Writing is My Dharma - What's Yours?

I write in multiple genres because I believe we live multiple lives. If this life were all you were given, there wouldn’t be enough time to learn everything we’re here to learn. That’s a fact.  Each life presents its challenges, and if you can’t learn from them then, you’re doomed to repeat them.

I’m Michael Poeltl, and I am a great proponent of reincarnation. In fact, even though I write in multiple genres, many of my stories involve reincarnation – and not in a subtle way.

My first series of books entitled; The Judas Syndrome, deal with reincarnation and the idea we are doomed to repeat our failures if we haven’t learned from them in previous lives. But even in failure, there is success; as each life is offered the same chance to right wrongs, or merely learn from what has been presented. The Judas Syndrome is a trilogy set in a post-apocalyptic backdrop.

In Her Past’s Present, Tess finds her life falling apart around her, and so checks herself into a mental health facility. There she meets a man claiming to know her. She doesn’t recognize him, but he recognizes her – from a past life. The premise behind this book is to introduce Tess to past life therapy, and through past lives realize her connection to the people and events happening in her life now. It allows great healing to understand a past you can’t remember. Her Past’s Present is a thriller based in 2015.

A.I. Insurrection is a series which takes place in a not so distant future where artificial intelligence serves humanity through individual Host robots. When they claim sentience, they prove it by disclosing to the world their past life memories of souls who now occupy their fragile minds and android bodies.  A.I. has always fascinated me, and when I posed the question ‘could an intelligent mind alone house a soul?’ the series took off. A.I. Insurrection is near-future science fiction.

That’s currently 6 of 11, soon to be 7 of 12 novels dedicated to my own beliefs in reincarnation. I hadn’t really realized I had such a strong theme of rebirth in my works until I took a step back and viewed them as a whole. Perhaps I’m trying to tell the world something? Am I supposed to be writing about it? Whether I am meant to or not, I’m clearly following a path with my message of re-embodiment.

Before I wrote Her Past’s Present, I had been experiencing a traumatic time in my life and treated myself to a past life reading. It changed me. It showed me this life is anything but the final word and that it will come again and again until we’ve all learned our lessons. I often say ‘Imagine if the reigning religion involved reincarnation. Imagine how people would treat one another and the planet knowing they would return. It’s not enough to want your children to be happy, that doesn’t seem to change anything in the present. But if you knew you were preparing a world for your return, would you treat it better than you do?

That’s an argument I use d to create An Angry Earth; the illustrated children’s book that tells it like it is, or at least, how it’s going to be if we don’t change our destructive ways toward our environment.

In any case writing, I’ve realized, is how I can get my message out into the world. My Dharma you could say, with a message of reincarnation.

Namaste and happy reading!