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Monk anyone?

G

GreenKnight

Senior Registered
There are some PL's that I remember rather well (as a Civil War soldier for one) and others I don't know quite as much about.

I know that in most of the Pl's I do remember, I was illiterate or semi illiterate. In most of those lives I had a great desire to learn to read and write but almost never achieved that goal. In my present life, I have a great love of books and learning is very important to me.

I remember (not very well) a life as a monk. In that life I believe that I was poisoned or murdered somehow as I remember an older monk making sly remarks and smirking as I was dying a slow agonizing death. In that life I wanted to to copy manuscripts and do illustrations but was forbidden to do so.

Now my question here is..would a monk have been illiterate? Is that likely? It is possible that I was not allowed near the books because I was very young and low ranked. But would a young man have been taken into a monastery being illiterate? I think it may be possible since a large percent of people then would have not known reading and writing.

Any thoughts out there?
 
I was a monk in my latest PL. I remember copying precious books letter by letter and picture by picture... My background might have been quite a rich one around the year 1400 in southern England. My father had a store and it's probable we had connections to nobility as well. So that me doing books would be a honour duty???

I think it's quite probable that there was illiterate monks too, because there was quite a lot of work on the fields to do. If one had a poor backgound, how could he had been able to read, and why would monks bother to help everybody read, if there was work which "suited" more better to the poors... And there were lay brothers as well.

Anyway I think all those monks weren't such a wonderfull persons... And the church has been an agony to me even in this life. It's hard to forgive certain things...
 
Thanks Everyone.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to do much research lately. We have house renovations going on, a lively 3 year old and a new baby in the way- due to arrive in March of 04.

Yes this religious order was Catholic. There was chanting in Latin..lots of chanting. and I hated it. Even now a recording of monks chanting will give me a panick attack

There was tedious work involving plants, vegetable growing and that sort of thing. I felt trapped and did not want to stay in the monastery. did not want to be a monk. It seems to have happened in Spain or very western France.

To this day the Catholic church abd I have a strange relationship. Some things burn so deep the scars are always there as reminders. Ah well. I will find the time to research this. I have promised myself.
 
Monk anyone?

I´m wondering...does anyone have memories of a PL in a monestary as a monk (christian)? Would anyone know of sites to research physical facts about monestary buildings etc.?

For a long time now I´ve had a thing of nostalgic longing for that kind of life (no specific memories, though). Not that it would in any way be the thing to do in the present life. In the present I´m split between being not very fond of the church or organized religion at all... and a "secret" feeling:o of possibly being very comfortable in the role and life of a sincere catholic monk/priest, although maybe somewhat rebellious...
 
I have reason to believe i was a buddhist monk.
I had a dream that involved me taking part in a ritual where water was poured over my head. I found out later that this is similar to a Buddhist ritual. Also I had a vision in meditation of myself wearing a red robe standing in a temple.
 
Aquaria, I´m curious, what would be your emotional reaction, in terms of a pull to or away from this kind of devotional life...? To you personally, would it be a positive or negative thing?

It seems to me a common popular conception of monkhood is more or less a cartoon kliche´ image of somone shaving his hair funny and being deprived of all the fun in life (maybe less so about eastern religions, though). Whereas myself, I think it would be a really great thing under the right circumstances.

Not that all the everyday problems don´t exist there, too..., even intensified.
 
Tjänare Shield,

I don't have memories of being a monk, but I've been told I was once one. And I really like the sound of monks chanting.

I would be very skeptical about this information, but in one of my (PL) dreams I was in Krakow and I remember this particular scenery from that dream. Now when I travelled there I found out there is a Benedictine abbey of Tyniec right outside of Krakow that I think I saw in my dream (on a hillside). Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit that monastery.. :(

Of course it could be I just lived close to that and remember the scenery as an outsider, but I hope I'll find out someday.

I'm sorry, this wasn't very helpful, but I thought I'd share anyway. :o

Puss å kram,

Karoliina
 
It was not a life of contemplation as much as industry. Creating illuminated manuscipts occupied a great deal of time. A very solitary existence but suited to the personality.
 
The first time I heard about reincarnation was when I was around 10 years or so, and the first idea about myself was that I've been a monk who copies books.

I've seen visions about that life, but all I know is that it happened in England, maby around 1400. I don't have any clue about the Catholic order I belonged. Any guess is as good. The main thing to me from that life is that I used to talk at night in a forest with a lady I loved dearly, and "they" went and burned her at stake for that. She must have been considered a heretic.

