Many Lives Many Times English Version Pdf
Lauren Redder
This book takes the reader through intriguing stories, from lifetimes in ancient Atlantis and Egypt to the modern United States. This book is fun to read while provides deep exploration of these civilizations via their key cultural beliefs. Most importantly, the book provides not-too-subtle hints about shortcomings of our current society as well as clear guidance for its improvement via our individual and collective actions!
One of the best assets this book has to offer is a four-letter word: HOPE. As individuals, when we pit ourselves against huge problems such as the pandemic or ever-increasing natural catastrophes, we feel like David fighting Goliath. After all, what can one person do in the face of a category four hurricane? Not much. But what if the following two factors were true?
Through the stories of the narrator, Thomas, who can remember his past lives, the book explores the idea that the consciousness is permanent and lasting, beyond the death of the physical body. In addition, the "seeds of goodness" (or good acts) performed in one life are stored and kept as the consciousness travels from lifetime to lifetime, and "sprout" when the conditions are "ripe". If these two factors are true, they give us access to much more actively positive power to affect the world than if we did not reincarnate complete with the seeds of our past lives. Of course, the same principles are true of negative acts, so we may have to "pay" for our actions that negatively affected others in our past lives.
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I never had a chance to meet Nguyen Phong, the author, face to face. Previously I knew him as a scientist, and the person who translated and adapted several spiritual books that many generations of Vietnamese readers, including myself, have cherished ever since.
I was fortunate to have Nguyen Phong share many stories with me over the years. One late night in 2016, during a conversation from dusk till dawn, I asked him about causality and samsara. He recounted an affinity that had happened many years before, about a businessman in New York called Thomas, who could recall his past lives. I was amazed and had a hunch that this story related to my interests and probably those of many other people. I was hoping that Nguyen Phong would adapt those stories into a novel. He was silent without reply, and never mentioned the subject again in our subsequent conversations. Without hearing from him for two years, I suddenly received an email with the very first chapters of the novel that he named Many Lives Many Times. After reading it, I thought that there could not have been a more fitting title. I knew that he had flown to New York to talk to Thomas over the previous years in order to write the novel. Before that, Nguyen Phong had contacted Thomas to ask for his permission to recount the stories of his past life that he had shared with him. At first, he was unsure if Thomas would accept, as the stories were sensitive and personal, but unexpectedly, Thomas agreed.
What the future of each person, each organization, each country, and the whole planet will be in the coming period depends on the attitude, recognition, and awakening of each individual, each organization, and each country. If we want to change, we need to start with awareness, change our minds, spread love, and share our understanding with others.
On March 31st 2008, I had the honor of facilitating a dialogue between the astronaut Edgar Mitchell, one of the six-man Apollo 14 team that landed on the moon, and the Most Venerable Sheng Yen, one of the most prominent modern Buddhist masters in the world at the auditorium of the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan (see picture below).
This book takes the reader through intriguing stories, from lifetimes in ancient Atlantis and Egypt to the modern United States. This book is fun to read while provides deep exploration of these civilizations via their key cultural beliefs. Most importantly, the book provides not-to-subtle hints about shortcomings of our current society as well as clear guidance for its improvement via our individual and collective actions!
On the side of apathy, the pandemic shutdown kept many people at home for well over a year. This led to an ever-greater dependence on digital devices. Children not only had to attend school online, but being kept at home gave them even more time for gaming, either alone or against other players all around the globe (adults did a lot of gaming, too). Adults also spent time working at home on computers. Checking the news for the latest information on COVID-19 became almost a reflexive action. In fact, checking the news, getting on social media, and trying to separate truth from conspiracy theories became the ways in which we connected with each other, since we could no longer trade gossip around the water cooler or visit each other in person. In other words, the limitations imposed by COVID-19 made us more reliant on digital devices than ever before. Zoom burnout became a reality. Burying ourselves in gaming, participating in remote watch parties and the like all contributed to our apathy as members of society. We became more distant and less social in so many ways, despite our increasing reliance on social media.
So what can we do? The problems seem so large and each of us seems so small. No one person can solve any of these problems, and yet our attempts to build grassroots movements or shake up those at the top of governmental power only makes us feel helpless and hopeless. It seems like our only option is to stop caring, grab as much of anything as we can (as we did with toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic!), and snipe at each other on social media.
One of the best assets this book has to offer is a four-letter word: HOPE. At the very moment in history, when many people feel tiny, powerless, and hopeless in the face of planetary problems, Many Lives Many Times provides a whole new way to think about how each of us can move mountains. The similarities to the butterfly effect, attributed to Edward Lorenz, are striking. The butterfly effect states, A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe (Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman). In other words, a small act can, under the right circumstances, produce a very large effect. Many Lives Many Times explores what those right circumstances might be.
As individuals, when we pit ourselves against huge problems such as the pandemic or ever-increasing natural catastrophes, we feel like David fighting Goliath. After all, what can one person do in the face of a category four hurricane? Not much. But what if the following two factors were true?
Through the stories of the narrator Thomas, the character in Many Lives Many Times who can remember his past lives, the book explores the idea that the consciousness is permanent and lasting, beyond the death of the physical body. In addition, the seeds of goodness (or good acts) performed in one life are stored and kept as the consciousness travels from lifetime to lifetime, and sprout when the conditions are ripe. If these two factors are true, they give us access to much more actively positive power to affect the world than if we did not reincarnate complete with the seeds of our past lives.
Of course, the same principles are true of negative acts, so we may have to pay for our actions that negatively affected others in our past lives. While that does not sound appealing, the flip side of the coin is that this can act as a deterrent against negative acts in this lifetime (such as the violence during and after the pandemic). If each person has the powerful ability to flap their wings like that butterfly in the Amazon, what possible amazing outcomes might occur if even a few people decided to exercise that right? What might happen if one person planted a seed of goodness by paying it forward to another person, and then that recipient paid it forward to yet another person? What might happen if one person chose to feel less negative in a moment of crisis, and became a powerful example for his or her neighbor, friend, colleague, or loved one?
I deeply believe that this book can be useful for almost every single person on planet earth today, whether or not the person believes in the concepts of reincarnation and causality. Why? Because this book offers the reader a opportunity to re-frame the way that he or she looks at our society today, and how the future of our collective society could be shaped by the actions we take and the beliefs we hold in the present!
* Raymond Yeh taught at several universities for 20 years. He served as the chairman of Computer science department at both the University of Texas at Austin and University of Maryland at College Park. He served as the Control Data Corporation Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota. He was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. After leaving academia, he co-founded two companies as well as two professional organizations to promote Transdisciplinary education & research.
In 2008, I had an opportunity to attend a scientific seminar in Taipei. On that occasion, I contacted a close friend, Professor Raymond Yeh, in order to pay him a visit. Professor Yeh is the former Head of the Computer Science Department at the University of Texas and the University of Maryland. He is a scientist and the author of several textbooks and a whole range of research materials taught at universities across America. He has trained many generations of renowned scientists and professors. Despite retiring, he is still contributing to the field of science and has a significant influence all over the world. Professor Yeh merrily invited me to come over to his house for dinner. Surprisingly, the astronaut Edgar Mitchell* was also present at the meal, along with one of his friends named Thomas K.
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