This may be a rather personal subject, but I'm curious if anyone has memories or impressions from previous lifetimes that they care to share?

I've had some odd dreams about myself in historical settings in other bodies that make me wonder. One was as a man in what seemed to be an early American setting in wilderness (complete with wife), another in some tropical place as a dark skinned woman. I had no sense of myself as this personality I have in this lifetime; I was simply the person I appeared to be.

I had a past life regression once and images of another life came through. Whether true or a story my mind came up with, who knows. In that life I died of pneumonia, I was a woman, it appeared to be a town in the west sometime in the 1800s. I was a spinster running a boarding house.

A psychic once told me that I am still operating out of a sense of guilt for abusing my authority as a military leader in a past life, and punishing myself unconsciously for it.

Again, who knows?

I've read a lot of material on past life regression and research, and some of it is very convincing.

Your question takes for granted that metempsychosis is a reality. I am personally doubtful about that.

Well, I am sure I was a hippie living in San Francisco. I have always loved Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and other hippie music too.

One thing I always found very funny about people's past life stories is that 99% is about having been a king, a priest (usually in Egypt), a healer or a famous revolutionary man. I never met anyone yet who would have told me, "In my past life I was a book-keeper, an ordinary person, nothing special." Also very interesting how many people declare that they have been the same celeb in their previous life. There is a very famous Hungarian poet and patriot, called Sandor Petofi. I have heard of at least 5 persons who claim to have been him in their previous lives.

No, that's this lifetime.

I have a series of books about between life regressions and so far none of them have been famous people, just ordinary folks. But I doubt that they go around telling stories about it--they are rendered anonymous in the book, written by the hypnotherapist.

http://www.spiritualregression.org/lifebet...s/aboutlbl.html

Just wait until I tell you who I was in my previous life.

Jesus Christ?

Come on Prowboo, Jesus was only in dasya-rasa as we all know, don't offend me with this assumption.

My mother always thought she was a German who died during WWII. She converted to Judaism in part because of German guilt (she is part German as well). My mom believes in reincarnation because she just wants to keep coming back to earth. She thinks heaven or nirvana or the Spiritual Sky is boring.

(this part may be best moved to another thread)
I don't believe in reincarnation at present, but when I did, the person I thought I could have been was Dion Fortune, a British occultist - probably because I look a bit like her. I never had any dreams of past life, but I often and too frequently dream about future events that come to pass. The sense of deja vu when the events come to pass - often years after the dream - is one of the things that convinces me that there is more to this life here and now.

In my tradition, reincarnation was rejected - largely because it was taught in very impersonal terms. The famous Christian teacher Origen taught that we were all originally part of an impersonal Brahman and fell from this state because of the desire for individuality. We would reincarnate until we reached the Brahman again. But again, because of the desire for individuality, the cycle would repeat over and over again. So basically the Orthodox Church had the same objection to Origen that the personalists had with Shankaracharya (who lived centuries after Origen). In such a scenario, there was no such thing as eternal liberation because impersonal existence was essentially unsatisfying. Furthermore, the believe in the resurrection implies that there is personal existence and relationship in the Spiritual world. Unlike Prostestant Christianity, we do not believe that we are going to be resurrected with these same material bodies and live here on earth with Christ reigning for 1,000 years in some type of perfect material world. We believe that the new heaven and earth are outside of this earth - and like the Vaishnava Spiritual Sky, the new place is self illuminated - having no need of a sun, for instance.

Orthodox Christianity sees human life as progressing through three stages:
1. a material body - life here on earth,
2. a subtle body - life after death of the material body - generally either in a heavenly paradise (paradise is distinct from heaven) or hellish place (hades - which is distinct from hell),
3. a spiritual body (resurrection) - either in eternal heaven which is personal or swallowed up by the effulgence of God (hell) - also referred to as "the Lake of Fire." I find it interesting that impersonal "liberation" is called hell. The Orthodox Church does not consider this to be salvation at all, because salvation implies wholeness - which further implies personal spiritual body in loving relationship with the Supreme.

We teach that spiritual advancement or degradation can take place in the first 2 stages, although advancement in the second stage is far more difficult. The third stage takes comes at the end of this material world.