It's possible that later in my life I left the monastery and roamed around Britain, maby tried to cure people having plague and other ills.
 
Karoliina, interesting about that polish PL! I´d like hear more about it some time (or maybe you wrote about it already), did you find other confirmation and so on.

Mousie, yeah, I imagine most of the time it would have been less than romantic, often tedious and a lot of hard work. So, I guess one thing I´m really after is to what extent and how frequently a monk´s life could have been genuinely spiritually creative (by whatever definition). Certainly there would have been more reasons to enter a monastery than a rosy-cheeked will to serve God... and if that were so there must often have been a lot of disillusion to come.

I would also be interested in hearing more about your own memories about this. (The illumination part is interesting since that´s sort of one of the things I´m doing for a living today, illustrating books)

Josefina, I think one can´t begin to count the times tragedy like this must have happened. I wonder if those kinds of things have ever been well resolved within this context (got a lot of checking up to do...). If you don´t mind my asking, do you experience any effects or patterns connected to this PL in your present life?
 
>Josefina, I think one can´t begin to count the times tragedy like this must have happened. I wonder if those kinds of things have ever been well resolved within this context (got a lot of checking up to do...). If you don´t mind my asking, do you experience any effects or patterns connected to this PL in your present life?

My estimated time is mostly "an intuitive guess", and I have also examined little the history of England and it seems that that time feels the best choice. But que sera...

I have visions from many lives, but I do think that my life as a monk is the most vivid, and it sure does have an influence into me-that-is-now. Also the life before that life as a monk is very effective, and so I'm kind of mixture of those lives, them being kind of oppositions to each other. One a life as a prostitute in the East and the other a life as a monk in the West. Almost funny thing...

The most influental thing in my life as a monk was the lady I used to listen to. I don't know wether she belonged to some secred, esoteric sect or not, but something made her more important than just an ordinary woman a young boy could cling to. In my present life I waited to meet her, but then I realized that she's not going to incarnate this time here with me, and realizing that cave me kind of freedom: I don't have to live my whole life just for one person, there are other people in the world too.

(As a monk my whole life was just misery after she was dead.)

Of course there are many ordinary things, not just those kind of esoteric things that come from "there". For example I feel that my this-time-mother and my brother are familiar to me from there. My mother was a servant in the monastery, and my brother was a young boy who came into monastery and we had several conversations. It seems that he was a prince or something like that... And he still has a kind of royalnes in him, he even is a Leo in horoscope. Or that is he is a "royal" to me, atleast.
 
Interesting, Josefina... it does seem to have to do a lot with finding a balance or resolution between opposite poles, inner-outer, physical-spiritual...And I think, too, with Kris, that seeing the humor in it all is a cool thing (and most worthwhile).

I´m fascinated your brother and mother was there, too. I can understand that this time occupies a place in your present life. Do they have memories themselves or some kinds of remnants in their lives of this time...?

Did you read any about life in monestaries, etc.? Only thing basically I´ve read are couple of books by Thomas Merton a very cool modern writer/monk
(Trappist order, apparently) who died in the late ´60´s, but I´m beginning to feel the need for some serious research, here...:)
 
Thanks Shield!

No, my mother and brother don't have any memories, but it could be simply because they are not interested about things like that. I did told them both some of my visions, but they didn't say anything about them.

But there was a time when my brother was about ten years old (I was 21 then) and I guess we had seen a movie where a woman died in a heart attact. Or maby we didn't see it then - I don't remember anymore. But anyhow one day he suddenly said to me that he "has been a woman and he died in a heart attack, and he (she) was a Virgo/virgin". I don't know wether he ment "Virgo" or "virgin", because in Finnish the word "neitsyt" can mean both the Virgo-sign or virgin. I don't remember did I ask him about what did he mean, nor do I remember him explaining it. After that I think we never spoke about reincarnation to each others and I think he's materialistic-orientated now.

My partner has seen parts from his past lives, too, but we can't recall each others from our pasts. The only other one I have had doubts being familiar to me from my past was my ex-partner, who also had a couple of his own visions, but again not about me.

I can see a kind of pattern here in us all: some of us remember, but never each others. That's kind of sad, but it can also be kind of humorous. It depents about the point of view one takes!

