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Questions about Pre-planning

deborah

deborah

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I have been thinking...{I am on vacation :)} I have also been researching again. Where did the idea - of pre-planning ones life - come into our reality? It seems like a New Age Theory to me. Your thoughts?

My questions are:

1). Do you know of ANY ancient religious texts that have the premise of planning future lives -in heaven/with guides/angels or even by ones self? Does the Bible say so? The Gnostic Gospels? The Kabbalah? The Buddha? What Ancient texts support this idea?

2). What authors do you know of that research and write about reincarnation and pre-planning your life. What are their references?

I am not looking for "my spirit guide said.." or "I know it from a dream or vision." For me the Universe as a Hologram fulfills that understanding for me..

I am looking for something based on history -in any culture. Is there anything?

Looking forward to your responses. : angel
 
Most authors that I've read that refer to it, use regression and NDE data as their sources. I haven't been able to find Wambach's books yet, but many sources I've found refer back to her work.

The Hans TenDam book "Exploring Reincarnation" touches on this subject, but doesn't go into detail (for example he mentions that 23% of Wambach's subjects remembered pre-planning either with guides or on their own). His suggestions for further reading are: Helen Wambach, Joan Grant and Denys Kelsey, Thorwald Dethlefsen, Morris Netherton, Edith Fiore and Bruce Goldberg, and Joel Whitton. As I understand it, most of these people deal in case studies, not ancient texts. He does state that their are others who wrote about this, but their work isn't as well researched as the ones he reccomeneds.
 
Hi Deborah,

Your questions are very specific and are going to involve a lot of critical thinking.

These are very valid and very good questions -that I know I have no definite answers to.

You've got me thinking though - the wheels are turning ;) - and I'm wondering if the idea of 'pre-planning' and 'ancient prophecies' in ancient texts - could they be related? Don't answer that though - this is just me thinking out loud.

Time for some detailed research... :)

Love,
Julie
 
Deborah,

In the back of Roger Woolger's new book (Healing Your Past Lives: Exploring the Many Lives of the Soul), he mentions a title called Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery by Joseph Head and S.L. Cranston. I haven't read it, but it's supposed to be about reincarnation in world history. I had a look on Amazon.com... looks interesting, but I don't know if it would answer your question. It might be worth checking out, though. :)

Lib
 
Thank You Libellule,

I am familiar with the book - but it is one that I do not have. Does anyone else have it? I might have to get that one..too. ;) I know S. L. Cranston is a good author.

Right now I have my nose in the workings of the Kabbalah.

Chelle, I have Wambach's book, Joan Grant's and Goldberg's.
I will have to check out Whitton's. If memory serves me right, he wrote a good book. I have not heard of the others - now I am on a Mission! :)

Let me know what you find Julie. :thumbsup:
 
I have the "Pheonix Fire Mystery" and am currently wandering through it. :)

So far I have found that Plato mentions choosing a life in "The Republic". It's in the part where "the souls about to enter earth life are thus addressed"

Exerts that mention choice: "Your destiny shall not be alloted to you, but you shall choose it for yourselves...." "It was a truly wonderful sight, he said, to watch how each soul selected its life...." "The experience of their former life generally guided the choice..."

I also caught something about choice when the author quoted Bhagavad-gita, but when I went back looking for it, I couldn't find it. It was just one sentence about choosing.

I'll keep looking to see if there is anything else. :)
 
I don't know if this is significant or not but..:

Buddha's first sermon after attaining enlightenment was called "Turning the Wheel of the Law". Later in Buddhist philosophy the ceaselessly revolving wheel, which involves the soul in the obligatory round of rebirth - as distinguished from the will-chosen ones - signified the Twelve Nidanas, or Wheel of Causation. These twelve causes of repeated existence, each dependent on it's predecessor, belong to the most abtruse doctrines of the Buddhist metaphysical system.

The "will-chosen" caught my eye. ;) Perhaps there is some pertinent information in the original texts. :confused:
 
This is going to take some work. :butbut: I am delving into the Kabbalah right now - and you say - Plato and Buddhist? I will be forever chained to the books. *S*S*S*S

No really - this is great! I also think it's awesome so many of you are willing to look into it.