Christ went through these three stages: life on earth, the three day journey to hades to liberate the souls and the resurrection to a spiritual body. At the core of Orthodox Christian belief, is the belief that the third stage was only attainable after Christ paved the path for it. The fall of Adam (representing the human race) from his original immature spiritual body that resided in paradise, prevented humanity from reaching this third possibility until human nature was "refashioned" by Christ.

Some, but not all Orthodox also teach that there is a battle between angels and demons for a person's soul after death - very similar to the idea of Vishnudutas and Yamadutas in GV. Additionally, the demons supposedly temp the soul with all kinds of material temptations as the soul tries to ascend to paradise. This was also taught in GV.

Personally, I'm not sure, nor am I doubtful. Perhaps I should have put this in the miscellaneous section.

The concept has certainly been capitalized upon the last few years in the US. ACBS made a comment one time that such things are known by liberated individuals. I don't doubt that such things are possible.

This doesn't deny Angrezi's premise but amplifies it. Because we are all bits of the One Blob, much like a lava lamp that many of us may have used as a meditational device while cultivating the full spiritual benefits of the Sacred Herb. With us being that One Blob in the lava lamp, as it heats up with the action of the Light, bits of pieces break off from one and join other ones in what is an endless flow of union and division.

And so it is that bits of blobs who came together to manifest as one personality divide after they are that person and join other bits of blobs to become other personalities.

And so we sing, "I am you and you are me and we are all together"

In my own past life regression of being the Continental Army's commanding general in its battle against England for indepenpendence and after the war, to become the new nation's first President in the person of George Washington, I have no problem with the countless other people out there also claiming to be me. We all had a great time when we were me. Its all good. And too, I still get funny sensations in my mouth that is left over when I used to have wooden teeth.

I also was with a woman of whom it turned out she was JFK in a previous lifetime. Sex was great. "Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country." "I am a donut (berliner)." Later on it turned out that in another lifetime she was my mom. Sex was great when she was JFK but I just couldn't get into having sex with my mom and so I broke of the relationship.

What is a lava lamp? I have difficulties with imagining such a concept. I know what the two separately mean, but together?

Everything is true. One does though have choice in picking and choosing from all that is true, what is to be one's trip.

google.com is a lava lamp website. Just go there and type in lava lamp and they'll provide info on many sites that will inform you of everything you ever wanted to know about lava lamps.

I think I mentioned on GD that I have in fact met Jesus Christ in front of the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. I had no reason to believe he wasn't, or at least that he didn't think he was Jesus.

I was unfortunately likely a nobody in my previous life, so even if it is a mental fabrication I'm not missing out on much, at any rate.

Actually I have no memories of any past lives. There was one time, when during a particular meditation some pictures appeared that I felt comig from my past life. They were nothing extraordinary. However, when these pictures appeared, I spontaneously started to cry, without any logical reason. (The meditation I was doing had nothing to do with regression, it was a mantra/visualization practice for purifying bad karmas.)

This is just so unfair. It is more than enough for me to cope with the fact that Winona Ryder and Uma Thurman live in the US so most likely I will never meet them face to face, and now you make me realize that Jesus is also in America. I guess I should make strong wishes to take birth in the US next time.

Alright... the soul in the body you met could have been the same soul that once was incarnated as Jesus Christ? Well...it is possible. But there are many persons like that...and they can hardly all have been Jesus Christ.

Its possible that there are many people walking around who were once all Jesus Christ. I explained that in my "lava lamp" post.

No, that is not possible.

By the way, Elvis is still alive and well here too. He is occasionally sighted drinking coffee and eating donuts in a small town in Tennessee.

Too bad he doesn´t make any recordings anymore.

I was in a period of estrangement from religion when my wife and I married 26 years ago, but was very familiar with concepts of reincarnation and so on, mainly from my association with ISKCON nine years earlier. She vaguely knew that I was interested in eastern spirituality but had little knowledge of it herself, and we really didn't discuss it at all in those days, since our big priorities were definitely on the material side. Very late one night we were talking about dreams in general and she told me about this dream she had several times as a child of 5 or 6 years. In her dream, she was a knight in the midst of a furiously violent medieval battle, with the men who were fighting yelling in a guttural-sounding language, like German or Russian. The dream always ended when she was killed by a sword blow and she would wake up terrified. That started up a discussion on reincarnation when I suggested it might be a past life memory. She was very open to the idea, and I gradually told her about my past association with ISKCON. We visited the temple in our city and that rekindled my spark of bhakti . She was intrigued and it started a genuine interest in Indian spirituality for her, but she distrusted the post-Prabhupada guru system from the beginning. She didn't go further with ISKCON than an appreciation for the philosophy in general, good relationships with the devotees who became my friends in my "second time around", and a definite liking for well-prepared prasadam.