I haven't read so much about monastic life - some bits from here and there I have occasionally seen in the Net sometimes. It happens every now and then that I see familiar looking buildings on TV or on books, but never one of them feels famialiar enough. But that's no surprise: in England they did their best to destroy almost all the monasteries around the time of Henry VIII.

But when I'm going to have a chance I will check those links you gave, thanks!

(And a funny thing, kind of, is that I feel my name was Thomas in my life as a monk. Wether it was given as birth or later, I don't know.)
 
Josefina, thanks for your reply.

Pondering what it is I´m really after in trying to draw near to a supposed PL life as a monk, I´m thinking...: There´s always the kick of nostalgia, of course, but what I´d like to pick up on, if it´s all there in the first place, would be some sort of one-pointedness of mind and sincerity of heart, regardless of the outer circumstances of living. Something like that....

BTW only the first link applies to this subject. The others are on my personal way this time around...

Do check out your namesake Merton if you feel so inclined. One of his speaches(transcribed) ended: "We must become what we already are."
I like it.
 
I think I must have been a monk in one life based on my reaction to Gregorian chants. I get a brief sense of having been in a monastery, and of the deep peace I felt there. I get the sense that my life was not always so peaceful before. But that's all I get from it.

There's another life I glimpsed in a regression--I don't think it was the same one--where I renounced power to go live in a monastery at the end of my life, having not been a very nice person.

So that probably makes two...in both cases it appears to have been a reaction to the way I was living before.
Steve S.
 
Yes, twice as Catholic priests. I posted in another thread about present day obsessions. I died violently in one, and went into hiding in the other. Neither of these were fun to explore in regression but resolved some things for me.
It explains...
1. My obsession with religious freedom for myself and others ( I sufferd persecution for this as a priest)
2. My adoration for the Catholic church (I almost became a catholic in high school, my mother was aghast since she raised me in a "free thinking" church.
3. I was raised in a free thinking church this lifetime
4. I have spent countless hours as a kid praying in catholic churches without my parents knowing
5. Obsession about pictures of Mary and saints
6. Gregorian chants are sublime...they take me away completely
7. I can relate to being male, although I am a feminine and straight female
8. I had a few vows of poverty to give up...after that abundance!

And this lady who keeps showing up in my life....ladyinblue.jpg
 
ssake, Dream Walker, thanks for your input and apologies for the late answer:).

Steve, I think the going from one pole of existence, like your describing, interesting. I had a glimpse once of something( possibly) similar. A cocky young nobleman poking fun at a group of monks and then I have a feeling of a possible "conversion" later in that life.

Also interesting and uplifting about your description of a positive, peaceful experience rather than a basically bleak and difficult one, often told of.

DreamWalker, I find it fascinating about your secret and persistant catholic compulsion. I imagine your parents must have freaked LOL! I myself was for the most part brought up actively atheistically. Still got a healthy lack of respect for various organized religions... and still this inner identification...

The subject of vows carrying over is another very interesting subject.
(BTW you got any advice about the giving up...?) Affluent = sinful is certainly a silly notion that´s seems to be sticking in my own subconscious, too.

Mary, as a "spiritual archetype" or...just as Mary, is also something deeply interesting. In our (certainly non-confessional) home, we have a growing number of number of pictures of the virgin hanging on the walls.
 
I have reconnected in this life with a person/soul who has been with me before as a nun as well as a monk

In this life one of her main lessons is to give up the belief of poverty, and in mine it has been accepting that I will always 'have enough'

I was also a Monk where I was a scribe, I have seen this life in a number of visions and if I could draw I know exactly what it looks like.

In this life I have an almost obsession with writing, keeping writings that interest me, taking notes when I read a book, making sure that everything is filed in order and can be found easily.

When employed professionally when I was younger I was one of those people who just loved filing and organising paper etc.

In my later years in this life I have finally learned how to be still and connect with the exact second that I'm in and to follow it one second at a time and be totally aware as to what is in that second to experience and enjoy.

My friend was a nun in this life in her younger years and has since left.

Chanting music can at times stir me.

I don't appear to have any specific memories of the enviornment when I was a Monk just the memories of how I felt internally and how I just loved the being still, being alone.

Glenys
 
HaveAChat, kind of funny to here about your obsession with orderly filing, myself I´m on the other side of the scale completely with something close to phobic behaviour when it comes to paperwork. Give me more than two pieces of paper to keep in order and I´m lost....:laugh: :o.

