Do you believe our souls have lived other lives?

[Lisa]

I had a very interesting conversation with someone who works in an adjoining department today. She is a trained therapist who helps people who suffer from traumatic stress disorder, etc.

We started talking about our phobias and I explained to her that the only real fear I have experienced has to do with mountains and driving up into them when it is cloudy. My heart starts to palpitate and I have this overwhelming fear. I am not sure what I am fearing, I only know that I don't like the feeling. My rational side knows it isn't rational to fear such things, but the physical reaction I have to it is unbelievable. I don't consider myself claustrophobic at all. Nothing else bothers me.

Anyways...she told me that because it is a precise fear and the fact that I only react to those precise conditions that she is convinced I had a previous life experience that has caused me to carry this fear into my present day life and that I will continue to carry this fear/phobia with me until I go back in time and face what has caused this in me.

Now, I am not a big believer in such stuff but I listened because I did find the whole thing rather fascinating and intriguing. Now, I am not ready to allow anyone to help me "regress" back into a previous life and truthfully, I live in what is quite possibly the flattest land on earth and only visit the mountains every couple of years (so no need to really face anything ), but she is bringing me some literature on past life regression, etc. and I am looking forward to reading about it.

So, does anyone believe that they have lived a past life? That their soul once lived another life, or is it all a bunch of hooey?

 

[pstarr]

I don't buy into the "many lives" theories - I've studied the subject extensively but the arguements for it seem to be rather weak...

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Yes.

====
Through a Glass, Darkly
General George Patton

Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy's field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly*
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

 

[Lisa]

I don't buy into the "many lives" theories - I've studied the subject extensively but the arguements for it seem to be rather weak...

What arguements do you mean? What do you mean, studied it extensively? Please explain.

 

[Jonathan Randall]

Well, I had a supervisor once who I was convinced, at the time, was a reincarnation of Elizabeth Bathory.

Seriously, though, I don't know how you'd take your memories with you. After all, memories are made up of the structure of the brain - think of alzheimer's (degeneration of the brain that, among other things, causes memory to fail).

OTOH, ...

 

[Hand Sword]

Very interesting. Something that neither side can prove in their arguments. I say go to a hypnotist, and regress and find out for yourself.

 

[Lisa]

Very interesting. Something that neither side can prove in their arguments. I say go to a hypnotist, and regress and find out for yourself.

Nah...like I said, I live where it is very flat. The fear/phobia or whatever it is doesn't show itself very often, so I am good.

 

[Carol]

I believe in reincarnation, personally. That, at the end of my life, the cycle of births and deaths will be stopped and my soul reaches the Almighty. Or, I didn't learn enough and I'm sent back to the mortal world to try again. I hope it's the former.

I don't necessarily know that I have had past lives, or if I do, whether they were human. However my soul got here it is in my body now, and it has a path to walk. The path that I seek is one that moves forward, not back.

 

[Hand Sword]

Nah...like I said, I live where it is very flat. The fear/phobia or whatever it is doesn't show itself very often, so I am good.

Cool. Do it for fun then. Can't hurt.

 

[MA-Caver]

Recommended movie... A romantic comedy by the name of "Defending Your Life" starring Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep and Rip Torn http://imdb.com/title/tt0101698/

It's an interesting look at the idea of life after-death... plus it's a ticklish movie.
Here are some quotes from it...

Julia: [explaining how she died] We went to visit some friends for the weekend. Everybody wanted to go into town, but I wanted to stay at the house and go swimming. So I went outside, tripped over the chaise lounge, hit my head on the cement and rolled into the pool.
Daniel Miller: What did the East German judge give you?

Daniel Miller: Is this Heaven?
Bob Diamond: No, it isn't Heaven.
Daniel Miller: Is it Hell?
Bob Diamond: Nope, it isn't Hell either. Actually, there is no Hell. Although I hear Los Angeles is getting pretty close.

The movie is basically about living your life and dying and then moving on if you qualify... if you qualify your brain power increases among other things...
Bob Diamond: For example, I use forty-eight percent of my brain. Do you know how much you use?
Daniel Miller: Forty... seven?
Bob Diamond: [laughs] Three.

