Ok,  

So this thread is dedicated to discerning past lives vs. a connection to something bigger.  With remote viewing, sometimes the viewer looks out of someone else's eyes, so to speak, although they are not that person.  At times, in deep meditation we can connect with everything.  All that is, and that should include different story lines, lives lived and lives yet to be.

I'd like to hear from those convinced that they know their past lives.  How do you know it is you - or do you just know?  If our individuality is what is called Maya or illusion in the far east, then isn't the key understanding that we are all one?  Could it be that for the development of your own soul/progress you are seeing a different life so intimately that you claim it truly was you back then?  Not that it would matter as far as the lesson you currently learn from it.

I think this is a very important distinction.  I have heard it said on this board that certain mystics, Sweedenberg, etc. did not believe in reincarnation, but more a close association of another spirit with one's own.  

So what about it?  For those of you put in touch with past lives - let us know.

Thanks,

Matthew  

Hi Mathew, thanks for your invitation. what about yourself? I would be interested if you've seen anything you can report as seems to fit another life of your own.
I'm more interested these days in the method of delivery of scenes from another life. I once saw flashing scenes of an american indian life flash by, this in the inbetween state of consciousness, probably focus 10, mind awake, body asleep.
I at once grew nostalgic, sensing I still wanted that life back. must of been ended in my prime. there was a lot of drama because the events were speeded up in the viewing. I suppose what I got out of it was the larger picture...a sense of being at one with all of humanity, which I also started to get from doing retrievals, the same feeling, that I and the person I retrieved were as one, so couldn't really be doing the judgment thing, now could I? :D  along with these kinds of glimpses into our greater selves a sense of calm settles in to realize how much we need each other. it's very hard to relate to a palm tree on a deserted island. :D

I don't consider the term"past" anymore so of course I am a freak ::) as these lives are still existent and can be stepped back into as in a sense of all-time. simultaneous time period movies being run. all lives being projected on the screen by spirit.
the lives can be seen as personalities, albeit we have our favorites to embrace, in the end, only the now moment matters.
I read Elias, channeled by Mary Ennis, and he offers he was Oscar Wilde which I found interesting of course. what I got out these readings is a further definition of the disc or group soul complex idea. he says these are essences...(sorta makes me think of essence as humanity being a whiff of perfume :D) although I do see waves of essence projected into the earth plane.
essence, he says, projects itself into as many as 1200 lives simultaneously (more fodder for our oneness)
all of these others are you, yet the idea for each is to live as if you were individual and separate from your other selves, so to gather one distinct lifetime focused on a particular experience with a particular intention. then gradually get sucked back into your essence group or disc as a wave would return naturally into the ocean. from what I gather, the successful life would be the one in which you had taken the greatest risks, to express your individuality, in line with being a harmless and service oriented individual.
yet it could be argued all lives are successful in the end when considering there is no time...and all is happening at once. go figure. :P  according to Elias, we are not playful enough, and we are too self discounting to block our avenues. to me, we just need to get balanced in all things because it's not about me or you, but about us and what we can do together, not do to each other but what we can create together. but at the same time, it does appear very important to self express in honesty. one thing I learned on an indivividual level this life, is to tell others I love them frequently. tell your wife or husband you love them, because the next day, they may be gone, and you beat yourself up because you forgot to say goodbye, I love you!
well, it's interesting. love, alysia

The fact that Sweedenborg doesn't  believe in reincarnation, but does believe in things such as two negative guides being assigned to each soul, says something about him.

Personally, I don't have any verifiable experience with past lives, but the sources of information I believe to be most credible, state that reincarnation does exist.

Plus the principle of reincarnation makes sense, because it provides a way for souls to evolve.

Also, I'm able to understand how it's possible.

