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compassion
October 2009 
Past Life Memories
Posted on Jul 26th, 2009
by 
1Vector3
1Vector3
Someone asked whether I have past life memories and if so, how do I know? This was my answer, thought I would share it here to see what comments get evoked!!
I have considerable and varied pastlife memories. How do I "know" they are memories? The same way I "know" my memory of breakfast is a memory. And, to some extent, since memories are subject to error, there can be errors, mistaking imaginings for memories. But generally they do feel different, to me.
Some of the memories came spontaneously, and some were "triggered" by people helping me in my spiritual growth.
The more interesting question is "What good are they? Do they benefit at all?" For me, the main benefit is that I can see how present-life issues fit a larger pattern, and that really does make the issue with its illusions easier to let go of. With 15 widely differing examples of a pattern instead of 6 from this lifetime, for example, it's easier to see the illusion involved, and harvest its wisdom by seeing the corresponding Higher Truth, thus transcending the illusion, letting it go.
Also, while some people seem to seek pride from past-life identities, for me they have generated nothing but a profound humility....
Having past-life memories also helps us break our identity with this embodiment and this mind, which helps us realize Who we Are.
Some of the memories came spontaneously, and some were "triggered" by people helping me in my spiritual growth.
The more interesting question is "What good are they? Do they benefit at all?" For me, the main benefit is that I can see how present-life issues fit a larger pattern, and that really does make the issue with its illusions easier to let go of. With 15 widely differing examples of a pattern instead of 6 from this lifetime, for example, it's easier to see the illusion involved, and harvest its wisdom by seeing the corresponding Higher Truth, thus transcending the illusion, letting it go.
Also, while some people seem to seek pride from past-life identities, for me they have generated nothing but a profound humility....
Having past-life memories also helps us break our identity with this embodiment and this mind, which helps us realize Who we Are.
It also helps us have compassion for "perpetrators," as we remember we have been on both sides, actually on ALL sides of the victim-perpetrator-rescuer triangle, so it helps us transcend those perspectives into Compassion and a clearer realization of what human life is all about, why things happen.
Access: PublicTagged with: past life memories, compassion, memory, pride, spiritual growth, development, evolution, knowing
Some of my Friends here will be unsatisfied, as I am, with the epistemological shallowness and sloppiness of the above “how do I know that I know” description, so I'll be a bit more precise for those who care.
I'd also like to sharpen this wording in the last paragraph
as we remember we have been on both sides…
to be:
as we remember being on both sides….
It also helps us have compassion for “perpetrators,” as we remember being on both sides, actually on ALL sides of the victim-perpetrator-rescuer triangle, so it helps us transcend those perspectives into Compassion and a clearer realization of what human life is all about, why things happen.
—————————
It is nontrivial to attempt to distinguish precisely among the following inner experiences that are all organized around the experience of “me-ness” but not necessarily “me” in or as my current embodiment or incarnation:
–what seem to be genuine past-life memories of “mine,” leaving aside for now the complexities of who “me” is and whether there is truly any “past”
— memories of dreams I've had in this lifetime
— memories of events I read or heard about, which were so vividly experienced vicariously that I cannot at this later time easily distinguish them from memories of “real” happenings
— memories of events in which I was “mind-melded” or identified with someone else such that I “was” that person
— memories implanted via brainwashing (this life or past lives)
— current experiences in other dimensions of “myself”
There's more to the list I can't recall right now.
I'm not even going to begin to try to explain how I might differentiate among those, because it's too lengthy, and because someone else might do it differently, and most importantly, because I don't think it's really important to know in full accuracy which exact one is the basis of “my” experience that I call a “past-life memory.” [Anyone can email me if they really want to dive in.]
To me what's most important is what I DO with the inner experience. Do I use it to expand my consciousness, to get closer to the truth of my Being, to harvest the wisdom from the illusions I discover in myself, to help others do the same, to increase Quality of Life for myself and others?
If I USE all inner experiences that way, then what does it matter the exact status or accuracy of my epistemological classification of the experience or how I got to it? If I benefit in the above ways from a story I read in a book, or from something I would say feels a lot like a past-life memory, the results are the same.
My precise view is probably a bit less dogmatic than that, but that's a fair statement of my perspective about “how do you know what it is” on these questions about the reality-status of “past lives” or “past-life memories.”
Blessings,
OM Bastet
Agreed.
I have often been asked, “How do you know that?”
My answer was to ask back, “Well, how do you know anything?”
Pause… both parties thinking about that…
Isn't it true that we just decide that something that has occurred to us is valid and thus we know it?
Isn't the bottomline that it is all made up if we care to look deeply enough?
So the criterion is subjective validity, the usefulness of what we have decided “we know” in one dimension of our existence or another.
What I intuitively have categorized as past life memories from early childhood on has been information that was extremely helpful to me. It helped me navigate… recognize, oh, I've done this before, no need to do it again. It helped me recognize my soul brothers and sisters, often in the first instant of meeting them. “Past life info”, whether accurate or not, has been an invaluable asset in keeping me focused and on track in an otherwise totally bewildering jungle of multidimensional input.
Precise measurements and definitive categories? Phhht, I don't care about those too much anymore. Simple, practical usefulness to me while navigating the jungle will do.
“It also helps us have compassion for “perpetrators,” as we remember we have been on both sides, actually on ALL sides of the victim-perpetrator-rescuer triangle, so it helps us transcend those perspectives into Compassion and a clearer realization of what human life is all about, why things happen.”
This is highly intelligent and totally on the pulse
Thankyou Tony
Mascha, thanks for your ways of describing what I wanted to say and expanding it to be even more helpful!
Thanks for stopping by, Tony, appreciate your acknowledgment!! :)
Blessings, OM