Past life tendencies presenting themselves as present life philias or phobias

[Ajay0]

Hi all,

I have decided to create a thread with content from various sources depicting present life philias or phobias as an expression of past life tendencies, with insights and commentary over the same.


Shivayogini Matha (1923-1981) was a female enlightened sage and teacher in India who arose from the carpenter caste, and who interestingly as a child showed very high interest in attractive ornaments and beautiful clothes.

Once seeing a neighbors daughter having a beautiful ornament, she asked her parents to get the same for her, and even mischievously suggested to take it from the neighbor's daughter if they could not get the same.

This intense interest continued in her during her childhood and early teens, and after getting photographed wearing beautiful clothes and ornaments, her interest in the same suddenly faded away . She then stopped wearing such clothes and ornaments and took to a much more simpler and austere lifestyle.

Later on after many years, when she was asked about the same, she stated that in her past life, she was the wife of an austere and pious brahmana of the priestly order, and that her wish for ornaments and clothes had remained unfulfilled in that lifetime.

Her strong interest in jewellery and beautiful clothes in the present lifetime thus came from an unfufilled desire for the same from a past lifetime. After fulfilling them, she lost her desire for the same.

The enlightened sage Sri Ramakrishna had stated that smaller desires of a harmless nature can be indulged in while larger desires should be renounced by the exercise of wisdom and intelligent discrimination.

 

[baro-san]

The observable elements are few and stark: a child’s intense compulsion for ornaments and fine clothes, the moment she is photographed wearing them, and the abrupt reversal into austerity.

Adding reincarnation to explain the sequence is a form of curve-fitting. Any number of other causal stories could be fitted to the same three points.

When explanation becomes this elastic, it may be more useful to stop trying to explain and begin interpreting.

Interpretation does not claim to recover the true cause. It treats the sequence as a set of symbols open to multiple readings. It accepts subjectivity as inherent rather than as a flaw. It does not depend on the historical accuracy of the details. And because it remains open-ended, different temperaments can extract different, equally legitimate meanings from the same events — each finding the reading that most clarifies or liberates their own inner pattern.

In that sense the story stops being a puzzle to solve and becomes a mirror.

This is interesting!

 

[Ajay0]

Richard Slavin (Radhanath Swami ) is another example of a child whose behavior was subject to past life influences. He was born in the US to Jewish parents.

Radhanath Swami - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As a child, Richard showed a tendency that he later called "the traces of my past lives". He did not prefer eating at the table, but seated on the floor, as is customary in India. When his parents forbade him to do so, he began to eat at the table standing. He hated the sight of meat and eggs, nauseated at their sight, and often vomited after eating meat, something that took him several years to get accustomed to.

Usually hermits and yogis tend to be seated on the floor in India while eating food.

This was also true of large sections of the Indian population in the past though they have transitioned to being seated and eating on the table due to western influences. However in ashrams, one can still find ashramites and visitors seated on the floor.

Similarly vegetarianism is prevalent amongst Indian yogis and hermits, and large sections of the Indian population.

So it is possible that past life tendencies and habits were influencing Slavin's childhood behavior and attitudes.

 

[Morella]

Hi all,

I have decided to create a thread with content from various sources depicting present life philias or phobias as an expression of past life tendencies, with insights and commentary over the same.


Shivayogini Matha (1923-1981) was a female enlightened sage and teacher in India who arose from the carpenter caste, and who interestingly as a child showed very high interest in attractive ornaments and beautiful clothes.

Once seeing a neighbors daughter having a beautiful ornament, she asked her parents to get the same for her, and even mischievously suggested to take it from the neighbor's daughter if they could not get the same.

This intense interest continued in her during her childhood and early teens, and after getting photographed wearing beautiful clothes and ornaments, her interest in the same suddenly faded away . She then stopped wearing such clothes and ornaments and took to a much more simpler and austere lifestyle.

Later on after many years, when she was asked about the same, she stated that in her past life, she was the wife of an austere and pious brahmana of the priestly order, and that her wish for ornaments and clothes had remained unfulfilled in that lifetime.

Her strong interest in jewellery and beautiful clothes in the present lifetime thus came from an unfufilled desire for the same from a past lifetime. After fulfilling them, she lost her desire for the same.

The enlightened sage Sri Ramakrishna had stated that smaller desires of a harmless nature can be indulged in while larger desires should be renounced by the exercise of wisdom and intelligent discrimination.

While philosophical interpretations like treating these accounts purely as subjective mirrors are insightful, we actually have a massive body of systematic, academic empirical research that moves far beyond simple curve-fitting.

The pioneering psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia spent decades rigorously investigating over two thousand five hundred cases of young children who spontaneously reported detailed memories of past lives.

