@Caterpillar I think Napoleon struck twice. LOL

This is a terrific site…glad I got here.

Meanwhile, ummm, I have some FABULOUS news! According to my guides and angels, my ex-husband WAS Napoleon. They have consistently said he was. He’s very short.

We won’t mention the fact that my full name is JOSEPHINE, will we?

All the best!

With first awakening, there is a sense of an internal Oneness, the Self, unbroken. But this Oneness is inclusive of the Self but not the not-Self. It takes time before the One includes the many. Then the question ‘What am I?’ is better asked ‘What am I Not?’

I completely agree with your point about other stuff being distractions. Go for the source, its the key to everything else. But its equally valid to observe that stuff will come up on the road. To me, its better to have an understanding or context. Without, that there will be a tendency to reject or resist. And that can be as much a barrier as getting side-tracked. So don’t worry too much about past lives, but if they come up, don’t worry. (laughs)

Really, its a balancing act and we need to learn new approaches for life to find our roots.

@Davidya Ah, in one sense I agree with you entirely: if we can experience it, then it IS an aspect of the One. There is nothing outside of the One. And yet…. is the One the sum of its experiences? Is it beyond them in some way? And what am I? Am I merely those experiences? Or is what I am beyond all those aspects. Sure, I look out, and I can see individuals. I suspect if I could “see” souls, I would look out and see that, too. I also don’t doubt there is some funky “other dimensional” stuff that plays out after death. But all are experiences. They happen in the Silence, but they are not the whole of the Silence.

Always, always, always, we come back to the importance of “what am I?” No wonder Ramana had no teaching other than that. Until that is resolved, then things like past lives are, for most people, just a distraction. Past lives at best are just an experience happening in the One. But until you know yourself as the One, then what’s the point?

The One is all inclusive, true. But knowing yourself as That is where the spiritual rubber meets the road.

I would suggest that both Tom and Bengt are correct. If we can experience it, it is an aspect of the One. We can look upon ourselves and see one consciousness flowing through all beings. We can look again and see all beings, each with a past, present and future and unique experience, all within the one. We could say they are just different resolutions or levels of detail.

In the One, you are an individual expression, you are an expression of the whole, and you are the whole expressing through all individuals. You are the doer, the vessel, and the creator. You are the seer and the seen. The free will and the determinism.

You are the silence and light, you are the evil and darkness. You are life itself, moving in all things.

There is no paradox. It is inclusiveness alone.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”

I am not an expert. My own experiences of oneness, to know yourself as (part of) the One, are different from yours. It allows for souls and past lives.

The concept of One does not exclude the concept of unique souls with their own memories of past lives. It is similar to fingers on a hand, each have their own story yet they are part of the whole.

In the end, a past life memory is nothing more than a fancy movie playing inside our “minds.” But it is pure cinema. Just of the internal kind. Some people have Woody Allen script theirs, other George Lucas. And some have David Lynch or Tim Burton (ouch!!). Even if the memory is so real you can almost taste it, ask the following question: who care? Literally, who is the one that cares? There’s the resolution.

@Evelyn I’m glad you enjoy the topic. While I don’t consider past lives to be “real,” I definitely think we can gain from the experience. Just like we can gain from remembering something that “happened” in this life. All of it is a perfect opportunity to let it go. See through it. Let the energy of the memory unhook as it were. When we see through and let go, all is well.

So to a large extend its simple curiosity. But sometimes people may seek meaning in the past.

Like Ariel, I simply started to remember stuff that gradually became more complete. I didn’t seek it out, though my ex was very interested. I found that it did explain a few of the curiosities of my life and the fear of death left. As Akemi observed, sometimes people can resolve deep stuff when its source is seen. When large spans of time are seen, the ebb and flow of awareness also becomes clear.

But, really these are all secondary. Something can be learned. The relative truth can often be verified. But it also may simply be yet another layer to the onion of illusion.

In fact, I wrote about one that I had, 2 days prior to your post…read it here…

http://www.attractionmindmap.com/raise-awareness-release-guilt/

I don’t seek to have past life memories. They arise from the subconsious to the conscious, highlighting negative emotions I need to clear.

I was a sceptic when I first had these memories. It was easy to think that my imagination was playing a trick on me. However, after awhile, the answer just came from within: oh yes…that is me alright in a previous life. Also, the emotions are almost always so intense that I’d end up sobbing even before releasing whether using EFT or the Sedona Method. I’m not sure how I can possibly “fake” all the tears, if the “images” or “visions” have not been somewhat real.

The past is the past. It is important to let it go and move on. If there is any energetic imprints, arising out of traumas in the past, that are blocking our paths to spiritual growth, then it is in our best interest to remove them.

There may be some trouble in the mind, because the tendency may be for one to believe the memories are coming from outside of the self. Or that it was another self that has had the memory. “Me in a past life. I was Napoleon’s gardener, or Constantine’s chief eunuch,” or whatever it happens to be.

Where is the ME that is having all of these memories? Where is the ME that at one time prayed to Zeus? Where is the ME that was killed in Thermopylae? This is not at all difficult to see. I just wonder how far others may take it.

Are they past lives, or are they memories? And if the only way one can know past lives is through memory, how can anyone trust it to be true? Does this make any sense to you?

Whether there are, or are not, past lives, really does not matter. These memories, these past lives, have not set humanity free from selfish struggles, endless greed, or the suffering we have all endured.

Anyway, what would I do with a past life? Believe it, make it into a system, follow it, use it as a lens to see this world we are all currently living in? What would be the point of that? I would just be living mechanically, following a life that has been well-mined and set-up before hand.

It cannot reach this organism. It will find out on its own.

I’ve actually started spontaneously remembering my past lives which is interesting because it only happened once I started totally letting go of any importance to the past or any thought. It’s like once you’re no longer interested in them, you finally remember them.

Past lives are just as real as this life now, just a shift in awareness through time and space. It seems like despite the underlying Oneness, there is still an individualization of the one soul into infinite souls, each of which have their own personal karma and level of consciousness which carries over from lifetime to lifetime.

We retain our personality into the next level – and from that new vantage point can see our connection to each of our past experiences. They all play a part in who we are today. Since I believe that is true, I don’t feel the need to investigate “who I’ve been” – I’m at peace with the knowledge that I’ve worked my way to who I am now.

@Ken Glad to have your comments. Welcome.

@Harold You had me laughing. I love your comments, Harold.