I am not one to take a new age theory as fact unless personal experience, science and or ancient texts also speak of it. You know - that common thread. There are a lot of New Age books that bring it up - but so few that back up the premise with research in either direction (science or ancient texts).
 
Pre-planning would be extremely difficult to back up with science. Especially the rigid science that is still so prevalent in Western society... the same science that doesn't even believe in reincarnation!

I think science is first going to have to conclusively prove that there is a soul (and have it be measurable) before they'll even consider a concept such as pre-planning. And I'm not sure they'll ever be able to measure a soul...


Lib
 
Deborah,

I thought about you this morning, had the TV on for noise and the Jane Pauley show had 'young Picassos' ...children with massive artistic talent when they are still riding around in car seats. If you can catch a repeat of the show I'd be curious to know if you find it compelling as evidence of reincarnation. I saw one large canvas that resembled Monet so vivdly! It's like the Oprah show years ago that had the little girl (I've posted about before) that painted exactly as G. O'Keeffe. Oddly that girl had recovered from leukemia and a boy on the show today had leukemia as well, curiously enough.

About the pre-planning I've seen so many references to it in books and here and there I find myself taking it as fact, something I generally do not do. It's a good reminder to keep searching rather than take others answers as mine. However, perhaps it was just easier to do that than think there was no pre-planning, or at least we are not consulted rather we are just sent off on the next path chosen for us. I suppose a lot of people would say they remember the in-between and how they had a hand in selecting their next destiny. Do you agree with that?

Hope the vacation is going well & you are not in the earthquake zone.
French
PS: Your piano scrolls are tear-jerking beautiful!
 
Hi French at Heart,

Thank you for the compliment. *S*S*S If you click on the close-ups on my website - be sure to read the words from the bottom up. They are antique piano word rolls. I just love the lyrics. :)

I am researching so many different cultures right now - my head is spinning.
What I am finding from many sources is that the masses seem to be drawn to their next life - like a magnet. Not consciously choosing thier next life but drawn to that which they hold within and to that which they already know. Few - remember choosing IMO. Those few seem to be the star cases in various authors books - showing the best cases and best evidence for that premise.

Chelle - I think that quote is focused on the few "chosen ones." The reason I say that is the following statement by the Buddha-

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.” Buddha
Click to expand...

He seems to be saying most are caught on the wheel unless by will they have chosen to change the path. Your thoughts?
 
I've always thought our state of mind and what we expect has a lot to do with how we perceive death, the time in between death and rebirth, and rebirth. I think if we believe when we die that we will be able to have some say or preplanning, and our minds are clear on that point, then that option will be available to us. So yes, I think most are caught on the wheel until they consciously choose another path. :)
 
An Interesting find

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead - Awakening Osiris I found the following excerpt.

“In my weakness the dark shall cover me with the red cloth of death and the hungry leopard shall pass by as if I were less than shadow. I shall hide even as the gods hide behind the veil of nothingness, listening. Though they hear men call in their troubles, they come not; yet silent, beyond the veil their shining fingers move, weaving the cloth of destinies.

Even great gods are bound by law not to interfere with a man’s own becoming. Therefore, we die and lie alone awaiting transformation. They hear not words.....but thoughts. They speak not to ears. Be silent then and let them speak to the god within. Be quieter still and they will speak through you.”
Click to expand...


What are your thoughts on this? I just love cultures and to research them. :):):)
 
I've read this before, but I can't recall where. :confused: I haven't read the Egyptian Book of the Dead, at least not that I remember. :)

Anyways, my take on this is (at least my take at 11 o'clock at night when I'm half asleep and suddenly thought "Aha" and ran to the computer to write it while it still made sense :laugh: ;) ) that it's talking about 3 levels of consciousness. The level we have in the flesh (I think it's referred to as ego?), a level where we are the gods or equivalent to them and then a level in between the two. Destinies are layed out in the God level, but at the ego level we are on our own to carry them out or not. When we die we work up through the levels depending on our ability to quiet the ego.

