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Does acknowledging PL's in this Life make a difference in the Next?

Ginger_Mandrake

Ever Confused
My question; and forgive me if this belongs in a different thread, I wasn't sure what keyword to use when searching, is this: Do those who live lives in which they remember PLs have an easier time remembering either PLs or 'heaven' in their following lives?

This question came about within me because of so many Buddhist monks, nuns and lamas who are Bodhisattvas (Bodhisattvas can supposedly remember all or most of their pls) who seem to live better lives due to their knowledge of their pls. I don't think that this is cultural either, because many Westerners are turned to the path of Buddhism and discover that they are Bodhisattvas as well, and so they end up living better lives due to acknowledging the cycle of death and re-birth. Many Buddhist authors will write about how as a Bodhisattva they have given a vow to reincarnate in order to free other sentient beings from suffering, so this leads me to believe that they believe that they will remember their past lives in their next life.

Does anyone here remember a life in which they did believe in reincarnation, or a pl in which they believed in pls? If so, do you believe that that has caused you to be more spiritually opened in this life, or to have greater knowledge of the cosmos?
 
Ginger, my understanding of Boddhisatvas is more along the second part of what you said: "Many Buddhist authors will write about how as a Bodhisattva they have given a vow to reincarnate in order to free other sentient beings from suffering...".


What makes someone a Boddhisatva is that they are a soul advanced enough to reach enlightenment, but who choose instead to reincarnate in order to help others. Whether Boddhisatvas remember their past lives is secondary and not necessarily a focus for them. The vow to continue reincarnating beyond what is necessary for their own development is the important part.


I've always thought that as souls become more advanced, they gradually get to a point where they are able to remember past lives and work through them while living their current life. I don't think that remembering past lives causes one to be more spiritual, it's just reflective of a certain type of spiritual development.
 
Those were both really great responses, thanks!


I guess what I really wanted to focus on with my question was the second part, and I suppose I should have thought a bit more about how to phrase it. I really would like to know if there are members who have had past lives in which they remember their past lives. I was thinking that if someone had an experience like that it would not only be healing to this current life, but to their next life, where they would have even more of an understanding of how this whole thing, life or existence or whatever, works.


I think the example of a Bodhisattva came to mind because I read that one of the signs within Buddhist cultures that you are a Bodhisattva is that you can remember your past lives, but really it could be anyone who remembers their past lives. I think it also goes hand-in-hand with reincarnating to help others end the cycle of reincarnation/suffering.


I don't think that being an advanced soul depends on remember or believing in past lives. The reverse is certainly true, I believe in past lives but I'm certainly not an advanced soul.


Today I was wondering if it would be possible for me, in my next life, to focus on the happy memories from this life instead of the negative ones (I was eating a piece of cake and wondered if the memory of that very same moment would come to me in my next life). I guess that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing, because we don't want to forget all of the bad things that happened in our lives. Anyways, just some random thoughts, I guess there's really no exact or right answer.
 
Hello Ginger,


I believe becoming conscious of your past lives and their effects makes a difference regarding your following lifetimes.


You might like to read through this thread.


Karoliina
 
Hi Ginger,

Does anyone here remember a life in which they did believe in reincarnation, or a pl in which they believed in pls? If so, do you believe that that has caused you to be more spiritually opened in this life, or to have greater knowledge of the cosmos?
Yes, several in fact, but none of them were Buddhist. Ancient Egypt, Chaldean, and Judea. There are suggestions --traces in ancient texts which tell us HOW to remember. For example, there was a special on the Lost Gospels a few years ago. I was specifically interested in the part about The Gospel of Mary when Peter asks her how visions are experienced. He asked if they are experienced by the soul, or the spirit. The reply given was intriguing. She said they are experienced by both and then through the mind.


My research suggests the seat of the soul is the heart center. The spirit is above the crown chakra. It is experienced in the 8th and above. The third eye is the mind.


A while back I came across an Ancient Egypt reference regarding how past lives may be remembered; The Emerald Tablets of Thoth:

When upon thee death fast approaches,
fear not but know ye are master of Death.


Relax thy body; resist not the tension.


Place in thy heart the flame of the soul.


Swiftly then sweep it to the seat of the triangle


Hold for a moment, then move to the goal.


This thy goal, is the place between thine eyebrows,


the place where the memory of life must hold sway.