Some people contend that it doesn't exist, because all of time happens instantaneously. This viewpoint mixes up levels of reality. Consider the following:

You live in San Francisco, and you want to send a bottle of magic potion to a friend who lives in Japan. Time isn't important, so you take a patient approach. You wrap the bottle carefully in a box, and on Monday drive it to your local Federal Express office. On Tuesday Federal Express loads it on a truck, and drives it to the airport. On Wednesday, the package gets loaded on an airplane, and is flown to Japan. On Thursday, Federal Express picks it up from the airport, loads it on a large truck, and then delivers it to a Federal Express wharehouse.  On Friday, the package is loaded onto a small delivery truck, and then is delivered to your friend.

Each day of the delivery process represents an incarnation, because each time the bottle of magic potion was contained within a different vehicle.  A person who advocates the instanteneous incarnation argument might contend that different bottles of magic potion existed during the different incarnations. It is only because of their connection that they seem like the same bottle. But is this true? Or was the same bottle of potion passed along from delivery vehicle to dellivery vehicle?

Or another way to look at this, isn't it possible that an individual parcel of consciousness has the ability to focus its attention on different realms of existence, different locations in space, and different periods of time, while always remaining the same consciousness it is? Perhaps it is only that which is perceived, including misidentifications, that change.

perceptions do change. One thing is the mind is like a computer program of belief system software. I suppose the hard drive then could be seen as the soul which projects the probe here.

but the software is interchangable, always there is new software available..frankly, my daughter tells me, who btw is working in the computer internet business, she tells me not to load new software, even if it's free, then she comes to my house and complains I am behind the times! ::) and starts loading stuff on me. she likes to tell me she was my mother before this life :D

I don't understand the bottle idea analogy too well to comment on, but I can see the soul as a formless energy field of awareness with individual characteristics such as certain patterns of behavior, and this thing called "I Am that I Am."  the patterns of behavior I think can change by living a life. the patterns appear myriad or diverse as Dave says. Diversity is needed, so reincarnation seems to lend credence to diversity and the advancement of individuality within diversity exploration.
I do see the bottle as a container and the container from life to life need not be the same container, but I like the idea of magic potion in the container! as living can seem magical at times..

cheers, alysia

Perhaps I should put it this way.

The consciousness that each individual is, has the freedom to experience different realms of existence, including different bodily incarnations.  Some people try to dispute this by saying that since all of time happens instantaneously, there are different parcels of consciousness in each moment of time. Right now I feel like I'm experiencing my existence through the same consciousness through which I experienced it 5 minutes ago. It would be a mistake to contend that a different parcel of consciousness existed 5 minutes ago, simply because the instantaneous nature of time requires that independent parcels of consciousness exist at each moment.





wrote on Oct 11^th, 2005 at 9:52am:

perceptions do change. One thing is the mind is like a computer program of belief system software. I suppose the hard drive then could be seen as the soul which projects the probe here. but the software is interchangable, always there is new software available..frankly, my daughter tells me, who btw is working in the computer internet business, she tells me not to load new software, even if it's free, then she comes to my house and complains I am behind the times! ::) and starts loading stuff on me. she likes to tell me she was my mother before this life :D I don't understand the bottle idea analogy too well to comment on, but I can see the soul as a formless energy field of awareness with individual characteristics such as certain patterns of behavior, and this thing called "I Am that I Am."  the patterns of behavior I think can change by living a life. the patterns appear myriad or diverse as Dave says. Diversity is needed, so reincarnation seems to lend credence to diversity and the advancement of individuality within diversity exploration. I do see the bottle as a container and the container from life to life need not be the same container, but I like the idea of magic potion in the container! as living can seem magical at times.. cheers, alysia

Hi Doc-
One of the things Ilike to do when I have a spiritually well developed , but confused analysand, is to send them into a prior existence (it may not be past-present-future in Spirit, but here on Earth, it is in historically past sequence) and through the moment of death into the Light. To the degree that people are able to shift from the selfish "I-Me-My-Mine" perspective to the "Everything is One" altruistic perspective, they advance from lower astral to upper astral, and from generic astral toward the One at the center. The result is an experientially direct awareness of all the diversity merging into a single central definition from which the Cosmos emerges as a single, coherent unity. (This is essentially similar to sarvastarka samadhi.)