Put more simply, the God level plans the life and how well we "hear" or participate in that plan depends on how well we are able to silence the ego and/or bring the three consciousnesses into synch. If the ego remains dominate, we are on our own, the god self can't interfere.
 
*s*s*s*s

Heh Lib,

I forgot to mention - that science is well on its way to at least trying to figure it out. I am reading a book now called Science and the Akashic Field - An Intergral Theory of Everything by Ervin Laszlo.

The dude has four Ph.D's - has written 74 books and over 400 papers and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. In this book he is attempting to unify the realms of science and consciousness. Its deep but good. :eek:

Chelle - it's interesting that you bring up the premise of three consciousness - the ego, the God self and the in-between. Three's - I just love 'em. (Inside joke.) I am more inclined to believe that the three intelligences - thoughts, feelings and emotions determine whether or not we choose.
 
LOL... my subconscious must've been listening to you, Deborah! I just did a search on these boards for "Ervin Laszlo" because I'm reading that very book at the moment. I bought it a week or so ago, after having it randomly come up for me on Amazon.com... I just thought it looked interesting (I didn't remember your post at all), but it was a very impulsive purchase, mostly made so I could get over the dollar amount for free shipping! :D Funny how those things happen.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through, but it is fascinating (and fairly easy to read, even when he starts talking about things like bosons). A lot of what he has to say makes a lot of sense. I wonder how many other scientists share those same views but are afraid to say anything?

Lib
 
Hi Lib,

I am half way through too and now half way through Timothy Freke's work. I must stop that half way through habit. ;) Let me know what you think when you are done. I would like to compare notes if time allows. :)
 
Just some thoughts...

Hi Deborah,
When I read this thread it struck me that the idea of planning your life, and now I mean that you can plan it, while you are living it, is a pretty modern idea. The idea that we are in charge of our lives and that is down to us to get the life we want, can't be that old. Before people had destinys, they became, shomakers because their father's were shomakers. They did innovative things too, but gave more credit to god or gods. The feeling that we are alone on earth and that everything is down to us, that came when "god", hierarcies and authoroties started to loose their grip on us in the last century.

Even if the idea of preplanning your life existed before, they might have seen it from another perspective and not focused so much on it. As I understand it in Buddist belif we are sucked into the next life from what our karma has "choosen" for us. In my way of seeing things, this can be another way of experiencing preplanning and I also think that it must have somthing to do with how evolved the soul is, if you experience doing what is best for your karma, as a free choice or if you try to fight it and, then are forced into a new life by the "natural laws of life".

I am not sure if I have succeded to explain what I mean, but my point is that it isn't so strange if the idea of preplanning is mostly new age, even if the idea is not that new. I don't think that choosing was such an important issue, when those old text was written. Nowadays CHOOSING is what much of our lives evolve around. Even if the choice was there, maybe their focus lay somewhere else and they described the process differently and didn't put the focus on preplanning, when they described the process. We are the ones obsessed with choice and planning. (I think it is one of our modern burdens, and the reason why so many people are stressed and unhappy, even when their lives are good. They feel the responsibility, but haven't got the keys to how you follow the flow.)

I find your resaerch fascinating and look forward to see what you find.

Veronica
 
It is funny that you mentioned Science and the Akashic Field - An Intergral Theory of Everything by Ervin Laszlo. I saw this book and had been seriously considering reading it. Now I am pretty sure that I will. :thumbsup:
 
There are 2 reasons why I wouldn't want to preplan my next life.
1st is we don't have the overview here that we do from (heaven).
2nd is the societies on this planet are always in flux and what we want to experience just might not be possible when we are ready to come back or may not fit in with the big picture.

The nice thing about knowing reincarnation is a fact is it allows us to gain an understanding of all the possibilities that can affect a life down here. The more we are aware of the more things we can look at when we work out the details of the next one.

Those of you who have read Michael Newton's books may remember the doctor who was here to study brain chemistry and he paid a great deal of attention to that when he made his incarnation plans. No one else did, but it is worth paying attention to. I think a list of what you want to look at when planning a next life would be a really good idea.