I´m glad and heartend to hear, also, about your good memories of stillness and a good kind of loneliness.
 
HaveAChat, that's funny: I have always liked filling papers.

My job as a monk was to copy and manufacture books. As a child there were a couple of books I wanted to have and couldn't, so I went and copied them. I also made pictures (even thought I'm not any good to draw). Later my first boyfriend said that my pictures looked like medieval pictures.

I have several books about many interesting things and all they are organised in the same way as in a library. (Awfull burden when I have to move from an apartment to another...)
 
HaveAChat,

I also am drawn to chanting, but of the Buddhist type, as I was Buddhist monk in a previous life. I do enjoy the tempo, more so than the average person does. I think the only way to explain this is if I practiced chanting a great deal in a previous life.
 
I had a previous life as a catholic monk and remember looking out this
huge window every day;thinking about God,religion.to this day i cant stomache religion.
 
Hi tjokskalle,

Interesting about this strong, negative "imprint". Could you tell more about specific thoughts, feelings, moods that were going on sitting at that window...?

I´m curious: do you have any thoughts on how the life as a knight you told of in an another thread might possibly be connected to this monk one...?
Could they be one and the same even or the one be an effect by the other in some way...?

(Funny name BTW:cool. Is there a swedish connection...?)
 
I do not know if the monk life is the same as the Knight.sitting at the window i was dreaming of being someone other than a monk,i was bored
and tired of the whole dogma thing.i was an orphan that was directed to be a monk i believe.today i absolutely hate it when someone tries to shove religion down someones throat.I am of swedish and irish blood and the word
tjokskalle is a sort of slang funny word.

My father was from Sverige.he was from the town Leksand in Dalarna and mother from a small town in Ireland.Holidays were interesting to say the least.
 
I may have been a monk

I have to reply to this thread! I was stunned when I saw...not only is it the first time in months that I went in to check what was new here, this was the first thread I saw: during the last couple of days I have solved a puzzle in my head coming to the conclusion that I used to be a monk.

I have always been drawn towards the middleages and catholicism. At a very early age I felt a deep love for the Virgin Mary (I'm born protestant) and the older I got the deeper the longing for her and catholicism. This was to an extent that I wondered whether I should convert, but during research of the faith I couldn't relate to many of the rules. So the longing after this remained unexplainable.

Secondly, my love for gothic buildings, especially the churches, but it's only the style used in Germany/the Netherlands - I have a strong devotion towards these two countries. I can't explain the feeling I get when I'm there. It's peace, happiness but also fear of the mighty and feeling small.

The name Nicolas has clinged onto me for years. There's a certain attachment and familiarity to that name - and this was when the revelation came :). The other night just before I fell asleep I said the name 'Nicolas' and I felt very strongly a male in his mid-20s to mid-30s, tall, dark hair, dark eyes and dressed in a brown cloak (what monks wear?). Also the year 1420 stood out.

I have had many 'flash backs' without being able to understand them or understand their relationship with one another. A lifetime as the monk Nicolas in what I believe to be the present day south of Holland makes a lot of things a lot easier to understand.

Sorry for the lengthy reply :) But it was nice to get off my chest.

/Sunniva
 
Hi Sunniva,

Thanks for your interesting reply!:thumbsup:I find the sincere emotion of your experience inspires me to dig deeper into these things myself.

I´m glad you found the thread helpful. Cool, isn´t it, how personal realizations coincide with the going-ons of the outer world! Same thing happened to me at the time I got a definite lead on a life in WWII, a member posting something of high relevance.

I must say I recognize the longing you are describing and to me I think this is one of the things, as a true spiritual impulse, from a life lived in a monestary (providing it wasn´t a too messed up one...) that could be applied as helpful in the present life circumstances.


(... Gothic cathedrals are cool... as a side note I once had a quick image of a possible PL pop up, as a mason or sculpture guy working on the wall of a high church. I was sitting high up on a sort of hanging board and, of course,:o getting into a fight with the guy working next to me, resulting in him hacking me in the head with his workman´s tool and, as it seemed, my tumbling to a certain death below.)


I´m curious also: since your opening to the likelihood of having lived before as a catholic monk, has your relationship to the Virgin Mary and other catholic representatives of the divine, developed in any way, and in that case how?