As far as I can tell, the only reason that we don't keep this in mind all the time is that we persist in a belief in individuality as somehow exclusive, rather than allowing ourselves to be truly cosmic, transcendental beings. On the other hand, everyday life is remarkably persuasive. I just got over some kind of viral pneumonia, and the phase in which the body was gasping and convulsing due to lack of air did tend to overpower my selse of self as a spiritual entity for whom the body was merely a local convenience. I recall a deeply philosophical stanza to this effect -

There was a faith healer named Beal,
Who said, "Although pain is not real,
  When I sit on a pin
  And the point punctures in
I dislike what I fancy I feel."

dave

thats funny poem Dave ;D  nothing like pain to awaken one to the "now" moment.

doc, I get it. can only relate my telling my own subjective experiences along this line to explain my belief, so like to share. might be futile ;D to increase understanding..still, it aint over till the fat lady sings...lol.....ahem. In peeks at a past life, just one so far, I was doing a dirty deed... :P  but I thought I was right. don't we all?  It was I because it felt like me, but it was a self that was a little "less" evolved than the self I know myself to be today. for one thing this other self was too impulsive and reactive. I just had to forgive her, as she was trying to help someone else by what she did...also the glimpse would support the thesis of reincarnation being true.

but you are saying the someone has told you each life is a new consciousness...I say it is a mix of new and old; best way I know how to put it. For if the memory is wiped out upon incarnation, then all things do indeed become as new experience...and new consciousness is generated as well with new experiences.

getting back previous memories (look at our language, we do not have a language for concepts of All-Time)
but I must use the word previous to communicate ideas. If we have a need to understand a problem we currently have, sometimes a previous life will be shown. this particular life glimpse I was shown so I could bring closure to a certain relationship. once it was accomplished, with the glimpse as an aid, the past life , and the relationship in question was no longer important to reflect on. Yup....it was me all right. it totally reflected all the current dynamics of the relationship. sure glad I don't have to repeat that pattern. I think we are always renewing ourselves, each new day by what we choose to dwell on. even Jesus said you must be reborn.

love, alysia

Hi Matthew and all,
 I had some (let's say a dozen, two of it detailed and very emotional) experiences I labeled "past lifes". Because I saw a person and I immediately said to myself "that's me!". "Past" because there were indicators, like architecture, clothing etc. The first time I watched that kind of movie I tried to get into the body of the "me" person (I mostly viewed it from outside) but a guide said, "No! Don't do it! This will not work!" or sth similar. In most of this stories I noticed patterns of behaviour I still have now.
 I don't know if it were real past lifes (incarnations) of "me" or my higher self. It could be I just was shown what I had to pay attention of in my life now, embedded in a story with a figure to identificate with. As I said above, two of this "stories" came along with deep feelings and an absolute unmistakenable severity.
Impressions of connections with an universal mind or mankind I did not have during this experiences. In contrary, so to say, it was very personal (of course, that's not necessarily a contrarity).
 In a more theoretical way I had a conversation with guides and they said it's hard to understand, reincarnation, in C1; the closest to match it would be to assume that both theories are true: 1. The classic reincarnation theory (reborn and evolving by being presented unsolved issues in linear time) 2. The incarnation of parts bound together becoming a person; no linear time, simultaneous incarnations possible, the separation of parts after or even during incarnation possible.
Bye, Spooky

Hi all,

Some neat stuff to ponder here on this thread.  All I can offer is my own personal experience.  What I gathered from it was that I was being shown one of my past lives.  How did I know it was one of mine and not just someone else?  I only know it because I felt it with every fiber of my being.  So I can't explain it or prove it, can only report it.  (This is long, sorry).