Did your wife ever go any further trying to determine what that strange dream could mean?

One doesn't have to believe in past lives to see such striking recurrent dreams as significant.

I've been having a couple of extremely lucid dreams recently.

I was an 'Antichrist' being persecuted by Cristian fanatics. Thinking to myself: "How little do they understand. I just don't agree with God and chose to rebel against Him for the sake of humanity".

Some other interesting scenes were included, like fanatics attacking me with swords. But all the wounds inflicted were healing immediately. I was also set on fire, which didn't affect me at all.

Now I hope it's not an indication of past or previous life However it would be interesting to know what it means. I have my theories. However would be interested in hearing some expert opinions

there is a scientific explanation for these dreams you people are having... don't fall asleep with the t.v. on

She never has tried further interpretation of this particular dream, even though we recount dreams to each other all the time and try to figure them out.

The reasons that I thought that these dreams might relate to a past life were:

-They occurred at such an early age.

-The same dream recurred several times within a one or two year period.

-A language unknown to her as a child but identifiable later in life was being spoken in them...I asked her again and she thinks it was German.

-She described the dreams as very short and extremely realistic.

-She had not previously seen any movies or TV shows which involved events similar to those in the dreams.

-She was an adult man in the dreams, and speaking the same language as the others in the battle.

This dream does seem unusual in several ways. And I think it was a wise decision your wife made, not to pursue this any further. Ultimately there is no proof of what such a dream "really" can be. Sometimes the danger is of us getting so invested in a particular interpretation that we lose our own access to the original experience. After all, regardless of whether we live many times or not, and regardless of whether this dream was from a previous life or not -- it still has influenced the dreamer in this life, it meant something for her, it did something to her sense of identity.

There was a thread on the Cauldron related to this very issue, with a couple of interesting accounts of past life dreams or memories. Here's one from that topic:

http://www.ecauldron.net/index.php?webtag=...DRON&msg=8282.4

All I know is that we are meant to live this life on its own terms, even if we were someone else previously. In the same way that dwelling on this life's past keeps one from being fully present in the moment, spending too much time preoccupied with previous lives would also be a bad idea. The dreams and things I've had about possible past lives are interesting, sure, but they have little to do with what's going on with me now, and that's what I need to focus on.

Nor do I want a future "me" dwelling on heart disease or my current son's head injury. Done is done. "I" have to let it go and get on with life. If I can learn something now or in the future from my experience, great, but that's as far as it should go.

There was some twilight zone episode about a world where everyone did remember their past lives and were totally caught up in old grievances and pain from past life injuries, etc., and they seek a woman from our world who helps people remember past lives and bring her there to help THEM forget! It was a pretty cool episode.

Thanks for the good comments and observations.

My wife and I look at dreams a subconscious-indicative mirror of what's in our heads on the conscious level...the symbolism, especially with her, is incredible and can range from humorous to downright frightening.

I've never had a dream that pointed toward a past life, and the one I described is the only one of that character that my wife has ever had. Another reason I take that particular dream as being non-ordinary is that she is unusually psychic-natured.

A spiritual premise that I learned through ISKCON: Getting caught up with what details of one "was" in past lives is pointless...the Shirley MacLaine syndrome. I heard a very big guru make the observation that what is presently hindering a person's spiritual advancement is what hindered it in past lives, and that's what is important to be aware of.

I've read that the best way to guess at recent past lives is to closely examine every aspect of one's present self, and construct a model from that.

Tapati, I'll ask my wife about that particular Twilight Zone episode. She was always a big fan and probably remembers it.

I think it was the "new" twilight zone rather than the black and white original.

There are Twilight Zone fanatics with webpages who track every detail about every Twilight Episode in existence old and new and you can no doubt track it there.

I remember ages ago I saw one episode of the new Twilight Zone having to do with these special shoes it was the best thing ever. I don't even remember what it was about anymore except that it haunts me still today. I don't know why people here are so into Star Trek and Lord of the Rings, it is all about The Twilight Zone.