One of the great things, I think, of present-day life (well, at least in some places, in some parts of the world...) we tend to take for granted is the possibility of culturing "trans-faith" leanings like these in a more openly active way without immediately getting yourself thrown into a dungeon or something...:rolleyes:

Anyway, Pax vobiscum, O.K.:D (It´s really silly but sometimes I find it hard to keep myself from doing that blessing thing to people, signing a cross with two fingers in the air in front of them. Must have done a lot of that at one time...)
 
Hi again,

You asked me about my relationship with the Virgin Mary. It's a wonderful one, however it's only quite resently (within the last two or three years) that I realized that it was *her*.

I was born in a fairly Christian family, lutheran, and from an early age I felt that I did believe. But I also felt that something was missing. When I was about 16 I suddenly discovered Wicca and as many teenagers I was drawn toward it. I was in particular because of one thing: the Goddess. So for a long time I thought I was to be a Wiccan. I liked having more gods and goddesses, I liked having both the God and the Goddess. However the Wiccan 'life' never really got under my skin and at some point I think I just realized that what I wanted from Wicca existed in Catholicism. I started to collect pictures of the Virgin and I felt/feel a strong love for her. She has helped me many times and is a big part of my life. I also feel strongly drawn toward the Catholic mass and the atmosphere in a Catholic church.

So I thought to myself: should I convert? And this was where I started to really research what Catholicism was all about, only to find out that I would be utterly unable to live under the dogmas of it. At least in this present life.

So that is my present relgious stand. I am a very spiritual person, a very creative person and a introvert person. I can find many traits that I would have in common with Nicolas the Monk (even if he is only hypothetical:) ), but I do find it hard to disect them from the traits of my present life.

:) On a different note - Shield, I see you're from Sweden :) I'm from Copenhagen :thumbsup:
 
Interesting to hear your story, Sunniva:) ... What strikes me about the way you´re telling it is a certain sincerity, a kind of "real" feeling. And I think Nicolas was real, too.

I am a very spiritual person, a very creative person and a introvert person.
Click to expand...
It´s funny, I could recognize myself in that description, somewhat... (Except personally I´m more of a freaky:eek: kind of intro-extrovert. A not very functional, but sometimes fun, mix.) It´s good to
become aware of who the person you are is...;)

I find you reaction tavelling in Holland and Germany very interesting... Have you had this happen at specific places...?

Also I´m wondering: have you done any reading of the medieval christian mystics?, (Meister Eckhart is one, and I think not very appreciated by the powers of the church thaat were in those days)...) This is one thing I want to delve more into myself.


(Dejlige København:thumbsup: :cool , 45 min. or something from where we live in Skåne, across the bridge. We went there for a nice microholiday last summer, seeing some of the sites my...*ahem*... ancestor in straight desendence Chr. IV, put up (*shameless bragging:o*I imagine those of his seed are legion LOL))
 
Shield, hahaha...first: apparantly we're related, cause I'm also a descendant of Christian :laugh: Og dejlige Skåne! It's very beautiful over there and I really love Lund - love the church there haha...

Anyway, I'm really glad that you get this 'sincere' feeling from what I'm telling. This life is still very new to me.

My reactions towards Germany and Holland: I've actually only been to Germany once - aside from the few times where I've been just across the border in Southern Jutland. But I have a flash back that I somehow associate with Germany: a street in a small medieval town, between the houses - crossing the street - hangs small flags in red, green and yellow, like if there's a festival.

I also get a flash back of the Mayor's house, which is an impressive building in Gothic style. Up high on the building there are small figures of men working in different occupations. I associate this house with Germany too, however it could be anywhere in Europe.

My ex-boyfriend lives in Holland and I have visited him there many times. I had - and still have - a strong sense of 'being home' there. Walking the old streets with the old houses, the beautiful churches, the language even. Actually when we broke up one of the things that pained me the most was that I wouldn't be coming there on a regular basis.

I think however that I'm mixing up lives here - I think I have lived a few lives in that area (Germany and the Netherlands), so the street, the mayor's house and the old towns in Holland/Belgium may not have anything to do with another, but I'm sure that my monastery was in one of these places.

Reading Christian mystics sounds interesting...I might look into that too. I've been into Hildegard von Bingen for a long time, but that's really the only medieval 'mystic' I've reasearched.

Do you have any feelings toward a certain place like me? Names or years?

:) Sunniva
 
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