I was dreaming a regular dream when someone walked into my dream, at first playing along so as to fit in.  But then he began asking me questions that didn't fit, and it felt like he was prying for information or trying to get me to remember something.  He said, "It's been a long time for you, Vicky.  You've come a long way." And then he showed me a scene as it began to open up.  Suddenly I was pulled from the regular dream setting into another scene altogether and I was instantly fully consciously awake.  This was not like my usual "lucid dreams" because I had absolutly no control over anything.  When I got pulled into the scene, I found myself fastened to a pole with my hands behind my back.  I was moving swiftly over a plains area, with mountains far, far in the distance.  

I felt intense fear for an unknown reason, and I kept saying that this is only a dream and I want to wake now.  But I could not wake myself up.  I tried to change something, anything but nothing would change.  Nothing wavered as like in lucid dreams, and I didn't have to try to hold conscious awareness as in lucid dreams.  As I realized I had no control over this very real feeling lucid dream, I got increasingly scared because I thought that possibly this was not just a lucid dream but something that was actually happening to me now at that moment.  All I could rationalize was that because of my full conscious awareness, that told me I was either awake, dreaming, or having an out of body experience.  

So what happened was, as I was swiftly moving forward over this plains area, I could look down and see the ground moving beneath me and I could look forward and see where I was headed.  Far in front of me was a man standing holding a staff in one hand with and ankh symbol on top of it, and he wore an ankh necklace.  He wore a robe with a hood on it, I believe it was white with yellow or gold.  I can still remember his face, an older man with a white beard, who looked like he was absolutely filled with anger and hatred for me.  He was standing at the edge of a cliff and I was pulled directly up to him until we were face to face, and then I was pulled to the side and swung around to where I was now overlooking a village, all while still fastened to the post.  I could see the dwellings below me and when I looked at one in particular I suddenly thought to myself, "I died down there."  And then thought, "When I was Diana I died down there.  I don't want to die again, I'm not Diana anymore.  I shouldn't have to go through this again!"  I was terrified at thinking all this.  And suddenly the whole entire experience replayed itself precisely over again.  And this time I was even more terrified because I couldn't understand why I had to see it again.  I wondered how long it would continue, why was that man so angry at me when I was Vicky now and not this Diana person anymore?  And if this event had already taken place in the past, why did I have to re-live it again now?  When I saw the place where I knew I had died before, I thought to myself "I won't die for her, not now.  I am not Diana anymore".  

That is all I remember.  The whole experience was complete terror.  I don't know any more than that.  So I wonder why I was shown this.  Nothing else like this has ever happened.  (This was back in college when I was probably about 21 or so).

You know how real lucid dreams can feel?  Well this was more real than that, about a hundred times more real.  

Hi Vicky,
 if there was a hint for you in it concerning your life back then I would say you were (in this "real-dream") in a situation you really don't want to be in, in the position of the victim, defenseless. And you went through it even twice. So maybe it was to remind you of what you don't want? Never again to be a victim? Maybe you were in a situation in your actual life that time which holds the danger of becoming again a victim?
 However, if you want to try to find out I would focus on the guy who kinda sneaked into your dream at the beginning of your story; you know at my first "past-life-movie" the man who guided me said similar things, like "We know each other for a long, long time". Ask him what's behind it and that you don't want to go through it like the last time :-) !
 Bye, Spooky

Spooky's right. you can work on this for awhile and get some ideas. sounds like witch buring scenario to me. you may have threatened the church elders by having one too many visions....to me, going back to scenes like this is exactly like retrievals, where you bring the other directly into the light of understanding. so would be "retreiving Diana" these selves need our love, as the love was not given back then, we the only ones can love ourselves then. question: what is ankh?

ankh:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b366/Ichhoechstselbst/ankhsmall.gif

thanks Spooky. doesn't ring any bells for me that symbol..maybe it do for Vicky?

Cool Spooky, I was wondering how I could put up the picture of it, so thanks.  I was just gonna say the dictionary says it is the Egytian symbol of life.  

