JvS wrote "I am anxious to pass along some knowledge and a message to my "future me", to discover. This led me to wonder if past versions of "me" may have done the same?" I don't know what sort of message you want to send, but I believe that I have received "messages", if you will, from a previous incarnation in the form of a pressuring conscience that nags me to grow in certain ways, to overcome specific faults, fear less, and love better. The messages reached me well before I discovered where they came from: the unfinished business of a previous life.
I haven't shared the many details of that former life here as I'm still processing what I've discovered. The memory of this person came to me as a dream -- that is, I experienced myself as him, knew when he lived as well as his profession, and saw the city where he lived, a place I had never been and knew nothing about. From this I was able to find his name. He was a writer, wrote in a language I that don't know, and, though appreciated in his day, is probably best known only in circles of passionate readers of literature of that era. I was able to get translations of various things that he wrote and was stunned to see how specifically they spoke to me. I've also learned about his life and can see that his background is reflected in my own, his concerns and convictions are mine, and certain of his bad habits were things I was forced to face (and there are yet more to deal with). Interestingly, as I read his works from time to time I found myself saying, "No, that's not the right translation," although, as I said, I don't know his language. One of the most startling things was finding a work that used my current name in the title and addressed an issue that has troubled me very greatly. I feel awakened, warned, and exhorted by his writings and life as well as pressed to pick up where he left off and, in my own way, carry on.
When he used my name in something he wrote way back then did he know I would one day come along, need to hear what he had to say, and actually come across it? I doubt it. He was writing for himself. I suspect we have to think of past lives and our current life not as separate and distinct but as aspects and phases of one and the same life or identity that's laboring growing into some fullness of understanding. The message that gets passed is what's next on our personal "to do" list, and it finds us in the form of our conscience, whether we remember past lives or not.