I would like to end this with a dream I had about my mom who died in 2004.
She was in the hall of records working out which of the possibilities that had been presented to her for her next life would be the best. She was just starting this process. She was considering using the same name she had used this last time as it was good for either gender. She'll be coming as a boy, and no I don't know who, when or where.:laugh: I asked here if she was aware of the astrological or numerological influences on names. She wasn't so I took her to the library and gave her a book that covered it. End of dream.

Jack
 
I have prelanned my next life. This one has been pretty good but there are some things I want to do, so I am planning on it. I know where I will live, the type of person I will be ( pretty much as I am now) and what my educational interests will be. Key to making all this happen will be my choice of family. This time I made a poor choice of family, but all that has been worked out. My career (sales) was satisfying enough but I'd like to study something else.
I believe my musical ability will be carried forward and even if I don't play the violin (I do now) I'll find a way to express it.

I don't think we are 'assigned' lives and missions. I believe that we select situations and that sometimes we make good decisions and sometimes we make bad decisions - just like we do now, in life...
But with each life our decisions become better and better..........:)
 
I've talked about pre-planning various times before in other threads, but I thought I would offer my two-cents worth here anyway.
IMO, we are completely responsible for everything that happens to ourselves. That means there is no god (out there) making decisions for us. We are all a part of the universal Life Energy and collectively we have created this universe, individually we direct our own lives for the purpose of learning valuable lessons.

We pre-plan each life before we enter it. At times we may need and get help from other spirits, or Guardian Angels, or Guides, but ultimately we are responsible for the decisions we make for our upcoming life. These plans and not in details, but a basic outline, such as what sex we will be; what talents we will display; what kind of employee we will get involved in; where will we live; we choose our parents, friends, and relationships for optimum learning; etc.

This all happens in the Spirit World. When we are experiencing life we have the free choice to change any of the plans we have made. However, we tend to want to stick with our pre-planned life as much as possible because it was designed for optimum learning. Our method to get things running smoothly is intuition. When we follow our intuition we will experience our maximum learning experiences.

Majic
 
I agree with alligater.....

I do believe we can will our next life, and make better choices from this life, we are here to learn, and perfect ourselves, so therefore, we can make that choice, of coarse, with Gods help, he helps us write our charts, and each lifetime will get better and better!
 
Since you asked about opinions from any of the new members, I thought I'd toss mine out there as well.

All of the wonderful posts that are here touch on what I would think to be at least a part of the truth, however, I think Majic said it best. Although I might add a bit to it if you don't mind. I believe we have 'chosen' guidelines or a basic outline to follow and if we stray too far off course something happens to correct it, to ensure we finish whatever life lesson we chose to overcome in this lifetime. Life lesson being, learning to be patient, tolerant, to be selfless, loving, healing, and so on.

As for preplanning my next life? I already told them, I'm not coming back again, I'm tired. : angel
 
Thank You all for responding. It's so nice to read what new members think. I am thankful you all have shared your thoughts. Welcome. :thumbsup:
 
Pre-planning is something I find interesting, but at the same time truly horrible.

It's all well and good if you had a positive life to think that it was preplanned. However, what if you had what I call a past life from hell? One where you were truly awful, or did truly awful things?

This, fortunately, isn't something everyone has to think about.

If pre-planning is a part of the incarnation process, did the soul that would incarnate as Hitler, and the souls who were to incarnate as his various minions and the members of his Legion of Doom, sit down and have a big strategic planning meeting about how to take over the world and exterminate millions of people? Some sort of interlife Wannsee conference?

If so, any guides helping with that process had cloven hooves and left scorch marks on the chairs.

Phoenix
 
You bring about some interesting points that I have wondered myself. And I honestly don't have an answer for. One would, or could surmise that something went horribly wrong in Hitler's wiring process. Or, another idea could be that he (obviously) made different choices than what he'd planned to do and that was why he was such a miserable soul.

