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by Joanna Cherry

 Mankind has always been fascinated with the possibility that we could go backward or forward in time. Many books and movies attest to this, including the recent movies Back to the Future, Timeline, and the Butterfly Effect. We have heard that all time is simultaneous; the past, present and future are all right here, right now. But experiencing this knowledge, as reality, is something else again.
        We know that thought creates, and what we create in the present changes our future. The future cannot be written in stone because it changes as the present changes.
        But what about the past? Isn't it written in stone? We have assumed so. But if all time truly is one, we must be able to create changes in our past, as well as our present and future.
        Over the last year, I have changed my past.
        Somewhere around 500 AD., I was born as a baby girl to poor parents in Seoul, Korea. We'll call her Sachi. Her father sold other people's products on the street, but it was such a hard living that the family, including an older brother, lived in a little hovel with barely enough to eat.
        As in much of Asia today, girls had to have a dowry in order to marry. This family had no dowry for their girl. At least they did not bury her infant body alive, as other families of their acquaintance had done-but they did not know what to do with her.
        Finally a solution came to the two parents, which they kept secret. Not long after Sachi came to puberty at age eleven, her father woke her in the dead of night. He trundled her into a cart, gave directions, and the cart rolled off toward another part of the city.
        Sachi had never seen anything past a few city blocks around her home, and she was fascinated but also afraid. Her father was silent.
        They pulled up finally before a windowless building with a small sign and a single lantern hanging by the door. Sachi's father took her by the hand, opened the door and led her into a small, dimly lit entryway. A dour woman stepped forward, looked Sachi over critically, argued with her father, and finally deposited a few large coins into his hand. He turned and left.
        The dour woman gave Sachi, her heart now pounding in her chest, to the brothel's large bouncer standing nearby. He led her to her room.
        At first she thought her father would come back to get her, that she had done something wrong and was being punished, but surely he would return for her. Day following dreary day, however, she finally realized that she was not going to leave again.
        Sachi lived in the brothel for a miserable six years. The girls were all sad and beaten down, and had not the energy or strength to help each other. When Sachi was seventeen, she caught a flu and died.
        Plumbing the depths of feeling within myself, this old experience began to reveal itself, bit by bit. I was Sachi. The brothel experience had festered for fifteen hundred years and had finally come to the light of consciousness for healing. I went to work to forgive myself, my parents, the brothel keepers; to love and heal the shame, fear, anger and sorrow.
        I had not made much headway when my spirit suggested that I go to Sachi and talk to her, to help her. I was surprised; I had never done this before. I asked my spirit to find a perfect time, to put us in touch, and guide our exchange.
        So shortly after Sachi landed at the brothel and was resting in her room, I began, a voice in her head: "Beloved one, I am yourself from the future. I love you. You are precious and loved by the divine, and part of the divine. You have not done anything wrong. I am here for you, I will stay as long as you wish and will come whenever you call me. I embrace you in love."
        I felt myself, as Sachi, receive great comfort from our spirit as we talked together. I discovered that I did not need to be at all conscious of this; as I stayed with her I went on with my present life, and our spirit did the work. But as I checked in on her, every couple of days, I saw that she was being much uplifted by this strange, totally unexpected event in her life.
        Now it was time to share something spirit had shown me. I said to Sachi, "In the life before this, you were a nun in a foreign religion. Your only contact was other women; you had no intimacy in life, no warmth. You felt cold and lonely. So, for this life you wanted intimacy and love, including sex. Also, as a nun you had taken a vow of poverty, and you believed having money was wrong. So  you chose birth into a poverty-stricken family.
        Your parents felt your need and desire for sex unconsciously, but as they were too poor to give you a dowry, bringing you here was the only thing they could think of. Your father will not come back. But I love you and am with you. Everything is all right."
        In being with Sachi, it eventually came to light that she still clung to her love for her parents, and felt she must honor and obey them by living at the brothel as long as she could. To accept that they had simply closed the door on her both saddened and freed her.
        Over some time, when Sachi had been at the brothel between six months and a year (but I had been working with her for only a few weeks), she became so uplifted by the love of our spirit that her frequency soared above the frequency of the brothel. Then, an amazing thing happened. After she had been at the brothel only two weeks, a spiritual man came who did not frequent brothels, certainly not this low-life one. This man met Sachi, and recognized her as a greatly loved friend from another life. He overpaid to buy her back from the brothel, and took her home. He and his wife were wealthy but childless, and they loved Sachi and raised her. She lived a long and happy life.
        This meant that Sachi had changed her own very recent past! I was amazed--I had never imagined this could happen. This change lifted a weight of six tormented years from my consciousness. I felt this change in my present body.
        I knew however that I had not forgiven my parents for abandoning me, and worked a lot on that. I saw that in Sachi's new life she visited her parents in rich estate, but more to show them up than to love them. Try as I might, I wasn't able to forgive them, especially my father. Something was gnawing at me.
        Finally, finally, months after I began working with it, I was shown something I hadn't been able to face. When the bouncer took Sachi to her room, he ripped her clothes off and proceeded to rape her. He left her torn and bleeding, and crying. Soon another man came to the room, but Sachi was sobbing so brokenly that he went to the front and complained. He was given a different girl, and for the rest of that night Sachi was left alone.
        I saw that the crux of the pain I was holding was this combination of being abandoned by my father and raped, within a single half hour. This bouncer was a singularly cruel man. He was mean to all the girls, and raped whenever he could get away with it. I felt hatred for him. No way was I going to forgive this guy. I worked for two weeks on it, but nothing budged.
        Finally, my spirit stepped in. "Look," it said. "This man was miserable. He had no father, his mother abused him constantly. He was miserable for lifetimes before this, caught in the round of abusing and being abused. And he is still miserable today; he hasn't been able to free himself from this trap."
        With this knowledge, I felt the ice around my heart begin to melt. Finally, a few days later, I was able to completely forgive him. Then, another surprise: spirit said to me, "Now you can change it so the rape never happened." "What?" I replied. "How?"
        It seems that no one had actually forgiven him before. My forgiveness opened a door of new possibility for him. Spirit sent a master to him, about seven years before I ever entered the brothel. This master gave him love, unconditional love, and for the first time in many lives he was able to accept it. It changed his life completely.
        This time, when I came to the brothel, the bouncer was not even present. A sweet girl showed me to my room, sat me down and explained things to me, told me to not be upset, that they would be with me in the morning and that they all supported and helped each other.
        The bouncer, when he appeared, was the kindest, most generous person you could imagine. He loved and protected all the girls, brought in games for us to play, and helped every way he could. The brothel was transformed by his love, and by the girls' love and support for one another.
        This bouncer is today a happy and loving man.
        I was then able to forgive my parents. When I visited them from my new life, I wanted only for them to know that I was well and happy, I forgave them, and they could now forgive themselves.

