Has anyone every experienced this? I have been torturing myself as of recent with the idea of karma and past lives. I have a very superficial understanding of karma because I am just beginning to skim the surface of exploration of Buddhism, but my thoughts are filled with question like "Well, what if I was a terrible person in my last life? I can't be held responsible for those mistakes! Why do my faults and sins have to carry over?" I just feel like I have a tremendous pile of bad things I've done in the past and it seems insurmountable. I constantly have a base level of anxiety and I can't seem to shake it so I am considering regression and past life regression. If I have repressed memories in this life times or from past lives, I want them exposed and brought to the surface so I can deal with them and move on with my life. So yeah, anyone believe in regression therapy or have any experience with it, be it good or bad???
You've just explained to yourself why past lives need to remain hidden from you. This veil fails automatically as you mature spiritually. By the time it does, nothing much will surprise or worry you anymore. When you force a peep through the veil, you're allowing an intrusion into your present life. I would think that you have enough to worry about with the one life, yes? It does nothing for your spiritual progression or your mental health to know of these past lives. You run a risk of unbalancing your mind, or at the very least, fixating on a past life at the exclusion of your present one. Let it be. Allow it to occur naturally. x
the Veil of Forgetfulness exists to preserve Free Will. the Universe decided that without the potential of confusion, experience as we know it couldn't exist. thats just the nature of Free Will, it's supposed to teach us the concept of trusting your higher self.
But i'm fearful that I am fixated on a past life that now only exists in the subconscious, that something traumatic or at least significant happened and I can't remember it because it is buried behind this vail. Wouldn't uprooting it solve the problem? I can't see how doing this would have negative consequences, please explain more!
What are your thoughts on regressional therapy in this lifetime? I have an acheing fear that is probably just anxiety but I think sometimes that I was acused as a young child and have just blocked it out. Bringing these things to the surface causes anxiety at first, but once you work through everything, you feel a lot better.
The key to awareness, is to exist in the present moment only. The mind is not engaged in the present moment. There is no remembering the past. There is no anticipation of the future. Yet, there is still awareness. The mind is parked in neutral and the engine is running, but there is no movement of thought. When you have honed this ability within yourself, past lives have little value. You'll let them go as you steady yourself in the present moment. What you do in the present moment, will affect the direction of your future. The past can only have value as a reference library at this point. Don't live at the library, just visit. x
I have such difficulty staying in the moment though. I meditate and try to stay present but my thoughts are constantly flooded with what if thinking of the past and future. Do you have any instruction on how to stay more present in every moment? Thank for for the help, xexon!
You need to learn how to focus attention. Sitting in a dark room and staring at a candle is a good practice. I prefer silence to music. Use earplugs only if you need to. The idea is to still input from the senses till only calm awareness is present. The eye of the storm. Of course practice makes perfect. x
Hi Stella - Personally, I think that it is highly likely that if you've lived several lives on planet earth it would be very exceptional if you hadn't at some past time experienced trauma. I've had some limited experience in this area, both concerning myself and others. What I'd say is that you probably won't be able to recover any detailed memory of past lives, but you might be able to find out what kind of trauma you experienced, if you did in fact experience trauma in a past life. An example of what I mean - an aquaintance of mine had some spiritual healing sessions and as a result began to have memories of falling from a great height. To him this was a very concrete memory, although of course, without context. After some time had elapsed, he conluded that in a past life he had been involved in some way with the early phases of aviation, and had met his end by falling from either an aeroplane or balloon. That actually led to the cesation of the falling memeories, and also to a general improvement in his overall state. Is it actually that he did experienc this in his past life? Or is it some kind of mechanism in the mind to deal in a symbolic way with some trauma experienced in this life? I don't think it's possible to say for certain. One thing to consider carefully is the question of whether this does come from a past life, or is some early childhood memory which has become supressed. That can sometimes be the case. The mind and imagination are very good at creating scenarios which explain these things - and sometimes that can actually be just a way of avoiding having to look at the real truth, which can seem too painful to contemplate. However, this is complex, because it can happen that trauma experienced in this present life can in some sense be connected to trauma experienced in a previous existence. On a more general level, it is said that we are born with what are known in Indian philosophy as samskaras. These are elements of our being which derive from previous existences. What this means is that our present personality is actually built around the soul's past experience. We get the birth we get because that in some way gives the opportunity for us to address these issues. Of course, it works both ways. If for instance you'd been a yogi in a past life, you might find that you just had a kind of natural capacity for yoga. The thing is though that we can't really know for absolute certain about the detail of our past lives. What we can recover is only stuff of a general nature. My advice would be to consult a spiritual healer on this. Even if you are wrong, and your problem comes only from this life, you might be able to get to the bottom of it.