Hold thou thy flame here in thy brain-seat


until the fingers of Death grasp thy soul.


Then as thou pass through the state of transition,


surely the memories of life shall pass too.


Then shall the past be as one with the present.


Then shall memory of all be retained.


Free shall thou be from all retrogression.


The things of the past shall live in today.
To me - these two references are quite revealing. ;)
 
Well...


Since almost my entire family believes that I'm on some type of (as my mother put it so kindly to me last evening-) 'misguided search', I'm not sure if any Pl predisposition has made me interested. I guess I always felt there was just something not being covered. I always knew. My father is an agnostic, but he believes very strongly in some christian type god. My mother just believes in whatever her husband or boyfriend at the time believes. I'm really bothered how some people don't even consider stopping to question their own beliefs. Most of my life has been spent questioning. I question the validity of my memories often. I just don't understand not wondering why.


I first asked my mother about past lives (which would explain 95% of my strange play when I was a small child-) after encountering this website at the age of 10. Actually, I think I might have been nine at the time. It was the first time something had felt personal, like it applied to me. I was taken to episcopal church sometimes, but it felt like something that was meant for other people. This is funny, because in my most recent two lives, I've been Catholic and Jewish.


Maybe acknowledging them this time in spite of some of my family's out and out ridicule will make a difference in my next life. In my lives where I've believed in PLs, It might have done something. If it did, I don't remember.


Sorry to go on a tirade.
 
Koshka,


It is an unfortunate fact of life that one's parents (indeed most people) don't remember their past lives. It is fairly unusual to do so in fact - certainly in any detail. Most people only experience vague feelings of uneasiness in relation to the whole topic, but mostly they don't know why.


Those who do remember belong to a minority. In talking about it with people who don't share the experience it is not unusual to encounter misunderstanding, disbelief, fear and even aggression.


Get used to it. :)


Try not to worry about it. :)
 
Knowledge of reincarnation can lead to realization of SELF


:)


Hi Ginger-Mandrake,


you raise an interesting point regarding recollection of past-lives within a past-life. Perhaps I can assist your already significant progress in some way by speaking directly.


I remember one such life (apparently). I say apparently because it was within a culture that had a considerable focus on past-lives. I speak of Atlantis. I have not actually (currently) recalled one of those past past-lives but I “know” that I knew about past-lives then (i.e. within the Atlantean life).


This was the second life I recalled in the here-&-now and it inspired/impelled me to deliberately search for additional past-lives. Of further past-lives I have recalled (in “this life”) – two were seemingly much older than the Atlantis life and contained no spark of “extended spirituality” – crude tribal-warrior-lives. Then the Atlantis life (more of this later) followed by 3 military-leader-type lives each of which was pursued on an essentially uninformed “do-gooder” basis – painfully trying to do “noble” things by force of arms with hints of spiritual insight (all spiritual failures really but each, successively, more informed than the last). I herewith put these lives into a sequence but this was not the order of recall.


So, back to the Atlantis life and the core of your question. The focus of the referenced life is as follows: I am a high-ranking priest-scientist in charge of the Great Pyramid, part of the Atlantean Civilization-Empire. The interior of the pyramid is lined with variously organized ranks of glowing crystals (some huge some very small, many-coloured). The pyramid is part of a global power-grid of some significance. But, I have been ordered (by a Cabal in control of the Atlantean spiritual and administrative system – the Dark Ones?) to shift the focus of the power generation and reflection and direct it towards an attempt to penetrate another dimension the center of which is in outer-space somewhere around the vicinity of the moon. Reluctantly I do so for I realize the act to be exceedingly dangerous although it is held (by some) that a new inter-dimensional power source will thereby be tapped. At first things appear to go well but suddenly a blast of unbelievably black and malign power with a huge cross-section starts to stream into the cap of the pyramid. Instantly I recognize that it will be transmitted all around the Earth through the power-grid and thereby “take control”. To prevent this, I order that the circuit be catastrophically broken by smashing the main focal-crystal & I also realize that the resulting feed-back will transmit a savage surge of “normal power” into the global grid - one that will itself destroy our whole civilization but which might also leave small remnants intact. This is a “better” choice than to allow the Dark Force - the Anti-light, to take over everything. The “feed-back”, initiated at the site (now called Egypt), from the pyramid, destroys the civilization of Atlantis almost entirely. It almost wrecks the planet. I am killed inside the pyramid by the power-surge but I have the weight of so many deaths upon my shoulders that I cannot forgive myself. I go through at least 3 incarnations in military lives before I again “pick-up” science in my current body-form.


