Can the souls between lives learn from guides and choose their next lives – what is the Vedic perspective?

Question:
Many people who have studied near-death experiences (NDEs), out-of-body experiences (OBEs), and even inter-life experiences report that the soul chooses its next destination. This seems evolutionarily positive in the sense that the soul can learn from its past life experiences. Are there any scriptural references supporting this idea? Also, it is often said that there are higher beings—some masters—who guide the soul from one life to another and offer lessons, which the soul may choose to learn or ignore.

This understanding can inspire people to take responsibility for their actions, not just in this life but beyond. Is there any scriptural basis for such ideas?

Answer:
I’d like to make three main points:

1. The post-mortem domain is described vaguely and variably in scriptures.
2. The soul may retain some level of choice and control after death, just as it has in life.
3. Such experiences can be used selectively and responsibly to inspire spiritual growth, provided they align with the principle of encouraging self-understanding and personal responsibility.

1. Scriptural focus on responsibility, not mechanics

In general, Vedic scriptures focus less on the mechanics of the transition between lives and more on the consequences of actions (karma) and the importance of present responsibility. Whether it’s the Dharma-centered worldview (focusing on Dharma, Artha, and Kama for better future births) or the Moksha-centered worldview (focusing on liberation), the emphasis is on the now—how our current choices shape our future.

The precise process by which a soul moves from one body to another is influenced by karma and divine supervision and can vary widely based on individual circumstances. For example, scriptures refer to disembodied beings like bhūtas and piśācas, who exist in intermediate states due to past karma. These states are generally depicted as undesirable—not so much learning-focused, but suffering-laden.

2. Examples of divine intervention

There are scriptural instances of souls desiring or planning a future birth, but usually with the help of higher beings:

• Amba, wronged by Bhishma, took birth as Shikhandi to become the cause of his death. This happened through penance and divine intervention.
• In the Mahabharata, rakshasas consciously chose to be born on Earth to support the spread of adharma.
• The devatas take birth to assist in divine pastimes like Krishna-lila and Rama-lila.
• Ganga discusses the future births of the Vasus; King Nriga discusses his next life with Yamaraja.

In all these cases, there is divine oversight. Human choice may be a factor, but it is not the sole factor.

3. Caution about total control

We never have full control in this life, and it is unlikely we have complete choice in the afterlife either. Karma always plays a role, and our level of control varies accordingly. Even among ghosts or disembodied entities, power and influence vary based on karma and desires, especially desires for vengeance or attachment.

4. Validating subjective experiences cautiously

Even if some people report having made choices in the inter-life state, their experience of reality need not reflect the full reality. Just like in this life, we often overestimate our control and credit ourselves for things that had many contributing factors.

This doesn’t mean such experiences are invalid or useless. They can still be used, following the principle of Yukta Vairagya (intelligent engagement), to inspire personal responsibility and spiritual growth.

5. Limitations of learning from trauma

Seeking meaning and learning from life events, especially painful or traumatic ones, is valuable. But some wounds are too raw, and some events too close, for useful reflection in the moment. Excessively replaying traumatic experiences in the name of “learning” can be unproductive or even harmful.

We need to balance the search for meaning with epistemic humility—the understanding that we may not grasp the full picture right now, and that some things may make sense only in hindsight or perhaps not even in this life.

6. Avoiding extremes in interpretation

There are two extremes to avoid:

• Over-glorifying the past or the inter-life experience as perfectly positive and full of growth.
• Over-dismissing these experiences as entirely illusory or irrelevant.

Like life itself, the post-mortem realm may include both pain and purpose. Our attachments can cause suffering even in the next life. So, we shouldn’t gloss over pain in a superficial bid for positivity.

Real spiritual growth often involves finding purpose in spite of pain—and sometimes because of pain.