No, it never did ring any bells for me, back then or now.  That symbol showed up in my dreams a lot back then, and I had to look up what it symbolized.  I do believe this was a past life of mine, as everything felt so familiar plus the knowing I had that it was a past life.  

Hopefully one day I will perfect the challenge of going back into an experience to learn more from it.  This experience is definately one I'd like to know more about.  Thanks guys.  

 The Ankh represents Spirit--the circle being part of matter--the cross, which represents the 4 directions and elements.  But the circle is above matter, so Spirit transcends Matter.  So in a way, the Ankh is a symbol of the Soul, since Soul partakes of and is from Spirit-the Source and experiences Matter--which is a twisted reflection of and the lowest vibratory rate of Spirit.

 Its one of the oldest symbols for regeneration and rebirth.

 Vicky, your experience sounds like it must have been later Egypt--if it was even in there...their knowledge and how they lived had degraded severely from its earlier days.  The Priests of Egypt eventually became like every other religious institution...a way of power over others.

Past lives vs tapping

For $75 I had a past life done and it was just the one I needed at the time to comfort me. I just knew it was me and followed it up through the death process with my mother guiding me as a then still living older Native American man.  But I’ve really been more convinced as my husband, who doesn’t really believe in all this stuff, shares his memories, interests, and experiences.  Like when he told me early in our relationship of often seeing in his minds eye a glimpse of a grassy hill and spotting a large plantation house at the top.  Later I convinced him to try a past life with the same therapist I went to and tape it. Needless to say he did and was able to explore the story behind the glimpses including one where he was so deeply in love with his wife that when she died at a young age, he did not recover and lived the rest of his life grieving.  At the end of the session, the therapist asked him if he recognized her in any of the women in his life and like the true gentleman that he is, he said noooo.  He finally came clean with me a few years ago and admitted it was Marie, a girl he went to school with and had asked out on a date.  They went out only once and then she moved away.  This sweet man has lost two wives due to cancer, one at 35 and the other at 43, a few months before we met.  They he married crazy woman, me and we’ve been married and in love for over 20 years.

Then there was the time we went to England (wound up going 6 times), always to go through the British Museums Egyptian section.  Anyhow, one of these times he is drawn to Yesterday’s Children by Jenny Cockell, reads it, buys her second book, Past Lives Future Lives and attempts to correspond with her.  That’s something I would do, but never Mac.  He only reads books on Wars, airplane disasters, and British Magazines.  

Also there was the time, he’s a good sport and pretty much goes along with me on my adventures, we attended a workshop in Naples, FL given by, what’s his name, the Miami psychiatrist who was so popular during the ‘90’s, and he led us through a past life mediation. Now I knew that nothing was going to happen to me during this exercise, of course my expectation was proven right, and, because my husband wasn’t into this sort of thing, you can imagine how shocked I was when I turned to him as break was called, and I saw that he was white as a sheet and his blue eyes were as big as saucers :o :o :o.  I asked him, “What’s wrong?”  He said, “Jean, Jean, I was in this room, knew I had to stay there, it was an initiation, in Egypt, and there was this woman standing outside watching me, I had to stay there”.  Our past life therapist was close by and heard my husbands tale too.  He described it so vividly that it seemed as if I could picture and then he promptly forgot the whole episode in Egypt except for the year-646 B.C.  To this day, he can’t remember a thing about it, only the year.  When we finally did go to Egypt and he saw a golden aura around the far right statue of Rameses at Abu Simbel, I had hoped more of his memory would be triggered. He did suffer a slight stroke there and has never really been the same as far as walking and motivation but his lovingness is stronger than ever.  This is not a man who plays jokes or would make up stories of this caliber; in fact he prides himself on not having much of an imagination and he’s not a deceitful man.  Since he is getting older, the main thing I try to get across to him is to head for the park when he dies and he does listen to my tales and proof my posts and read the posts that I push on him as interesting.

