Western Research on Reincarnation: The Story of a Marriage

Each person goes through repeated cycles of birth, misery and death caused by karma. Marriage in each life is also predestined. With that in mind, one is likely to develop a renewed understanding of the expression, "till death do us part." Since each married couple must overcome the challenges of life, death and geographic distance to reunite, how can we not cherish each predestined relationship in marriage?

Of course, not all marriages are perfectly harmonious, but this is actually an opportunity for a couple to eliminate the karma they have acquired from mistreating each another in a previous life and to become more altruistic and loving towards each other. This may be another reason why two people join hands in marriage.

In Dr. Gina Cerminara's book, Many Mansions: The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation (1950) [1], she compiled and analyzed many readings of previous lives performed by Edgar Cayce (1877 – 1945) [2], a famous American with supernormal capabilities. There is a story about a married woman in the book.

When the woman married her husband, she was twenty-three years old and quite beautiful. By the time she asked Mr. Cayce to read her past life, she was forty-one years old and she was still very beautiful and charming. Though her husband was a very successful businessman, during their eighteen years of marriage he was sexually impotent. To some people, it might not be a significant problem. But to others, it would be the tragedy of a lifetime. In today's society, sexual impotence can be a valid reason to file for a divorce, but this woman did not have the heart to divorce her husband. She truly loved her husband and did not have the heart to hurt him.

During the first few years of marriage, she succumbed to her desires and had an affair, but she gradually learned to overcome her sexual desire via religious studies and meditation. The best years of her life went by like this until one day her old beau returned to her life. This man had been in love with her since adolescence, but when he was financially able to have a family she was already married. When they met again, they could hardly control their feelings toward each other and started a new relationship. Finally, she decided to end the relationship. She did not have the heart to leave her husband because he was a good man. She did not have the heart to hurt her old beau's wife either. She did not wish to hurt anybody.

Edgar Cayce's reading of her previous life showed that she and her husband were a married French couple in a previous life. Inflamed by the religious fanaticism at that time, her husband joined the Crusade to win back the Holy Land from the Muslims. Before his departure, he made her wear a chastity belt to prevent her from having an affair during his absence. She became extremely angry towards him and lived the rest of her life in misery. She even swore that one day she would have her revenge.

Hence, they met again in this life and were married. Her husband's sexual impotence was apparently the result of karma that he brought upon himself. However, why did she also have to suffer?

The most probable reason was that she was filled with hatred and a strong desire for revenge six centuries ago. In this life, she was given a beautiful appearance that allowed her to have extramarital affairs and to make her husband feel jealous and humiliated until they would divorce. Yet, she chose a different path than the one she had planned. She chose forgiveness instead of revenge. She elevated her spirit to a higher level, and did not want to harm anyone. To be loyal to her husband, she sacrificed her own sexual desire, beauty, and youth.

Everyday people tend to believe that they only live one life and become attached to a lot of things in this life. They are especially unwilling to purge their sentimentality. The truth is that romantic love is an element in the human world. When a person's soul departs from this world, he or she will be free from all sentiment. When a person dies, whether or not he has learned to care for and love others in this secular world becomes most critical in determining his fate in a subsquent life. Reincarnation is a theory that has been documented repeatedly by many western studies and books on samsara.

Confucius said, "Do not do unto to others what you do not want done to yourself." [And Jesus proposed the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"-- Editor's note] When a man acts based on his sentiment, shouldn't he ask himself what possible harm his actions may cause to his spouse? He should imagine how the consequences of his actions would feel if his wife did the same to him.

Please treasure each predestined relationship and keep your vows, "We will be together till death do us part."

Reference:
[1] Many Mansions: The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation by Gina Cerminara
[2] For more information on Edgar Cayce, please read "Sleeping Prophet" at
http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2003/1/13/1328.html and http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2003/1/13/1330.html.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/4/27/21376.html