Can it be proven that I actually changed my past? I saw this Korean life more than twenty years ago, and only recently did I gain the strength to face the overwhelming hurt of it. Now, it is a no-thing. The most telling evidence for me is that whenever I change something big, I feel different--lighter, freer, happier--in my present body, mind and emotions.

In other ways, I was also helped by spirit to change the past. I was a spiritual teacher in many lifetimes, and like many of us was variously betrayed, maimed, burned at the stake, etc. Once even my gathered students were massacred.
        Spirit taught me how to go and warn myself about what would happen if I went to a certain place, and my past self listened and lived to teach another day. My students' lives were saved. The results are that I had much less trauma to heal, and the "perpetrators" were relieved of difficult karma.
        In lives where I was born into poverty, abuse or other difficulty, and got lost in the hardships, I was able to see the reason for each birth: I wanted to be one of the poor so I could help them; I felt guilty about something, like killing a man in a sword fight; and other such causes.
        Spirit directed me to go back to myself between lives, correct my thinking, and be born in a happier way. For instance, one birth into poverty to try and help the poor became a birth into wealth, having great compassion for the poor. I was able not only to give help myself, I also founded a brotherhood which gave enormously to the people of our area. We fed the hungry, set up orphanages, created jobs, and much more.
        I was guided to change two related lives, those of a prostitute and a courtesan, to happier experiences. Also another as a manservant, helping him avoid making a mistake that ruined his life. I've also changed many unhappy relationships with men.
        There are things from the past which cannot be changed. I could not, for instance, change my choice of being born to my Korean parents because I wouldn't or couldn't listen to my advice from the future, as the nun, between lives, or early in the Korean life. If I had been able to change that birth, my parents would either have not had another baby or would have had a different one.
       Someone who has done great evil in a life would probably not be able to make amends enough to have a happy following life. Someone who is not willing to release guilt, forgive themselves and others, or make amends, will not be able to prevent having a difficult next life. But with continuous work in the present, we can come to the point where we can help our past selves do what is happiest, thus changing our present consciousness and experience.
        An interesting part of this process is that the wisdom gained from the original lives is not lost. They remain in memory, and the lessons are kept.

Now--now an even more amazing thing is happening for me. Spirit has told me that since I have changed all these past lives, I was born in the present life as a very different individual: much clearer, happier and more loving. (Two booklets of Ramtha's, A Master's Key for Manipulating Time, and Parallel Lifetimes, have both confirmed and furthered my understanding about this. To purchase one, call 360/458-5201, x 35.)
        From birth, my present life has changed dramatically, and my spirit has shown me exactly how. (I am not to share this here.) My job now is to accept this, to know it, to "dream" only my new reality. When I have reached the needed point of knowing and acceptance, it will become my total experience of life, which will always have been so. It will be others' experience of my life also. I will know that I changed my past, but the present life will literally become a past life. You can do this too, if you are so guided.
        While I am bringing in my new reality, I am guided to lay pretty low as far as outer activities are concerned, especially traveling and teaching. It takes a lot of concentration, a lot of "dreamtime," to bring a new reality through. But as long as I experience my old reality, I honor it. You may be similarly guided. What is good to change of your past?

How to Change Your Past

Do you need to see past lives in order to change your past? How is it done? Here are a few thoughts and suggestions.

        1. If you do not yet have a clear working connection with your spirit or higher self, see about creating that. Ask inwardly for your spirit to come forward and help you do that, or receive help from someone.

        2. Ask your spirit if you are ready to change your past, and if it is a good project for you now.

        3. If you get yes to both, perhaps it is not necessary for you, as it was for me, to actually see past lives. If it does seem helpful, ask to see one life and be told what to do with it. If it doesn't, simply ask your spirit how to proceed.

        4. If you are guided to go back and speak with a past self, always give love first, and identify yourself as that same self from the future, here to help. You may need to be a bit patient, as it will be a new experience for your past self. If a past self cannot hear you, at least not yet, do not try to force a change.

        5. If you are working with a particular life, realize that the more difficult the life, the more likely it is that many changes may take place over time, not just one.

        6. Forget entirely about past lives-many teachers suggest this anyway-and simply create your new reality. The speed of your manifestation will depend upon how clear and ready you have become.

        7. All sincere meditation does gradually clear the past.

Changing the past for the better is an enormous gift to every one who chooses to accept it. Changing the past, we change everything else right up to the present moment, not only for ourselves but for many many others. We literally change the world for the better, a great deal faster than it would have changed otherwise.

If the above processes for changing the past are not best for you, be shown different ones, or rest assured that all is being cleared in its own way.
        Blessings to you upon your path!

Copyright Joanna Cherry, 2007
www.AscensionMastery.com

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