Just because we might plan our lives, doesn't mean we would give up the right of freedom of choice. You know? He chose to do the awful horrendous things he did, but I can't help but hope that he was unhappy and lonely. He must have been to be such a coward in the end. I don't know, that's really a tough call, albeit an interesting point you made.

What's your take on it? Do you believe in pre-planning? Not everyone does, and that's okay too, I would like to hear what your thoughts or ideas are on the subject. It's always interesting to try to put everyone's piece of the puzzle in, to see what, if any of it fits for one person or another.
 
Hi Deborah,

Spiritualists say thet the choices for a future life are debated with Spiritual Guides prior to reincarnation. The outlines are determined but free will always plays a part at increasing or diminishing negative karma. We are not capable of pre-planning everything, however, as parts of what we must go through in order to learn and progress are not up to us to decide. Furthermore, spirits / souls who have not yet reached the necessary degree of consciousness apparently are not capable of pre-planning their future existence(s).

I would suggest a book called "The Astral City", psychographed by Francisco Candido Xavier, in which he describes what life in the spiritual realms is like. Apparently it is not very different from life on Earth in regards to the existence of cities, councils, schools, temples, etc etc etc

All the best,

Charles
 
Is karma an individual thing?

Dear Fliesatnite,

You wrote:
"Just because we might plan our lives, doesn't mean we would give up the right of freedom of choice. You know? He [Hitler] chose to do the awful horrendous things he did, but I can't help but hope that he was unhappy and lonely. He must have been to be such a coward in the end. I don't know, that's really a tough call, albeit an interesting point you made."

There is a very interesting book by the Swiss psychalalyst Alice Miller, called "For Your Own Good: The Roots of Violence in Childrearing". (All her books are worth a read). She talks of his childhood (and also of Stalin's) and describes how he was raised by a fearful mother (illegitimate daughter of a Jewish father) and a monstrous father who beat his young child daily, and without mercy.

Miller makes the point that this would result in a very helpless and angry child, who would need to feel powerful, and to punish 'father substitutes'. She also makes the case that one man alone would not be able to gather a following, but that because his treatment was common in Germany at the time, he found it easy to gather a huge following of people to whom he could offer a 'legitimate' outlet for their anger and hurts.

Without addressing Hitler himself (from a very young age he would stand on hilltops and make angry, impassioned speeches), it makes me wonder about the karmic role of his father in all of this and of all the fathers in that country at the time who beat their children, and of all the mothers who failed to protect them (and of their parents who contributed to their anger or helplesness). Of course there is also the responsibility of everyone who got involved, either for good or evil.

I can't comment on whether or not Hitler chose that lifetime, since I don't know. But his autobiography was called "Mein Kampf" (my struggle). It makes me wonder how much freedom he had in choosing which way his life would go. We do know that abused children often go on to (a) either become criminals or at least deliquents or damaged peope or (b) sensitive reformers, who though often depressed, understand suffering and work to end it. What makes the difference? We don't know. We do, I think, know that people like that have more 'extreme' choices to make than people whose childhoods were happier. Theoretically, a soul needing to face a great test might choose such a life.

I also wonder how he could resolve it. I think a destructive way would be to come back as a person who would be bizarrely tortured and killed, to 'pay off' what he did. A constructive way might be to come back as someone who took in a refugee from a hated minority, endangering, their life in the process.
Perhaps that also depends on how highly evolved the soul is, whether or not they understand that there are constructive and destructive ways to deal with wrongs we have done to others.

Just my 2 cent's worth,
Perspehone
 
Keeping to the original post;

My questions are:

1). Do you know of ANY ancient religious texts that have the premise of planning future lives -in heaven/with guides/angels or even by ones self? Does the Bible say so? The Gnostic Gospels? The Kabbalah? The Buddha? What Ancient texts support this idea?

2). What authors do you know of that research and write about reincarnation and pre-planning your life. What are their references?

I am not looking for "my spirit guide said.." or "I know it from a dream or vision." For me the Universe as a Hologram fulfills that understanding for me..

I am looking for references that are specifically related to choosing and preplanning.
 
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