There is a fascinating series of books on this topic by Michael Newton Phd. Dr. Newton used hypnotherapy to regress thousands of people through their current lives to assist in finding the possible sources of psychological problems, in an effort to help rid them of them. In doing this, he began to see a pattern in that frequently memories began resurfacing from lives prior to the patient's current life. Sometimes the lives were on different planets or other dimensions. After some time, he opted to make researching this phenomenon his life's work. My favorite is called Destiny of Souls New Case Studies of Life Between Lives - is all about where we reside in the spirit realm in between incarnations. Fascinating, detailed, mind blowing stuff! One must take it with a grain of salt, of course, but I recommend these books for anyone interested in the topic.
Despite our various paths and beliefs, I feel there must be an ultimate truth - meaning, things are as they are - there is a design to things. We in human form are sort of like the blind men feeling an elephant in a room. One touches the trunk, another feels only a foot - we all percieve a different aspect and come to vastly different conclusions, but the elephant is still a whole elephant. We just cannot see it because we are blind. Lol.
Hello friend
i spent sometime this morning going over some of Dr. Newton's material. It was nice of you to share it with us. If those books were around me i am sure i would pick them up and read thru them. You are quite a reader. i rarely go out and buy a book anymore but if there is one around i will look at it. Especially if it is from a friends 'library'. When i was younger; i spent quite a lot of time reading material by such people as Robert Monroe, Elizabeth Haich and Helen Grieves that covered a lot of the material you are exposing to us here. Although they were sharing much of their personal experiences.
Since then there have been quite a few personal experiences i have had and with other people that have led me into the vault of between lives and past life encounters. So today i rely more on meditation and the magnetism that it provides to lead me to such discoveries if they are to be part of my spiritual unfoldment. Thank You so much for sharing some of your interests with us Shannon and the spiritual excitement and inspiration they generate.
At the risk of getting too personal - i have encountered some past life and between life phenomena with people here and at yoganandaji.org. It appears to me that sometimes we are not meant to tap too deeply into past life encounters with some of the people we meet and are close to because those memories may influence current outlook on the people and relationships we are now working on and with. Although i do believe it is helpful to have some past life and in between life memories and revelations to explain behavior patterns and just what we are working on again with the people and situations involved. So like most experiences there can be two ways of looking at it. If i can find few or no clues of what type of relationships i have had with others between lives or in past lives it leads me to believe that there is a lot of free choices involved. Freewill may predominate in those encounters which will 'determine' future scenarios in future episodes of reincarnation and soul travel. Generally though the desire to understand the nature of circumstances and people in our lives also leads to 'revealing' answers in one way or another.
i looked in the present and saw your post after mine. It makes me happy that you may come back to this post later on. One thing that is interesting about the internet is that to some degree we often can 'change' the past. 'b' eluded to this when he removed some of his posts. i seldom make this a practice. That is because i feel we can learn from our past and some of the mistakes we may have made. If other people can not recognize that we are no longer our past and we are moving forward then they are stuck themselves. Let us forgive and forget some things!
However as a teenager i used to write long letters to friends. Many of those letters were rewritten and some wadded up and never mailed. Others took sometime to write and later i added to them. In some ways i see writing posts in a similar manner. i remember somebody saying on line once at yoganandaji.org that i put things in later as though it may be a bad quality. i just don't see it that way. i am just putting down my ideas and later i may find a better way of expressing them. Especially if i can b kinder in some ways. It is a learning experience just watching all these things we have done in the recent (this life) and distant past (reincarnation and between lives) and trying to make adjustments to them and allowing others to do the same.
This leads to my last point. In the post below u ask if it is possible to get too attached to a spiritual family. Yes i believe it is possible to get too attached to certain spiritual groups, and certain people that you have shared many spiritual encounters with. i have found that it is often difficult to explain this to others. Because they may think u are disloyal, jealous egotistical .....any number of things. They can and have acted very angrily and vindictive. Which leads one to wonder about spiritual development of those involved and how to communicate kindly with respect for the views of others.
It also can b difficult distancing oneself from what may b outgrown relationships we have held with others that do have a certain spiritual quality. It is an interesting point that you may have encountered yourself and perhaps are sensitive to its occurrence with me and others close to me as well. Although i have also experienced that these relationships can just as easily have a friendly tone and an understanding because of qualities developed in spiritual growth. The closest example i can give is how monastics intentionally separate females and males because of this tremendous attraction and attachment that often results.