His extensive, multi-decade documentation uncovered tangible, repeatable patterns connecting childhood behavioral tendencies, intense phobias, unfulfilled philias, and even physical health conditions to a previous incarnation.

One of the most striking recurring phenomena in Stevenson's extensive data is the presence of specific phobias. Children frequently exhibit intense, otherwise unexplainable fears—such as an absolute terror of water, loud explosive noises, or specific types of machinery—that directly mirror the fatal trauma or manner of death of the previous individual.

For instance, a child with a paralyzing, irrational fear of drowning frequently corresponds to a documented past life that ended in an accidental drowning.

Beyond psychological phobias and behavioral philias, Stevenson's case studies also systematically documented physical anomalies. Birthmarks, congenital malformations, and recurring medical conditions, chronic illnesses, or physiological weaknesses from the past life frequently reappeared on the children's bodies.

These often aligned precisely with surgical scars or fatal wound locations, such as entry and exit bullet marks, of the deceased person.

Far from being isolated anecdotes, these thoroughly investigated cases suggest that behavioral traces, psychological phobias, and physiological imprints can systematically carry over across lifetimes.

It bridges the gap between subjective narrative and observable, documented patterns.
What are your thoughts on how these deep-seated physical and mental imprints manifest across boundaries?

 

[Morella]

The Shards of My Soul:
A Journey Across Several Life Times

For as long as I can remember, I have felt a deep, powerful connection to opera.

I always carried a quiet grief, feeling like I had missed out on my true path because I never became an opera singer.

Today, I realize it was at least not only a missed opportunity of this life, but the eternal philia—the lingering echo of a past existence.

What I am about to share is something I have never told anyone—not my friends, not anyone in my real-life circle, and never anywhere on the internet.

This is the very first time I am putting these words into the world.


Here is how the pieces of my story came together over this lifetime:

The Seed (The First Whisper):
In childhood, while watching a musician’s biography in school, a strange thought hit me out of nowhere: Was that me? Then life went on, and the memory faded into the background.

The Locked Gate
(The Paranormal Threshold):
Years later, as an adult, I had what I can only describe as a deeply paranormal experience—by far the most surreal thing that has ever happened to me. Standing before a locked gate, the boundary between worlds felt thin. A messenger appeared, crossed the threshold, and left behind a slip of paper with a portrait. The moment I looked at the face, it was like looking into my own eyes. Right after I saw it, the messenger vanished instantly into thin air. My very first thought was: Is this me in a past life?

The Snapping Lock
(The Rediscovery):
Nearly seven years later, while searching through a messy pile of forgotten papers for an unrelated matter, I came across an old notebook where I had glued that exact portrait back then. With the help of modern technology to check the historical details, the realization hit home: the portrait belonged to that exact same musician from my school days. With hidden threads like name similarities and a strange, deep familiarity with the birthplace, the pieces fell into place.

The Facial Mirror
(The Family Resemblance):
In another surreal confirmation, a facial scan using Google Arts & Culture matched my features—not just to the musician himself, but with surprising accuracy to a portrait of his sister. It felt like a digital echo connecting me directly to his family lineage.

The Physical Echo
(The Bodily Mirror):
But the most undeniable mirror is in the physical body: historical records show that this musician died from a streptococcal infection. This was the exact same disease I had in early childhood, which caused the cell death of an entire cell population and led to narcolepsy—an illnes I have lived with my whole life, though I was only officially diagnosed just a few weeks ago.

The Eternal Earworm
(The Lingering Melody):
When I finally listened to that last piece he ever composed—the one that unleashed that deep, agonizing pain inside me—a staggering realization hit me in the days that followed: I had been humming that exact melody as an earworm my entire life, without ever knowing where it came from.
And it wasn't just that single piece; various other songs composed by him had quietly accompanied me across the decades,
always present as a background soundtrack humming in the back of my mind.

..This profound realization has only hit me fully in very recent days. I have an overwhelming sense of respect—almost a cautious awe—toward everything I have uncovered. One one side, I feel deeply triggered, longing to remember more, to open that door wide, and perhaps tap into that past talent once again. But another side, a part of me is afraid.
I am afraid of stumbling back into old pain.

When I encountered that final piece this musician ever composed, it didn't just resonate—it dragged up the deepest, most excruciating pain from somewhere inside me, unlike any of their other works which hadn't stirred me with quite such a fierce, urgent intensity.

Now, I stand here with this massive weight of information, hardly knowing how to process it or how to move forward. If anyone out there understands this, or knows how to navigate such a fragile truth... please tell me.
And please don't tell me that I'm crazy, I really know what it sounds like: fictional, but it is my reality.

 

[cloud potato]

Hi Morella.

Beautiful, very beautiful.

Thank you for sharing your self here. Welcome to the forums.