Past Lives

[Ankh]

While I am endlessly fascinated with the entire narrative of the American Revolution, battles included, what really draws me is the foundational ideals that were driving the American forces.

Of course it was a mixed bag, with STS energies and intentions on both sides of the conflict, but in that mix were ideals, however imperfectly realized and applied, regarding the equality of all peoples, their right to self-governance and freedom, etc. And so much of that particular conflict of ideas regarding the nature of things was fought with the pen. : )

I think that most generals or other people leading other people, being in higher/est positions, are leading based upon their ideas, visions, and by pen. By various reasons, these people, are not the ones you would throw in the middle of the battle. But I don't know. It was just an idea that popped up into my head, when reading your initial post.

Monica, thank you for your reply. It certainly brought me understandings that I haven't thought of before, and different angles of viewing.

where orders are to be followed, and never questioned. All my childhood was spent in atheism. Would you mind to give some hints about what to look for, when examining that?

When children are taught to blindly follow orders from 'authority' figures, without ever questioning, that is STS programming, and it can leave a very deep imprint.

Thank you for offering your view upon this subject. I just quote the above part, but liked your whole thought on this. Personally I don't feel that "authority" imprinting applies to me though, in terms of searching and/or having a need to have an authority to look up to. I've seen examples of that in my life when looking back, and see that when such situations happen, I back off instead of either fighting these people, or subjecting myself into that order. Of course I react when there is an obivious abuse of power, but not more than a normal human being would react I'd guess.

Your other point was:

My point is that too much certainty can be just as much of an imbalance as too much doubt.

My belief is that most of our memories are distorted in some way or other. Not all of them though! I also believe that this doubt has its grounding in its original doubt, which is doubt of self. But as you, I believe that it serves a very good purpose, that of discernment.

What do you mean by original doubt and doubt of self?

My upbringing was such that the first part of the childhood was spent in accepting and extremely loving environment. It was colored by service to others. That, in my belief, was a foundation that made a firm ground for what came later. The second part was spent in service to self environment, as I said. I learned a lot of things in that environment. The most difficult lesson perhaps is that in service to self environment you do not doubt yourself. If you are in the position where you have power over others, you act based upon a very firm, strong, powerful foundation that whatever you believe and think is right, is right. And you try to manipulate and/or control your surroundings and environment based on what you think and believe is right. You do not allow others to question you. In that environment there is of course no room for doubting the self. If you are not in the position of power, you subject yourself to this out of necessity, but try to free yourself as much as possible, in order to do what *you* (general "you", not personal "you") think is right. No matter position, you do not doubt yourself. Ever. I don't think that I learned this lesson.

I liked your point that there has to be balance. Too much certainity and/or too much doubt is an imbalance. I doubt things. I question stuff. But what I think is that this need to question and doubt things, originates from, is the initial doubt, where it all begins so to speak, and that is the doubt of the self.

Yes, but at the same time, I also believe that many past life memories really are past life memories. We know that we've lived past lives. So if we remember them, there's no reason to doubt whether they're real or just symbolic. This is a case where I see no reason to doubt them.

Yeah, I've had that thought too. Like: "We've had gazillions of lives, why imagine something that didn't happen, when there is so much material to choose between of stuff that *did* happen." And still I tend to do that too much anyway. As you said, too much doubt is not healthy. On the other hand, if I would believe myself to have been Cleopatra, I think that some doubt in that case is healthy. j/k

It depends on how you define I.

Each personality is but a fragment of our whole self. It is the whole self who remembers the past lives. So when I remembered being in a dungeon, it was ME. Not someone else.

I still remember the agonized wailing...the despair. Those emotions were very raw. They haunted me my entire childhood. That was me who experienced that.

Being told by a psychic that I was a merchant in Venice, for example, evokes no such emotion. Since I have no emotional connection with that person, then it might as well be an other-self.

It is the memories I retrieve myself that are meaningful to me. It's like retrieving parts of myself that were lost, and reintegrating them back into the whole.

The memories aren't even what's important. The healing is what's important. Memories aren't likely to surface unless there is healing to be done.

Thank you for offering this. I understand how you mean, and it certainly added to my understanding.

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Hi Ankh,

I see what your are saying. I think it has to do with yourbody, and your identity with your body and your past physical bodies. Since they are finite and die and they are unique and special. Now your body is intimately connected with Gaia's body, but if you are a wanderer from another planet, you past body is connected to that planet. So on the planetary scale you may feel a sense of disconnection since you were part of a different planetary body.

So while here, your identity is tied in with Gaia, and your body is part of Gaia's body. But in the past your connection with Gaia was on a much vaster scale, not so intimately connected, and if you were/are not aware or experiencing the whole of creation, then maybe that is why you feel doubt. Because the intimate planetary connection in that past life was not Gaia.

Thanks, sweety! I have not thought like that before! :idea: It explains *so* much stuff...

(I *love* this place!) =)