Reincarnation is the belief that the soul incarnates into the earth plane many times, in order to learn all the things it must know to continue on in its development.

Reincarnation cannot be proved. But so goes the basis for all of our spiritual beliefs. The belief in reincarnation can serve as a tool for personal development. It gives us insights on ourselves and teaches us to become more aware of our own responsibilities and actions. When you think about it, it almost seems silly to think that we can learn all we need to learn in just one lifetime.

Reincarnation can help us identify why we are the way we are. You may have wondered why you have a certain fear or habit. Reincarnation can help you find the source and improve upon it if need be. It can help you realize why you have certain talents, or why you like some people instantly, and feel just the opposite with others. It can help you clear obstacles in your life and make your path smoother.

So why don't we remember anything from our past lives? Forgetting gives us the opportunity to begin anew. If we knew all the mistakes we had ever made in all of our past lives, it would most likely hamper our progress in this life. Or if we knew that we were rich in a past incarnation, we may expect things to be that way in this life.

The principle of karma in reincarnation is often an aspect of the belief that many become confused with. Karma, known also as the law of cause and effect, are the conditions that must be met and dealt with because of a past action. Whatever you do comes back to you, whether it is good or bad. It is best not to approach the subject with a fatalist attitude, i.e. "It's my bad karma catching up with me and there's nothing I can do about it." Karma can be met and dealt with. The purpose of karma is not to punish us, but to teach us what we must learn to live in harmony with the universe.

There are many different forms that karma can take. Let me give you some examples:

In a past life, you constantly physically abused another person. In this life, you are constantly physically abused by someone else.

This is probably the form most of us think about when we think of karma. There are other kinds as well. For example:

In a past life, you killed someone by suffocating them to death. In this life, you may have severe asthma or breathing problems.

This one seems a little more indirect than the previous one. However, this doesn't mean that everyone you meet that has asthma has killed someone in a past life. Something that applies to one person doesn't necessarily apply to another. There's also another example of karma:

If you always turned a deaf ear on someone in a past life, you may be born with hearing problems.

There are probably many other forms as well.

In dealing with karma, people often think only of bad karma. Whenever something bad happens, some people blame it on bad karma. Then whenever something good happens, we tend to think it is what we deserve or it is the way things should be. You are not "unlucky" if something goes wrong, or "lucky" if something goes right. Be aware that you choose your own path, along with the things that come with it. These are opportunities to grow and learn.

So though through reincarnation we must all face up to our past actions, we still have a choice in how we face up to those actions. We can allow ourselves to become a victim, or we can make ourselves stronger. Either way, we're going to have to face up to the situations that we create.