Conclusion:
The inter-life domain can vary greatly based on karma, just as life circumstances differ here. The soul likely retains some agency, and divine beings may provide guidance, but total control or choice is unlikely. While some inter-life or near-death experiences might reflect subjective truths rather than absolute ones, they can still inspire people toward personal responsibility and spiritual growth.

Thus, instead of trying to categorically affirm or reject such experiences, we can non-committally acknowledge them and focus on the universal principles of wise living, which are very much in line with scriptural wisdom.

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Many people who have studied near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and even experiences of people between lives, suggest that a soul chooses its destination in the next life. This seems evolutionarily positive in the sense that the soul can learn from its experiences in the previous life. Are there scriptural references for anything like this? Also, when we talk about that there are higher beings, there are some masters who guide the soul from one life to another and provide the soul lessons which the soul can either choose to learn or not learn.

So this understanding can inspire people to take responsibility for their choices and that responsibility extends beyond this life also. Is there any scriptural basis for such experiences? For this answer, I would make three main points. First is that, in general, the description of the post-mortem domain, especially between lives, is relatively vague and is variable.

Second is that, just as a soul has some level of control and some level of choice while alive, the soul may retain similarly some level of control and choice in the post-mortem domain. And third is that, such experiences can be used selectively and carefully in the principle of whatever helps people to elevate their self-understanding and take responsibility for themselves and elevate their self-understanding. So first point is that, in general, the Vedic scriptures focus on either, focus on the consequences of our actions and how we need to take responsibility now for our actions.

Either in terms of the dharma-centered worldview which encourages dharma, artha and kama that we can get a better material condition in our next life or in terms of the moksha-centered worldview where we can progress toward liberation from all of material existence itself. Either way, the principle of responsibility is important and overall, how our actions in this life shape our destination thereafter, that is the primary focus. The transition of exactly how one comes into this world or one goes from this world to another, there could be variable mechanisms for that.

In one sense, it depends on one's own karma and the specifics of karma can vary from person to person. So, that there are disembodied beings like ghosts and a variety of beings actually. There are bhutas and pisachas and others, that is also implicit and they all get their kind of bodies based on the kind of karma they have done in the past.

So, there could be a variety of disembodied beings also and those disembodied beings may go through their own evolutionary process. Generally, the ghostly condition is depicted in a negative sense as a state of suffering, not so much a state of learning. Now, of course, we can say that during near-death experiences, it's not exactly a disembodied thing, which is true.

Having said that, we ourselves need to be careful of what the implications of our actions may be. That is a universal principle that is taught. Now, there are some cases where, for example, Amba, when she felt that she had been wronged because of Bhishma, who had abducted her and refused to marry her, she decided to return and become the cause of his death.

So, she did come back as Chikhandi. Now, that was specifically because she did austerities and she sought conscious power from higher beings to do it. So, in general, wherever there seems to be some facility to make a choice, it is based on the intervention of some higher beings.

So, the Rakshasas are described in the Mahabharata that they consciously make a plan to impregnate human and earthly wombs so that they can take over the earth as a part of their plan to increase the influence of Kali here. Then, similarly, sometimes the Devatas may plan to take birth on earth as when they are assisting in Krishna Leela or Ram Leela or for that matter, Ganga who negotiates with the Vasus about their upcoming life on the earth or for that matter, we also have Nruga who discusses with Yamraj about his future life. But in all these examples we see, it is not that the human is making an independent choice.

Rather, it is more like the human may be a human's choice is a factor in the decision making process. But it is definitely not the sole factor. So, in general, that the living being moves under Daiva Netra, under the vision of divine supervision and the living being takes birth.

So, there is definitely some higher sanctioning agents involved. Now, do they give some wisdom, some life review and life lessons? Yes, they definitely do that. And they can definitely do that and they may sometimes do it.

So, that possibility is fine. But just as the soul never has complete choice and complete control even in this life before birth, so it is unlikely that the soul will have complete choice and complete control in the post-mortem domain. We always remain finite beings and we have some level of control based on our karma, that's our Kshetra.