A good movie... three shruikens... check it out.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Not afraid of death....just poodles for some reason.

 

[Hand Sword]

Regular or miniature?

 

[Blindside]

I don't believe in a soul, so no, but thanks to this thread I've got an old Indigo Girls song stuck in my head....

Galileo
Galileo's head was on the block
the crime was looking up for truth
and as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth

And then you had to bring up reincarnation
over a couple of beers the other night
and now I'm serving time for mistakes
made by another in another lifetime

How long till my soul gets it right
can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of galileo
king of night vision, king of insight

And then I think about my fear of motion
which I never could explain
some other fool across the ocean years ago
must have crashed his little airplane

How long till my soul gets it right
can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of galileo
king of night vision, king of insight

I'm not making a joke, you know me
I take everything so seriously
if we wait for the time till all souls get it right
then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihilation
in my lifetime I'm still not right

I offer thanks to those before me
that's all I've got to say
'cause maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime
now I have to pay
but then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
to let the next life off the hook
but she'll say "look what I had to overcome from my last life
I think I'll write a book"

How long till my soul gets it right
can any human being ever reach the highest light
except for Galileo God rest his soul
(except for the resting soul of Galileo)
king of night vision, king of insight

How long
(till my soul gets it right)
[til we reach the highest light]
how long
(till my soul gets it right)
[til we reach the highest light]
how long

 

[Flatlander]

I think that if there is a connection to an event that has occurred, it doesn't necessarily follow that it was in the past, nor that there is any continuity between it and "I", or "you", per se....

 

[pstarr]

What arguements do you mean? What do you mean, studied it extensively? Please explain.

For instance, the idea that one must keep going through the cycle of birth and death to work off the bad karms that has been accumulated and so forth- such an argument is illogical.

I mean, if you're not consciously aware that you've accumulated this "bad karma" how can you really put forth any genuine effort into ridding yourself of it? It's rather like punishing a dog a week after he piddled on the floor. He has no memory of what he did and doesn't understand why he's being punished...

 

[Kensai]

How would certain scientific arguments about time not necessarily being a linear event, but a figure 8 influence this topic? Could that have any affect on people experiencing de ja vue, past life regression, the feeling of having "been here/somewhere before"? Who knows. Just thought I'd chuck that in.

 

[MartialIntent]

So, does anyone believe that they have lived a past life? That their soul once lived another life, or is it all a bunch of hooey?

Lisa, this is interesting. Personally I don't believe I've been around before though I don't entirely support the idea that we're nothing more than lumps of bone and gristle walking around either. Naturally I have no evidence for that, but one thing that always puzzles me - in the same vein as what your therapist friend was discussing - is deja vu which I'd have fairly frequently. And of course, that being a phenomenon that would seem to have no physiological explanation. Your phobia situation is unusual but then phobias generally do defy rationality. I wonder does anyone else in your family have the same? I ask because I am an adoptee, having been reunited with my birth mother a few years back. And having not known her for the 28 years previous it was a little uncanny amongst all the revelations that she and I shared the same peculiar phobia.

Of course if we've no recall of past lives at all, that maybe doesn't bode well for supporters of reincarnation. I've always thought, what's the point of being reincarnated for the sake of karmic levelling if we don't consciously know we're reincarnated? The question is, if you *did* come back again, would you want to come back as yourself?

Respects!

 

[Drac]

Could that have any affect on people experiencing de ja vue, past life regression, the feeling of having "been here/somewhere before"? Who knows. Just thought I'd chuck that in.

Ya beat me to Kensai..This has happened too many times to me..

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

I believe it's entirely possible that I (we) have been here before. I have countless experiences of deja vu and, in a more defining sense, experiences where I've met someone and discover the feeling that I've known them forever. Although, science has provided some explanation for this type of events, it seems reincarnation is a much simpler answer.

 

[Kensai]

Ya beat me to Kensai..This has happened too many times to me..

Likewise mate, likewise. :asian: