In some Western countries, especially the United States, there are people recognized as having supernatural power. They are called “psychics.” Some of them have made great contributions to scientific research about reincarnation. Some even had a great influence on mainstream scientific research because their supernatural power can cure unknown and complicated diseases that cannot be cured by general medical methods. Some of them are even able to see the past and predict the future.
The Cases Of Miracle Worker Cayce
One such psychic was Edgar Cayce, who was born in 1877 and died in 1945. He was able to go into a hypnotic trance without assistance; sometimes, during these trances, spirits would enter his body and give medical advice or predictions. Cayce often said that the patients' illnesses in their current lives were caused by events in their past lives. Cayce believed the root cause of illness involved reincarnation.
Cayce had a high profile because of his success in curing patients. A mother in Kentucky whose baby was born with a seizure disorder once contacted Cayce for help. Three specialists were giving her child treatments, but he was getting worse and doctors predicted he would die. Cayce received guidance during a trance advising the mother to give the baby a poisonous extract from the atropa belladonna plant.
The doctors strongly opposed the idea of giving the child a poisonous drug, but the desperate mother insisted on following Cayce's advice. Soon after taking the medicine, this little boy slowly recovered and stopped twitching. He fully recovered from the disease shortly after. This was a miracle in the history of medicine! Cayce treated 14,000 cases in his lifetime, many with great
success.
His practices came under scrutiny by skeptics who thought he might be setting up a scam, fishing for fortune and fame. Harvard University psychologist Dr. Hugo Münsterberg carefully investigated Cayce. In the end, he and the other skeptics were convinced that Cayce indeed had supernatural power. A
special museum in the U.S. was dedicated to him and a foundation continues to do this type of work in his name.
Cayce diagnosed 2,500 cases related to reincarnation, which were the focus of several studies. Gina Cerminara, PhD, wrote a book about her research called Many Mansions: The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation.
Cayce sometimes observed the patients' past lives to find the root cause of the illness in this life. He usually called the root cause “karma.” His explanation for karma is as follows:
Karma is like the weapon that
Australian aboriginal people use,
the boomerang.
When one throws out a boomerang
to strike a flying object, such as a bird,
the boomerang will return to the person
who threw it.
The cycle of karma is similar to a boomerang's action, he said.
Whatever you do,
the impact of karma
will come back to you.
If you do good deeds,
you will get good rewards;
if you do evil deeds,
you will get evil retribution.
A Real Example of the Karma of Poisoning Others
A forty-year-old woman came to Cayce once for help with her allergies. When she ate food containing grains, she would sneeze constantly. When she encountered leather or things like plastic, she would experience nerve pain throughout her body. Doctors had told her there was no way to cure her disease.
Cayce observed this woman in his self-hypnosis state and pointed out that her disease had its root cause in her past life. He said in one of her lifetimes, she had been a chemist who studied and developed chemical drugs. Many people had allergic reactions to these drugs, especially with some that polluted the air. Her allergies were due to this karma. Cayce instructed her to repent and gave her a prescription, which finally cured her.
Blinding Others Causes Blindness in a Future Life
In another case, a professor who had been blind since birth came to Cayce. Many experts had given her treatment, but to no effect. She was very smart and became a university professor, yet she could see nothing because both her eyes were blind. She had heard of Cayce while listening to a radio program called “Miracle of the Mind,” which discussed supernatural topics and claimed Cayce's healing was magical.
Cayce observed the professor's past lives and saw that in 1000 BC, she had lived in Persia, where Iran is today. She had been a member of a barbaric tribe there which tortured and mutilated their enemies, including burning their eyes with a red-hot piece of iron. This professor had blinded many people during that life, so she received the retribution of being born blind.
Cayce also instructed her to repent. Within three months, she was able to acquire 10 percent vision. From this case, we can see the impact of past lives on present-day illnesses. The Buddhist sutras state,
If you want to know your past life,
look into your present conditions.
If you want to know your future life,
look into your present actions.
What goes around will definitely come around. Once we understand the truth of reincarnation, we must be vigilant and prevent ourselves from taking the wrong step.
Creating Karma by Using the Bible to Denounce Others
I've given examples of how “doing evil deeds begets evil retribution,” but in fact, we also beget retribution with our evil thoughts. Even if we have not taken any action, we have to pay the price for just having an evil thought. Another of Cayce's cases explains it.
A woman sought Cayce's help for a gynecological disease. Since puberty, her menstruation had been abnormal; every four weeks, she had to lie in bed for two weeks to recover from her monthly cycle. The great amount of bleeding made her feel too ashamed to see people, so she became introverted and withdrawn.
