I watched a show called "believer" on CNN, this episode regarded the aghori sadhus, the host of this show goes into these spiritual situations with his head bowed in reverence and his lips puckered to the ass of these spiritual practitioners...
In the aghori episode he wants to meet a feral aghori baba. "Aghori" means "fearless", these guys are trying to try to make you run for your life and shock you, They don't believe in pure and impure and will cover themselves with the ashes of the dead, they eat corpses, they eat rotting animal meat, and will only eat from bowls made from skulls, they wear black, and often will wear pieces of corpses or dead animals.
So this guy finds the hindu version of gg allin and asks him to be his guru, the saddhu rubs ashes of the dead on the host, and begins eating the ashes of dead bodies, he places a crown of corpse jaws on the host, and gets him to eat a piece of a human brain, he is constantly screaming at this guy, and eventually begins eating his own excrement and throwing it at the host, sending him and the camera crew running in fear for their lives...This poor guy thought he was going to be given wisdom from an enlightened holy man, and got excrement thrown in his face, it was pretty funny. Any way, this does relate to past lives, here's how:
In the caste system which all this is going on the lowest outcastes are called "dalit" or "untouchables", as they must not be interacted with or touched by the other castes, they are not allowed in temples, they can't touch community food and water, and are not allowed in schools, and they are looked down on and treated poorly in most cases. they are born into this situation.
if your parents are "doms", which are "ghat workers" who handle the dead, you are going to also be born into doing this work, you are not taught to read, and nobody will touch or talk to you, so this really is all they can do.
It's believed that if you did terrible things in a past life you will be reincarnated as an outcaste, and as an outecaste you continually accumulate bad karma, so in a sense you will forever be reborn as an outcaste...now, if this is the fate of serial killers, and child molesters and people of this nature souls, than it even fits in with the Christian notion of eternal hell, and the ghats of Varanasi, fires constantly burning, pieces of half cremated corpses floating through the water, being condemned to be working daily in close contact with these bodies, ignored by the rest of society, could surly seem like a hell, and since they are constantly accumulating bad karma, the are doomed to be reincarnated in negative spaces such as this forever. If these are the souls of truly terrible people than it would almost seem fitting, however, in reality these people had done nothing, they were simply born, and they are condemned to live and work in the worst positions imaginable.
...This is a situation where beliefs can actually be harming others lives, and on what grounds? There's no real evidence for believing these things, at least not with any type of certianty.
Despite the criticism for myself over-quoting terence McKenna, the excerpt below is a situation where I truly agree with the concept being articulated .
I just don’t resonate with believers in anything. I get insulting to Buddhists for God’s sake. It’s just something about their smugness and their whole bit, I just want to squash it. So you can imagine how I behave in the presence of scientologists and the rest of it. Belief is again, it’s a form of infantilism. There are no grounds for believing anything. -terence McKenna
I feel if the host of that CNN program would confront these same situations first off objectively, and secondly demanding to be convinced through skepticism and test, he would have much better luck at finding true spirituality, the true mystery can be challenged, you can throw everything you have at it and it won't brake, I would ask these people to at least try to show me something convincing enough for me to take them seriously.
I'm sure consciousness probably cycles through many physical forms, through many times and locations, however, at death you must pass through a barrier which very few things can cross. Apparently your consciousness and your karma are the only things that cross the barrier of death, I'm sure information such as memories could cross, but those memories were stored in a physical brain, and were shed when you left your physical body, that sort of thing stays with the corpse...
you know that "blank slate" stage of a high dose DMT flash? It's consciousness which is not connected to your physical body, or your culture, or your memories, or your language, or your planet, your entire ontology has been erased. Being a new born child must be like this, only new borns still have connection and awareness of a physical form, other than that it's probably pretty close. Any way, it's this pure consciousness along with the karma which it had accumulated which travels through the "between" (the bardo) onto another incarnation, things like your identity, your name, your memories, and things of this nature remain with the corpse.
Honestly, it's impossible for anybody to know these things for sure, what happens after death? Do we reincarnate? spiritually should it not be your personal duty to form the best idea possible regarding these issues?
Ideas are constantly changing, when new evidence is presented or when new experiences occur your ideas should change and evolve. When you decide to believe something you are giving up this freedom of changing and evolving the notion with time and as you yourself personally grow and change, and as more evidence is presented. Something you believe is something you accept as ultimate indisputable fact, some people even feel what they believe is so accurate that they must force others to believe the same, they will fight for these beliefs and they will die for them, but God forbid they ever change them or challenge and question them...
I'm straying off topic, so I Will stop.
-eg