Well said.

The same goes for astrology. Why the obsession about the future? It seems far more sensible to deal with the present in a focused way rather than try and have someone look at the stars and tell you how to live your life.

There are so many who are willing to ‘help’ other souls according to what they have read and believe without the slightest bit of substantiation; and there are so many willing to be told how to live and what to think rather than to take personal responsibility for their own life and to take-it-as-it-comes.

Another reason why I shy away from seeking the ‘truth’ by decoding ink on paper.

Was it this?

Elaine Matlock
Episode 1.21 of The New Twilight Zone


Maddie Duncan, a mousy clerk at a thrift shop opens a box to reveal a pair of expensive black shoes. She takes them into the back room and looks down at them in wonder. She tries them on. Her posture immediately changes and she strides out of the shop and her job with a newly confident air. She takes a taxi to an exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood. Along with the shoes, Maddie has acquired the personality of the previous owner, Susan Montgomery, a wealthy socialite murdered a month earlier by her husband. Susan has returned for revenge.

In this half hour episode of The New Twilight Zone, Helen Mirren is excellent in both roles creating two distinct personalities: Maddie, meek and mild, afraid of her own shadow and the chic, seductive and confident Susan. Body language, posture and change of vocal tone are used effectively to differentiate the two characters. Mirren is always interesting to watch even in small doses. She doesn't disappoint here.

Or the original series episode Dead Man's Shoes:

Nathan Edward Bledsoe, of the Bowery Bledsoes, a man once, a spectre now. One of those myriad modern-day ghosts that haunt the [] nights of the city in search of a flop, a hand-out, a glass of forgetfulness. Nate doesn't know it yet but his search is about to end. Those shiny new shoes are going to carry him right into the capital of the twilight zone.

The one I was talking about:

Originally aired: Saturday October 29, 1988 on CBS
Writer: Bob Underwood
Director: Richard Bugajski
Show Stars: Charles Aidman (Narrator (1985-1987)), Robin Ward (Narrator (1987-1989))
All Guest Stars: Barbara Stock (Mary McNeil), Alan Rosenthal (man), Lucy Filippone (woman), Deidre Flanagan (Mrs. Vivencore), Judy Sinclair (Mrs. Loraine Gustin), James Kidnie (vigilante), Nigel Bennett (Jim Sinclair)
Production Code: 72

A hypnotist who specializes in helping people relive their past lives tries to find her own history. She hypnotizes herself and when she awakens, she learns that everyone can now remember their past lives. They also desperately want to forget them.

haha I see you have been browsing the Twilight Zone webpages of the obsessed fans. I have read all of those pages. Good times!


good writing!

I am not sure what it was, I was probably 10. It is probably the first one from the neo-Twilight Zone. The description makes it sound so bad but it is really spooky!

I have a little bit different approach to the whole thing. Instead of going to a psychic which will tell me all kind of far out stories, I kind of extrapolate based on myself, my own thoughts and intospections and go back from where it could have come from.

There was in the 19:th cenury, in India. South India, as far as I understand. There was a reasonable wealthy businessman, and he had 7 (or 8) sons, and one daughter. That business man had the normal dream of power of a vaisya, and wanted to be a brahmana and guru. So he took birth in the west, and became a guru in the ISKCON movement, bringing all his sons, and his daughter, with him as his nearest disciples. Those disciples later betrayed him, but that is another story.

That's the external story. I was the daughter. HKS felt that quite strongly, and always protected me like that, and I saw him as my father (not my guru). He always tried to marry me away, but somehow or other it never worked out. The important point was that I could see how all the sons got education, how they got their own households, and how they also got spiritual education, but I, as a woman in India, could not take part in any of that. Men were only interested in me because of my beauty, and not my brains and abilities, although I probably was as intelligent as my brothers, although not in business. In India, a daughter has less value than a son, and particularly, as my father saw money and status as a success, I always felt that I was a failure in his eyes. (actually, I could feel it even in this) I really wanted to be someone else, somewhere else. I could also see the british ladies, visiting India, and was so impressed by the possiblities they had, and their freedom. I felt completely trapped in a social system that just wanted to strangle me.

