Past Lives

[Brittany]

I recently got a past life reading. Overall I felt the information given was rather shallow and generic, but there was enough of a pattern within it for me to seriously contemplate upon the issue and bring out more solid information.

If this information is valid at all, it seems I have been trapped in a cycle of persecuting others in the name of religious fanaticism, then being victimized by similar fanatics in an attempt to work off the karma.

The cycle seems to have started in Peru in the time of the Incas. I was a priest who offered human sacrifices to the gods in order to ensure favorable conditions for my people. I wasn't fond of the work, but felt that it was necessary and for the greater good, and therefore had little empathy for my victims. In the life immediately following that one, I myself had my heart ripped from my chest as a human sacrifice.

Later I was a part of the Spanish Inquisition and tortured many people into confession, truly believing that doing so was saving their soul. The things I did were unspeakable, and I did them all through an utter devotion to "God". In the next life I was tortured to death for being labeled a heretic.

Several times I was an assassin, the most notable instance being in feudal Japan, where I was one of the emperor's personal assassins. I saw the emperor as God, and therefore once again killed in the name of my god. Whereas most times I had simply been acting out of a sense of duty, I began to enjoy the cruelty. I was often charged to interrogate my targets before killing them, and would also interrogate prisoners. This is where my underlying streak of sadism first took root, and I strongly feel that the masochism that followed it was an attempt to balance what I saw as a grave personality flaw. Needless to say, I was assassinated several times myself.

Later I was a Scotsman who specialized in poisons. I would poison select members of other clans to ensure my clan's superiority. I felt that I was protecting my own people, but I seem to have strayed into a very morally gray area at that point. The poison caused excruciating abdominal cramps, weakness and convulsions before ultimately killing most of its victims, and all of these physical symptoms have manifested in my current incarnation.

As far as I can tell I've been going at this cycle for hundreds of years, and doing so has left me with deep spiritual scars, as I have both inflicted and received a great deal of pain. I have constantly felt that receiving a punishment similar to the crimes I committed would be enough to cleanse my soul, yet the fact that the cycle has persisted this long shows that true self-forgiveness was never obtained.

Another thing to contemplate is my propensity toward fanaticism. Being a passionate person who loves to fight for a cause seems to be a deeply imbedded trait within my consciousness. Each time I took up a crusade, it was to cleanse the world of evil, to serve my fellow man by doing the ugly acts that no one else wanted to undertake. In a way I felt that I was sacrificing myself- tainting my own soul in order to save the souls of others. In some ways this gave me a distinct sense of self-righteousness, though the guilt would always eventually catch up to and overcome me.

I feel that I chose to take on near unbearable challenges in this life in an attempt to completely eradicate my karma, as the time is obviously nigh. However, now I seek to truly end this cycle through understanding and forgiveness. I no longer feel the need to wipe evil from the world, and I no longer feel the need to suffer for crimes I can't even remember. I just want to forgive myself, forgive everyone who harmed me, and finally step off this merry-go-round.