Sometimes...are we just not meant to know?

[Koshka]

are we just not meant to know? I've waited for dreams, I've read books on this- piles, and piles of books. I've even prayed, which is something I find difficult to stomach having done. I've waited, I've meditated. I don't even know what my name was. Sometimes I even question whether my memories are true. I search Yad Vashem sometimes, and I find names that sound familiar, in places that fit with my memories- (the pale- in between poland, the ukraine and russia-) and then they don't fit with what I remember. A small, rural shtetl- deported to a ghetto and then a camp. I remember a garden. I remember a labor camp, and then someplace that looks an awful lot like Auschwitz. I'm starting to question the validity of my memories at all. I don't force anything.. I don't try to put my subconsious through a juicer. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just not supposed to know. Could I just not be ready to fully absorb it? Do I need to go to a regressionist, would that be the next step? I'd really like some advice.

Sometimes, on Friday nights I buy challah from the local bakery and celebrate Shabbos in my own special sort of way alone, in my room.

 

[stardis]

My opinion:


I don't really think that we are meant to know. If we were supposed to remember then I think everyone would remember and maybe that would not be a good thing. If you remember a past life or have a memory fragment, then it is OK to question and try to remember more or even validate that memory.


If we believe in reincarnation, then it is a small step to realize that there is purpose in returning to this world over and over. Far more important than remembering a past life is the ability to understand that you are here once more for a reason and to live in a way that honors the gift of life. Nothing is more important than the present life - it is the now that counts.


Talking about reincarnation and spiritual matters is a way to find enlightenment for ourselves and bring clarity to our fragmented memories.

 

[Koshka]

Obviously this life is of primo importance. Yet if that were the overwhelming answer, why are we all looking?


If someone feels that those memories have some relevance to how they're supposed to live this present life- and could even have some impact, then why are they not surfacing?

 

[Ailish]

Hi Koshka,


I believe that things come into our conscious awareness when there is need for healing. We may not need to know everything about a lifetime to heal from it - sometimes acknowledging it and releasing it is enough.


Have you tried meditating from the heart center? It's a completely different experience. There are a couple of exercises in this thread you might enjoy trying. Make sure that you don't push yourself - be natural and just allow things to flow. Meditation takes practice


There is also the option to set your intention prior to dreaming - make sure you have a question set in your mind before you fall asleep. Keep a pen and paper by your bed and write down anything that comes to you upon waking. You never know what answers you may find. Make sure you are asking from the heart.


A regression is a good option, as well. Just make sure that you look for a reputable hypnotherapist in your area.


Good luck and keep us posted!


Aili

 

[soulfreindly]

I think alot more people by knowing would find more fulfillment and purpose in their life. Look at how children do remember then by age 5 I think it is . It is part of who we are but it may also be part of our development of our earthly consciousness to not rememeber until a certain time???


I do think that for those who are feeling "pinched" by that nudging feeling that they are missing some link to their inner peace, will benefit from regression work. Seeing a qualified and well intentioned regressionist would be a good way to start to begin with. Problem is it is like getting any healing treatments in our day and age it costs more than alot of people can afford. I see a time where health-- physical , emotional and spiritual will be highly thought of , unlike today where it was not long ago that people would not even tell their own best freind they had cancer{ the generation growing up in the second world war which is not too long ago. }


I would do your praying along with your ceremony of Shabbot. It sounds like you are not afraid of God underneath your reticence this life. By asking for guidance I do beleive we are opening ourselves to all that is good. I just wonder where I would be without my prayers over my anger towards God and all.


I think knowing of what happened in our past lives can reflect so much of how we percieve and react due to routine behaviours in our present. The good in us urges us on to find that direction towards taking responsibility and making the choice through love to act for the good of all. We can get bogged down in the muck of cultural/family and social paramaters. By reflecting on our history we can relive that aspect of living that makes our dysfunctional stuff become uncovered .


Koshka , have you read the book by Rabbi Gershom called Beyond the Ashes?? . Since you are drawn to being close to the holocaust it is a wonderful book that helped me put alot of closer about questioning my memories. The camp that comes to mind that had a garden was Theresienstadt where the Germans had a garden for the children to play in. THey made a movie of it and showed it to ?? { the red cross == dont know ??} so as to make it look like the concentration camps were not brutal. THere will be several pictures of it on the internet I am sure you could take a look at to see if you get any feed back .

 

[Koshka]

I don't pray in a selfless religious fashion.. when I do. It's more like a "Hey, magician in the sky. I'm curious as to why I have these longings, and I want to know more. Why aren't you telling me?" I'm not really a believer in the mysterious larger father figure thing. I wasn't even raised religiously, but I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that if I didn't believe in God, it would hurt me. I realized when I was nineteen that if there is a god, I'm not likely to be hurt or maimed by it. I find Science and reason so much more comforting than something I believe is the spiritual equivalent of a vestigial tail. Reincarnation, on the whole makes sense to me, as does Judaism. I don't know, my thoughts on god are so full of contradictions- they don't really make sense. Reincarnation has a wide basis, and a universal application. Why would something be 'crap' and 'eastern mumbo jumbo' when there are also texts on reincarnation from ancient babylonia and pre christian england? There wasn't exactly an internet, morse code or a telephone with which to spread this.


I wasn't in a camp near a garden, it was somewhere at home. I got Beyond the Ashes out from my library last summer, and being so afraid to have my father see it and ask me questions, I hid it under my pillow. I didn't get around to reading very much of it, but Rabbi Gershom's basic premise is that most holocaust victims were reincarnated sometime in the late forties or early fifties. I probably had a life in between then and now, but if i did- I don't know anything about it. I had a dream once that I had long blonde hair and died on a bicycle, and I sortof looked like Nico from the Velvet underground. It looked like the eighties.


I'm not really sure where to go with this, anymore. I analyze every dream I have that I remember... even one with cats under floorboards.

 

[stardis]

I don't know, my thoughts on god are so full of contradictions- they don't really make sense.

Just a suggestion: maybe if you could come to some sort of understanding about who or what God is, then maybe you would gain a better understanding about who you are and why you are here. I know, easier said than done - but it would be the greatest thing you can do for yourself. As someone who has gone through the same sort of angst, I can assure you that God already knows how you feel.


I also find science comforting and sensible but I have been able to incorporate the believe in God or The Creator (my favorite way of saying that) into my scientifically way of thinking about our existence. That is not an impossible task and probably a huge number of people do the same thing. Even though I don't identify with any one religious school of thought, I find some aspects of religious ritual comforting and meaningful, such as prayer and meditation. It doesn't matter if you rail at the "magician in the sky" or prayerfully ask God in a church pew for understanding about your longings for answers to your past life memories - it is all the same to God. Probably, your answers are on the way. Maybe the hardest part will be to hear the answers when they come. That is why a quiet introspective habit of meditatively listening for answers is so important. The answers may not come to you in an obvious way but, perhaps, by way of a slow parting of the curtain and you begin to gain some insight.


It is important that you are asking these questions because you have a real need to find something. People who have no questions about these things are actually quite fortunate, in my opinion, they can enjoy life in the now like we only can wish for. If you can satisfy your relationship with the Source of your creation, then you can probably enjoy life with the knowledge of why you are here, on this Earth, at this time in history. An immense understanding of your relationships and activities will begin to make sense to you, although - they may not be what you would wish for.


If I were you, I would go for long walks and continue to talk to the magician. Actually, that is what I do - my favorite place is a botanical garden when it is quiet. I have learned to trust that the answers will come in time and maybe not in the way that I expected.

I'm not really sure where to go with this, anymore. I analyze every dream I have that I remember... even one with cats under floorboards.

I used to write down everything I dreamed and would wake up to write the dream in a journal. I would ponder the meaning of the dreams and they would usually make a lot of sense to me within a few days or maybe more. Dream books never helped me at all and I only began to make sense of my dream life when I began to see that I was on a journey of spiritual discovery and began to interpret the dreams as an awakening of self - self discovering who and what I am in relation to who or what created me. If there is any theme that is concurrent in cultures everywhere, it is the theme of creation and specifically the relationship of human beings with their Creator. Sometimes though, I think dreams can just be caused by the pizza you had for supper last night - so I just pay attention to the ones that seem extraordinary and when you do that, you will probably have more of those dreams than the other, more ordinary kind.


Not trying to be "preachy" here, just my own thoughts - about myself, really - that may relate to what you are experiencing.