Karma, Reincarnation and Tarot - Part 2

[kokopelle]

There are three “psychological” ways to gain an awareness of past lives.

1. Dreams - It is possible in dreams to get glimpses of previous lives. If you're in a dream, but with a different body, it could be one of your previous incarnations. Dreams are an interesting way to relive past life events. While dreaming, you temporarily lose touch with your worldly life. This is the time where your buried past life memories have a chance of surfacing because you're more free to experience them.

2. Hypnosis or Past Life Regression - With this method, you are put into a hypnotic state in an attempt to free past life memories and identities. Under hypnosis we are more relaxed and able to look back at our past lives; we don't have the inhibitions that normally keep us from having such memories during regular consciousness.

3. Meditation - If we are able to meditate deep and to a certain level, we can access past life memories. Again, by meditating, we lose our worldly concerns and inhibitions and are more receptive to the complete truth.

Comments

[iskender.livejournal.com]

And yet dreams and hypnosis and meditation all work on the brain, work through the brain.

I believe in reincarnation, but I don't think we can successfully access knowledge of past lives. Our brains are flesh, born with this body. Dreams access nothing that is not already in our heads--they can no sooner give us knowledge of the deep past than they can give us information about what is on the other side of the world.

Now the brain can receive information from someone who is contacting us; that is not beyond the realm of belief. So perhaps if someone sent us a message about our past lives, it would be possible, but how would we know that they were telling the truth?

[greensh.livejournal.com]

The article pre-supposes the possibility of accessing past-lives. It all depends on your view of time. This is part of some people's realities. There are convincing arguments discounting the past-life phenomenon. I guess we'll all find out in our own ways. Who wants to be Cleopatra next?

[iskender.livejournal.com]

Some people's realities? You mean your dreams don't come from electrical impulses firing in your brain? There aren't any other realities--there are just conversations you want to have and ones you don't.

We could, if we wanted, break the article down into a series of assumptions and basic ideas. We might agree on many or all of the basics and from that, outline a shared reality. We could then assess the question.

I just think it's crucial to know whether you were Alexander the Great or if you merely wish you were. And even if we accept the possibility of accessing past lives, then we need some rubric by which we judge the validity of one's past life versus another's. If two people say they were Theodore Roosevelt, one of them is lying, or both are. So even presupposing this possibility, there are conflicts to address, which most people who discuss past lives--not you, necessarily--don't want to get into.

Past lives I believe in, I'll repeat. But what we talk about when we talk about past lives are really just the same thing as hypothetical post-death paradises--something to stop us from thinking about the present. As such, they can be very useful or utterly useless. Meet the new religion, same as the old religion. The only reason I believe in reincarnation is because the physics makes sense.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

(tounge in cheek - regarding realities)

Time to pull out the disclaimer...

DISCLAIMER: The generalized observations of greensh (http://greensh.livejournal.com/) are personal, originating from a localized experience. The personal generalizations described may have not occurred in other realities. For others, the generalizations are most possibly fictional and any resemblance to any person's reality, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Disclaimers aside, the discussion of "what is reality?" would make for an interesting article. I should write one just to nail down my belief structure. We've danced around this before when the topic of intuition, global conciousness, etc has come up. I'm sure we'll dance again.

[iskender.livejournal.com]

Most likely.

My position is this--the universe either exists within or without our control. If it is within our control, then we may all have separate universes (yet we somehow are forced to perceive each other, so perhaps this is not a universe at all, but a lobby), but we might also build bridges between our universes and either vacation in each other's creations or cohabit, sharing resources and making our universes larger, if more crowded.

If universes are beyond our control, then they are either separate or they are one. The first case would be probably be a system of relativistic universes created by our involuntary urges and drives; the latter would be the hypothetical shared universe, in which the same laws apply to all and such.

If voluntary universes exist, then all conversations are possible. Likewise if we have no control yet share the universe. If we have no control and do not share the universe, than I guess I can just act as if mad, because I've just rationalized myself beyond the need for thought, but I really think that third possibility is a cop-out. Somehow, I've been forced to live in the same world as other people who've been forced to live along with me, so I have a feeling that we all share the same experience but are in denial. Metaphysical relativism is understandable, but it's like living with a roommate. One wonders why one has to ignore someone else--if we really had a say in the matter, we'd find a new place.