhism and Hinduism. So it makes sense that Buddha had past lives. I had heard the story of Buddha’s most recent past live before he was Buddha, but had forgotten about it until I came across it recently in Catriona MacGregor’s new book: Secrets of a Celtic Mystic: Sacred Earth Prophecy. Once you’ve heard it, it’s kind of hard to forget. Here it is:
Before his incarnation as the Buddha, he was Prince Sattva, the son of King Maharatha. He was also far along on a spiritual path in that life, and while walking near the forest, he came upon a starving lioness and her hungry cubs. To save her life and those of her offspring, the prince offered his body to the lioness to eat. Through his supreme act of generosity, he perfected all of the tenets he held closely, such as renunciation and equanimity, to be able to move to a higher level of evolution and incarnate in his next life as the Buddha.
Most Westerners who accept the concept of reincarnation have a hard time with the idea that we might reincarnate as an animal or especially an insect. Yet, we’ve had three golden retrievers, and with each one I’ve thought that they might have at least a fragment of human personality within them. In other words, it’s not like Uncle Joe is my dog now, but that a part of the spirit or soul of a human might exist within a dog as a means of experiencing physical reality from a perspective other than human. Supposedly, the Hindu god Vishnu had past lives as a fish, a tortoise, a boar, and al lion, as well as previous human incarnations.
Christianity, of course, doesn’t accept reincarnation, except for one person, Jesus, and that supposedly will be a future life rather than a past life. You might’ve heard the argument that reincarnation was part of the Bible until was removed possible in the Second Council of Constantinople (A.D. 553) or the Council Of Nicaea (A.D. 325). If either of those are true, they forgot at least a few passages that sound like reincarnation. I’m not one to cite Bible quotes as the truth about anything, but here is one that sounds somewhat like reincarnation. It’s Job 14:14. If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.
If Jesus will be born again, it’s certainly a valid question to consider that he lived earlier incarnations. Has anyone mentioned his past lives? Actually, the answer is yes. Edgar Cayce, the renowned Sleeping Prophet.
According to Cayce, the man, Jesus, underwent several past lives before he assumed the role of Christ. Previously, he was Adam, Enoch, Melchizedek, Joseph, Joshua, Asaph, Jeshua, and Zend. There were several other names Edgar Cayce mentioned, but here are those eight personalities.
1) Adam, of course, everybody knows as the first man created by God as mentioned in bible’s Book of Genesis, who lives in the Garden of Eden along with the first woman, Eve. They were banished from Eden, according to the bible, when they disobeyed God and ate the “forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
2) Enoch is found in the Apocryphal Book of Enoch. He is briefly mentioned in Genesis (5:15-24). “The Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers into materiality and Enoch’s heavenly sojourns, as well as his transfiguration into the angel Metatron.” The Book of Enoch is considered by some as a sacred book.
3) Melchizedek was a priest-prophet during the time of Abraham. He is also mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls (which was discovered in 1947 at the Qumran Cave near the Dead Sea), and the Nag Hammadi Codex texts found in Upper Egypt in 1945, along with other Gnostic gospels.
4) Joseph, son of Jacob, became the priest of Egypt. There are many parallels between the life of Joseph and that of Jesus.
5) Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land. One of Joshua’s roles was as a scribe of Moses.
6) Asaph—The Cayce readings give little information about Asaph, except that he was the music director and seer who served under David and Solomon.
7) Jeshua (or Joshua) was the high priest who helped organize the Israelites’ return from exile and the rebuilding of the temple (as recounted in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah). Edgar Cayce claimed that it was Joshua who compiled and translated the book of the Bible.
8) Zend was the father of Zoroaster, the founder of the Zoroastrian religion.
As Edgar Cayce said, “One can read reincarnation in the Bible, and another can read it out again.” Descriptions of these supposed past lives seen by Cayce, an ardent Christian, came from this article.