This Atlantean life-experience recall so upset me that I was driven to conceptually form it into part of a triad of lives (including my current life) and this became the entire focus of my attention. As I did this, with respect to the group, my ego-self started to break-apart and then shattered entirely as I attempted to answer the question “who or what am I that thus span space & time”? How could I have possibly have lived these disparate lives, separated by time and space? The obvious answer surfaced through the shards of my fractured ego-self. The Reality of my Higher Self burst into view from the shadows previously projected by my ego-self. As this insight proceeded, I suddenly became aware of an almost countless array (infinite in number) of so-called lives that I had passed through since my departure from unity.


The life in the Atlantean civilization is thus of some significance (to me) in that the answer illumined my self-awareness, identity and appreciation of the reality of Unity. That point or state of being/consciousness from which all derives and to which all returns. In an instant I became aware that I, myself as consciousness only, had both created all of these lives as well as the infrastructure which “apparently” cradled them in the instances of their formulation/experience. I do not anticipate losing this realized state of being as I am now consciously beyond all. Birth is a dream, only Being Is.


Deb’s research/insight has it about right (Namaste!)

My research suggests the seat of the soul is the heart center. The spirit is above the crown chakra. It is experienced in the 8th and above. The third eye is the mind
and, of course, Mary caught the drift as well, one of the very few followers of the Christ that actually stuck around to directly absorb the lesson of forgiveness expressed by the great Avatar. The third eye is peculiar in that it has, potentially, one foot in each of the worlds of physicality (the mind) and of Spirit. It can form the bridge of insight encompassing both.:cool
 
I think it would depend on how strong ones faith in their beleifs of reincarnation is , on going into another life,


I think that there are more children who have memory of their lives than we know about. So it does not seem that noone remembers , it is just that those memories are not recognised and therefore are forgotten once the child grows up.


It is simply a cultural moray that not everyone recognises reincarnation. I beleive that we are moving towards a point where everyone will be doing their therapy work through regression work to their experiences in this life as well as their past. Reincarnation is not particular to the spiritually advanced.


Most of my freinds who are supportive of my needs, do not beleive and have had no interest in their own past life experiences. But that does not mean they are not helping me out.. nor are they not helping themselves out through learning some marvellous things themselves. We are always in our present , and we are not having to deal with our past all of the time..


I try and approach my beleif with the thoughts that regression work is not only for my own interest but for those around me. I am shy about my beleifs and hope to learn to how to talk about it more in a way that helps others in their lives.


I try and remember that it is not what I beleive but how my actions affect others. LIke when I am feeling better about myself I will affect others positively. SOmeone can beleive in reincarnation but can still be destructive and end up causing more problems.


Nanci
 
Not believing in reincarnation


Hi Nanciwell, :)


I very much agree that it is not the "belief" in reincarnation that indicates spirituality so much as it is exactly the actual personal recall of such lives.


One might well postulate that reincarnation is the common obligation of all humans as well as other species and from this viewpoint it is certain that reincarnation itself is not the key issue as much as is the initial ability to remember incidents from one life to another. In my humble opinion, recall of past lives is truly an indication of a spiritual "bent". This does not mean however, that past-life recall is an obligatory precursor to the realization that one is not merely a physical body in a physical world doomed to spiritual cessation at death, in the manner that termination of the electrical current to a light-bulb results in darkness in an otherwise unlit room. :)
 
HI Robin,

....reincarnation itself is not the key issue as much as is the initial ability to remember incidents from one life to another.
Perhaps beyond just the recall of a past life - there is another important component: the ability to create with clear intentions into the next life.... just an additional thought.
 
Clear forward projection would certainly help!!


Hi Deborah,


clear forward projection would help indeed but what I am trying to say is that any sort of clear past life recollection (carried past early childhood, and/or seen in adult life) is a first significant step in the "journey home". One may certainly slip back or momentarily forget (again) but a start is a start and I think that anyone can gain the required encouragement from that knowledge to proceed steadily to the goal of full enlightenment. In that regard, talking to others about the insights flowing therefrom is clearly of great assistance. :) :)
 
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