And even among ghosts, say, which are disembodied beings, not all ghosts are equally powerful. So, their karma and their karma, their desire, they are driven by a desire for vengeance against someone who had killed them. And the kind of karma that may have, that may determine how much power they have particularly.

So, some domain of control and choice may be there in the disembodied domain also or in the inter-life domain. But to say that there is complete control and complete choice, that is something which would, in my understanding, be an unreasonable inference to make. Now, just as in this life, so what about the experiences of people who seem to have made some choices? Well, even if we agree tentatively that their experiences, that they actually experienced some things like that, it could very well be their experience of reality.

It need not be the full reality. Just like even in this life, we often think that we have more control than what we have. When we succeed in something difficult, we often give ourselves credit for that or claim credit for that.

And we may overlook the many other factors that also came together for that success to manifest. So, now as far as specifics of experiences and how to see them, we could use the principle of Yukta Vairagya even in the intellectual domain of our intellectual ideas, certain intellectual conceptions which are arrived at from certain personal experiences. So, if a person can be encouraged to take responsibility for one's choices, that is positive.

However, if a person starts thinking that they should be able to make sense of everything that happens in their life, well, that may not happen. Life can be chaotic and complicated and sometimes can be painful and even seem pointlessly painful. Now we can and we should try to learn lessons from it.

But sometimes the wounds are too raw and sometimes we are too close to the experiences. Sometimes trying to learn from some personal traumatic experiences, that may just cause an excessive replay of those experiences without any learning. So, while it's important to take responsibility for one's actions and to seek some kind of meaning in whatever is happening and some learning, it's also important to acknowledge some epistemic humility.

Epistemic refers to epistemology, how we know our knowing faculty, knowing capacity. So, epistemic humility means that our capacity to know is also limited. And there are some times when some situations may just not make sense to us and we may need to let go of those situations and move on and maybe in future we'll come to know what those experiences were meant to teach us.

And we also need to avoid, so one extreme could be to avoid getting obsessed with the past to try to learn from it. Second could be that we avoid getting obsessed with the vision that the cosmos is, that the post-mortem domain is eminently positive and pleasant. We all have our attachments and those attachments can cause, when they are lost, they will cause pain to us.

So, just as there is a tendency for many people to, or at least in the mainstream media, to gloss over the pains and problems of life in the name of positivity and purposefulness, that tendency might come in our approach to the post-mortem domain also. And that needs to be avoided. This doesn't mean we wallow in negativity and misery, but we acknowledge it.

And our sense of positivity and purpose need to be grounded not in a denial of pain and even pointless seeming pain, but in spite of those. Sometimes it can be because of those, sometimes it can be in spite of those. Sometimes our pain increases our sense of purpose, sometimes in spite of the pain we persist in our purpose.

So, focusing on the ultimate purpose of spiritual evolution, growing in our own inner understanding and manifesting of our abilities and interests and the potentials of our soul, that is what is to be emphasized. And if certain post-mortem experiences, near-death experiences can inspire that inner spiritual awakening and purposefulness, then they can be accepted as positive. So, I would say that we are little more qualified in that.

We don't have to make it our mission to disprove those experiences and we don't have to very categorically affirm those experiences also. We can in a sense non-committally acknowledge those experiences and focus on the principles for living that can help people grow So, irrespective of whether those experiences are grounded in actual reality. So, to summarize, what happens in the post-mortem domain can vary because depending on karma, just as people in this life have very different conditions, they may beyond this life or between this and next life may also have very different conditions.

Just as the soul has some capacity for choice and control in this life, similarly a soul can have that in between lives also and just as the soul can get guidance in this life, the soul may get guidance in between lives also. But it's never complete control or complete choice, although it may subjectively seem to be so for some people. And we can focus more on the principles of living that will empower people and those principles are more or less in harmony with scriptural teachings and non-committally acknowledge any experiences that inspire people to apply those principles.