Cayce observed her past lives and finally found the reason.
In one life, this woman had been a Catholic nun in the age of King Louis XIV in France. She was very familiar with the Bible and the religious classics — but regretfully, she did not use that wisdom to regulate herself! She did not cultivate herself, but instead used the classics as the basis to severely criticize the flaws of other people. Whenever someone violated the commandments or did not meet the teachings of the classics, she would rebuke them and make them ashamed to see other people. Because she had made others feel ashamed and afraid to see people by harshly denouncing others' faults, her retribution in this life was being ashamed to see others because of her disease.
Real practitioners, holding the saints' and sages' classics like the Buddhist scriptures, must not use them to regulate others. The sages' classics should be used to regulate ourselves. If we used the classic norms of saints and sages to regulate others, not only would our learning of the classics have no merits, but we would also even create a great sin. The Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Master Hui Neng, said,
He who treads the path in earnest
sees not the mistakes of the world.
This means that real practitioners will not see faults in other people, but will use these classics to set standards for himself. If we use our time to improve our own virtues, we won't have the idle time to care about other peoples' business.
The Effect of Blaming Fate and Everyone Else
In the last of Cayce's cases that I will share today, a thirty-four-year-old patient named Paul Durbin suffered from multiple sclerosis, commonly known as “spinal tuberculosis” in those days. His nerves were affected to the extent that he experienced atrophy in his right leg and hand, and he lost his ability to work.
His wife and children were relying on his income, so he was troubled about being unable to work. His finances were in bad shape. Friends had sympathized with his situation and offered him help, sometimes even paying his medical expenses. But this patient had developed psychological
problems, always immersing himself in a resentful mood. He complained about his doctor for not curing his disease. Sometimes he even complained about the people who helped him. This habit of blaming fate and everyone else but himself was quite serious; his heart was full of resentment and injustice, and he would vent it on everyone around him. His attitude made his friends sad. Some even regretted ever helping him.
Cayce gave him a prescription — not medicine, but a mental prescription. Cayce saw that, in one of this patient's past lives, he had excessively immersed himself in negative emotions. His heart was full of selfishness, resentment, and grudges. His negative energy then had caused his disease in this lifetime, and his bad attitude followed him as well. He had not committed anys sinful deeds —but his resentful mentality led him to illness. Cayce knew he could not recover unless he corrected his psychologically ill mind.
Only by correcting these mental problems,
can one's physical problems get well.
This is an excerpt from Cayce's prescription:
You must get rid of these negative emotions
from your heart,
everything has its retribution,
precise to a hair's breadth.
This disease, the nerve atrophy disease,
is caused by karma.
As long as there is
hatred, viciousness, and selfish thoughts,
the disease will not be cured.
To change the physical condition,
you should first change your mind.
You must take measures to change your attitude
towards the environment, the objects, and your colleagues.
Any treatment would not lead to a complete recovery,
you will have hope only if you purify your soul.
This was the mental prescription that Cayce gave him: to purify his soul; because his illness had been caused by the evil thoughts entangled in his heart and by his selfishness, complaining about fate, and blaming everyone else.
Even After Kalpas, Our Karma Will Not Vanish
A mental illness requires the cure from one's own heart. Cayce had him purify his soul, repent the evil thoughts in his past, and eliminate these evil thoughts completely from his heart. Only then was it possible for him to restore his health. The Buddhist sutras have a statement,
Even after hundreds of thousands of kalpas,
our karma would not vanish,
When the causes and conditions meet together,
the retribution will still be received.
This means that even after hundreds of thousands of kalpas — an inconceivably long time — the karma you have created will never disappear. When the causes and conditions are all in place, the retribution will manifest, and you will receive the retribution. Even if there was only one evil thought in your life, that evil thought will still lead to retribution in the future. It goes without saying that if you commit bad deeds, their retribution can absolutely not be escaped.
related post: Chapter Four: Revealing The Origins of Reincarnation - Avarice, Resentment, Attachment, and More
Source Of Information:
《The Scientific Proof Of Causal Reincarnation》, by Dr. Zhong Maosen (Venerable Ding Hong), translated by Mahayana Pureland Team, published by Mahayana Pureland Organization, distributed by: Persatuan Penganut Agama Buddha Amitabha Malaysia, 90 & 92, Jalan Pahang, Gombak, 53000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.)
*** The information provided above does not contain personal opinion of this blog.
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