So, in this life, I took birth in a family, that practically have no family relations, and in a country where you are very free to persue your own plans. I kind of was destined to take up the spiritual training that I so much coveted before, and become a disciple of a guru that was my previous father. And I really wanted to show him that I could do as good as his sons.

My ISKCON time came to a very sharp end, and it was about the same time that my guru/father said - you have proved that you can be as good, no actually better (as your brothers, as the men)! At that point, the whole thing just fell apart for me, and I am again back of persuing my own path.

This also puts ISKCON into a different perspective. The pure nitya-siddha devotees, just turns out to be Indians/hindus with ambitions. Birds of a feather flock together, so you can probably find similar stories for the other gurus.

HKS knew that his leading disciples was his sons from a previous life pretty early. I knew of my part not until it was all over. Maybe that is as it goes.

As far as religion goes, I was not into Vaisnavism before. I don't know how it came about. Maybe as the mercy of a Vaisnava, who was also my love. My husband was a rascal, and I just spit on his memory, if I have any.

that story is pretty far out too I have to ask Harikesh about it, because it has his name all over it. yet, I'm not discounting it as a mere tall tale. it has a true ring to it. thanks for sharing it, Prisni. I was in Korsnas in 1980 and 1981, perhaps we have even met.

anyway... even if the story is true, perhaps Krishna just used Prabhupada, whatever his initial motives might have been, in His master plan? after all, we are all just His servants. the way we understand pure devotees lives is often very simplistic.

Part of the story comes from him. But if he confirms or denies it today, I don't know. He, as many others, might want to leave the past behind, and not speak about it. And then, some thing he just might want to forget. Unless you are a personal friend of him, you might just get the official story. I would not bother him with such stuff.

That's the picture. Here we have a person with some certain desires, and some certain abilities. Krishna (God) empowers that person to make his plans a success, at the same time as fulfilling Krishna's plan. It is pretty easy to get empowered like that.

To analyse Prabhupada is not that easy. He definitively had his influences, from Gandhi and other contemporaries in India, but that does not hinder him from also fulfilling Krishna's plans. We know from SB, in the story of Praladha Maharaja, that even someone might be considered a very advanced spiritual person, Visnu still fulfill the individual desires of that person, even though they might be "material".

An old friend of mine from Cleveland has a couple daughters, and I remember a story he told me from when his first was still very young, maybe 3 or 4 years old.

He was holding her in his lap and rocking her when suddenly she looked back at him and said, "Remember when I used to do this to you?"

zvs, I just said I wasn't going to do this, which is usually a sure sign I'm about to do this.

Only real contact I've had with this idea, well two times really, (here we go):

I was once having some body work done with one of them deep-tissue massage artists. He was unknotting my knots, and I was just silent, face down, and he was digging around in my shoulders and, he said why was I being so quiet, I was obviously feeling something. He wanted me tell him what if any images I was getting as he was messing with my body. So, I just went with it, and I said I was some sort of Samurai dude, that I could see that with my eyes closed, and that I had received a wound to my shoulder, and that it was some fight about a woman. That I had gotten into a fight, not an honorable one, that I had used my talent somehow wrongly, and received this wound, deeply.

Well of course the guy who was giving me this deep-tissue massage says 'well that accounts for all this bunched up energy you've got, I mean these images don't just come from no where ye know.' I felt uncomfortable, and sad, thinking about misuse of fighting and strength know-how. And that I often get into trouble about loving affiliations.

But ye know, it could've just been me getting drowsy and giving vent to some will o' the wisp fantasy, buried down in cellular memory?: who knows. It was interesting.

I have met a man, who from his very first words to me, I felt as if I were turning to say, 'What took you so long?'. I don't know or care whether it was from a past life or not, but the idea did occur to me. There was a tremendous amount of beneficent energy between us, and, well. There were so many points of extremely warm and funny fellow feeling, that those around us said jokingly 'get a room'. It is a moot point now, since he died suddenly of a heart-attack. That death, his death, more than any other death, even of my mother and father, or contemporaries, changed my life, and my understandings. I mention it because of the feeling of recognition, which was sadly beautiful, and not open to doubt, in my book. I think we interpret these happenings in the way to which we are accustomed, and clothe their meaning in the way we have, owing to our personal history and vocabulary that we use to ourselves. This very subject could be completely foreign or distasteful to some. I trust my intuition, but the way I talk about it changes. Capiche?