I don’t really connect with Egypt except when I went to the last goddess temple, stood but wouldn’t lay down in the tomb at Giza.  And I always wear a tiny lotus (symbol of love) along with my #1son charm on my gold chain around my neck, never take it off.  And I do love the ankh a finally got a two-inch brass rough-cut souvenir ankh given to me in Egypt.  Love to handle it and tend to hold it at the peak of the curve and aim the breath of life down or out much like some of the carvings of Akhenaten’s time.  In fact, now that I think about, as I sit here with a book by Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten-King of Egypt, my first husband, 6’3” looked a lot like Akenaten :o. I did notice that when I went to the Cairo Museum also and I don’t mean I was his wife.

Anyhow that’s my take on past lives plus the possibility that we only remember those personalities when we are dealing with similar issues in our current life’s experience-IMO.

Love to all, I’m still going through all you guys posts on this thread.

Jean :-*

p.s. I noticed that I left out fewer words this time as I was listening to Lightfall, a new Cd from MI for higher performance.  Maybe I should glue the headset to my ears ;D. I also noticed that this particular Cd sortof feels like it's crackling inside my head and waking me up in a good way.I just noticed as I brougt the web up to post this, thread has started on H-S tapes. J

Correction,

My husband just got up and read my post. Says it's very accurate, interesting, and he wants me to save it.  He felt I told his stories accuratly except that the year he remembers from Egypt was/is 636 B.C. He's a love.

Jean :-*

now, Jean, if we could just find a book which describes some events and people around 636 BC..might jog some more feelings...

Jean

Does he still read alot? Would he be interested in a book by a retired Connecticutt fireman about a memory of being in a Civil War battle that lead to a book? (Includes some historical info so I thought the battle stuff mugh tbe interesting to your husband) . I borrowed a copy from a college in Gettysburg Pennsylvania (thru interlibrary loan) but it can be ordered from one of those on-line bookstores.

Someone Else's Yesterday: The Confederate General and Connecticut Yankee, a Past Life Revealed (Paperback)
by Jeffrey J. Keene

There is also a website about the book

http://www.confederateyankee.net/

I don't understand the part about physical resemblance...not my idea of a past life, but interesting nevertheless. Maybe that fits in better with the universal mind thing. The book is a little dry to me but I plan to send it to my brother who likes all that Civil War stuff.

Vicky -
If you go back to be tied to the same pole again, keep in the back of your mind that eventhough we've all died millions of times, it's never fatal. In fact, I keep hearing people tell me that it's more of a nuisance to be born than to die. On the other side of death are the infinite resources of the spirit world.

Jean-
One easy way to pull past life experience together is to notice significant details such as political figures of the time, the clothing and weapons of strangers who can usually be tied to an invasion at a known date, notice languages spoken, what people call the most significant local landmark, intersections of trade routes and major caravan trails, types of trade, mutual friends, and so on. Also, having once gone into a past life, you can always go back though meditation, although it's a bit easier with a guide.  (I've put basic regression instructions on my site under "things to read etc" at www.mind-body-spirit-hypnoclinic.com that can be followed if you feel ambitious.)

d

Hi Dave,

Well, back then when it happened I was probably about 21 or so and didn't know what I know now.  

It's funny, I completely agree with what you say, but it is hard to keep the presence of mind (at least for me so far) to do much self talk during my "weird" experiences.  It's always after the fact that I think rationally.  

If I ever master the art of going back to re-experience a specific experience again, I will definitely try to stay rational in my thinking.  So far I haven't been able to do that--I only keep getting new experiences.  

And during the above experience, it's amazing how real that experience was, it was "realer than real" multiplied by about 100.  

I have heard that during hypnosis when someone is regressed back and is relieving fear, that the hypnotist will then tell the person to only be an observer so that they don't re-live the fear.  If I had been able to tell myself that, it would have been a lot different.