past life readings?

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This reminds me:
When I was ten years old, my mother got a tarot reading for herself, my sister, and me. My sister and I were not present--the card reader was simply given our names and ages and the thing was recorded for us to listen to later. I didn't go in for such things--I was always a very rational person. I forget what was said about my mother, but I recall it being neither remarkably accurate nor particularly inaccurate. My sister's was accurate about her personality, but she was a fairly typical girl at that age--it all could have been easy to guess. If I recall, both of their readings were rather generic, except perhaps for it being right about my sister's ferocious temper.

When it got to me, though, the reader started by saying that I was supposed to be a boy (I was very tomboyish and was even named after my father--my mother also thought it significant that she had many years prior been told by a "psychic" that she would have an older daughter and a younger son, but then had only my sister and me--I didn't think so, though, as I did not believe in psychics). Then the reader spent the rest of the time talking about how I was "an old soul," who couldn't relate to her peers and was very lonely and apart from other people. I don't know if my soul is old, but it felt it. I remember hearing the words and suddenly feeling very sad and very relieved--weighted down and unweighted at once, because I had always felt very old. I also recall my mother being saddened by it, thinking it sounded very accurate.

I am a skeptical agnostic about such things, but there is my anecdote all the same.

Ah i've the "old soul" label as well.

I probably popped out the womb saying "ack bloody kids again, no respect for their elders"

I have suspected "old soul" may be a mystical way of saying "quiet and contemplative."

Could just be a polite of saying "you may be young, but your soul's like that of an old stale fart"

hehehe, or that!

In your last incarnation, you were a Marklar, from the planet Marklar in the Marklar galaxy. You lived a Marklar life, but too many Marklar Marklared in your way so you had to Marklar them, leading to your untimely Marklar

I have read that with seven billion people on Earth, there are more people alive today than the total number of people who have lived before.

So where do all the "new souls" come from?

My own son chose to become a Buddhist monk in Thailand.

The theory is that there is no "self". The more that you meditate the more you find that there is no "I". All is one.

So I ask "If there is no "self" or "I" then how can you be reincarnated?
How can Karma follow you from life to life if there is no "you" to begin with?

He never can answer that to my satisfaction.

Buddhism is a pragmatic path to follow whether reincarnation is real or not.

No self doesn't mean 'you' doesn't exist, it is simply a way of thinking about what 'you' are that is different from how people usually think of themselves. To wit; what we are is a bunch of things generated by or dependent on causes, not an inherently existing creature that is separate from everything else.

If reincarnation is real then 'karma' is (said to be) the singular cause that would be passed from this life to the next.

I'm an agnostic Buddhist.

I can't see Karma as a debt that needs to be paid. (Who is keeping score?)

I do see it as cause and effect.

As long as I go into cowboy bars, get drunk and start fights, then bad things are going to happen.

But what if I "see the light" and only go to church groups?

Am I still "owed" 50 bashings to make up for the people I have beaten up?

Obviously you are Matt Smith (the new Doctor if anyone's interested.)

Seriously, you're not going to get an "accurate" past life reading, because there's no such thing as past lives... and even if there were, anyone could make up any old thing, and you'd have no way of checking it. Regarding memories retrieved under hypnosis, you'd be amazed how creative your brain is. Who would make up our normal dreams, let alone hypnotically induced fugue dreams?

That's karma you can see and feel.

I think that In Christian terms, what they call karma would be (original) sin, which is what confession and repentance and whatnot are for. Same stuff, different words, different methods of address.

You don't need to be bashed to lose your bad karma. You can purify bad karma by doing good deeds.

The difference being, of course, that in Christian terms we can't cleanse ourselves of sin... we have to go Jesus for salvation.

This is why I prefer the eastern model. No middle men.

Personally, I'm a bit skeptical about the whole past lives thing... However, I really like tarot as a tool for self-examination.

I'd urge the OP to get a deck of cards, learn to read them (there are many good websites to help with this) and do reading for yourself.

Whether you believe in the spiritual aspects of the cards or not, they do offer great prompts for analysis of one's self.

Socrates was an obnoxious, old douche, but he was right about one thing. An unexamined life is not worth living.


Step out of the darkness of mere being.