posted February 06, 2017 11:35 AM            

I believe that at the "soul" level, we are ALL one and all partners and all twins, all united in love. When we run into each other on a more mundane level, in our everyday life on planet earth, I believe some of the reasons we have a particular hierarchy of connection are less esoteric/"spiritual" and more societal and psychiatric: we are raised in the society to place huge importance on romantic pairing and to confuse sex energy, obsession and fixation with other things.....;people who believe they're learning great, special lessons from their bad relationships might well be right, but the lessons aren't spiritual and karmic and they were also a couple in some past lifetime, the lesson is that we all project our crappy family-of-origin issues into relationships and fluff them up with a lot of sexual, romantic and even spiritual fantasies. The lessons are psychological and psychiatric--if you're unhappy in your fixation on someone, you had a crappy family-of-origin. That's my opinion.

As for how we were matched up with the family of origin itself, I find immense comfort in the fantasy that every child is born to particular parents on purpose, that we're karmically "meant" to be matched up in that way. That everyone is sitting up in the heavens in quasi-human form deciding how all of this will play out, so we'll have a chance to get the karma right or whatever.

But I actually think that the ways biology (macro and micro) and physics and quantum physics and the divine and the many different beautiful energies on the planet (and beyond) is MUCH more complex than that--than that my Astro-fantasizing friend lived in Ancient Egypt and the d-bag rejecting her was her partner in that life and many other lives. I think the energetic forms spirit takes are not so simplistic and divided, and a lot of the whole past life/soul mate stuff is fantasy, myths like all the ancient myths about how the world was created or the causes of sunshine or lightning--myths we need because our capacity (in this human form) for understanding the radical vastness of the universe is limited.

Sometimes using those myths, even though they aren't "true" in the deepest way and definitely aren't the whole story, can be very valuable. A reason astrology has helped and served me is that, accurate or not, each idea gives me something to think about and explore and work with. But sometimes turning to these things is sick or bad for people---just a way to aggrandize a psychiatric disorder (obsessing over someone) into something all special and "spiritual" and enlightened and evolved and deep.

In astrological practice, on message boards etc, there's a lot of wanting to have it both ways---like we believe astrology can deterministically show certain things, but then we also set (sometimes arbitrary) limits on that.

But I have many mixed thoughts and feelings about all of this---and I go back and forth about some of it---so I guess I just want to open the discussion:

posted February 06, 2017 03:18 PM            

I think we're all part of the same beautiful, cosmic being, and "evolving" isn't about doing good deeds or doing a deep spiritual exploration of the Big Connection we have to whatever person we have a hard-on for......I think our reason to be here is about seeing (meaning, really experiencing) that that very individuation and separateness is an illusion. I think it's a one-lifetime thing, and any of us beings who are alive can have a vision of greater reality and/or embody love. It's not a levels thing.

I guess I'm very skeptical about past lifetimes--I think it's too linear and small. As if we were individuated in exactly the same way we are now, but inhabiting bodies in some (easily, stupidly familiar-to-us from elementary school, even though there are soooo many periods and societies that are inadequately represented in mainstream historical literature) particular time in the past. I get the whole "infinite, multiple, parallel" realities thing, but that would make the whole hierarchical, past-life progression thing kind of a moot point anyway.

Just thinking aloud a bit here.

posted February 06, 2017 03:32 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by venus2tinkerbell:
...So Karma Heaven Hell? Sure. Names are fine. Helpful many times.

(edit) and obviously we get really stuck in names too. Names allow us to neglect the actual idea (Knowing).

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posted February 06, 2017 04:03 PM            

This was so beautifully written. Many of the things you bring up are my own beliefs, but I have trouble putting them into words.

I've been bringing up this idea of karma a lot lately. I use astrology to search for answers. Pluto is on the cusp of my 8th house. Death (and birth actually) has made me question the universe more than anything.

You wonder why good people get thrown so much crap in their lifetime. What did they do to deserve it? And why do people who the most horrible things get rewarded?

Why do certain people come into your life? Are some people born to die, for the pure evolvement of others around them?

These are all questions I've been asking lately.

Most of all I wonder WHY we would choose to go through this. If we signed up for our lives as willing participants, why?

I know fate is real, and that some relationships are destined. I've seen it play out in mine and my husbands charts. I've seen it play out in mine and my daughter's as well. So we can semi-prove that fate is a real thing, but we can't figure out the WHY.

posted February 06, 2017 07:49 PM            

You can choose to be a psycho killer in one lifetime, killing like 80 people. But you will have to balance that energy out later.

posted February 06, 2017 09:19 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Sulkyarcher:
To me, karma is about choices rather than evil, or good.

You can choose to be a psycho killer in one lifetime, killing like 80 people. But you will have to balance that energy out later.

Although, I, myself perceive murder as something I wouldn't do, to the universe the yin and yang of the murder situation must be balanced out, based on someone's choices.

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omg how someone can equilibrate this?
what the fate of ...a tyrant?
is so crazy

posted February 06, 2017 09:33 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Elise3090:
omg how someone can equilibrate this?
what the fate of ...a tyrant?
is so crazy

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You mean like Hitler, or Stalin? Let's say you ordered the murder of 20 million people, like Stalin.

There's probably a compromise. Like instead of getting killed 20 million times, which is really brutal and unimaginable, maybe you get killed 12 times instead. Enough that you 'get' the lesson, and that you're not getting brutalized all the time.

posted February 07, 2017 03:03 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ayelet:
All things in matter die to be reborn. This is nature. So for me reincarnation is part of life here. I am reading whatever I can find on the subject. It fascinates me. I believe an astrological chart is a system of codes, a map imprinted on a certain individual who has to live his particular life here. It is the natural continuation of the former life, with all its consequences and impact. Perhaps time is not linear, and we are moving in cycles, or in spirals, so the current life can balance not the very close life lived in the recent past, but some earlier life lived in an equivalent point on a parallel spiral.

I believe in twin selves. The idea is very romantic and appeals to me deeply. I feel like even though we are all one, and I can love and understand most human beings and creatures, if not all of them, there are still certain people with which I belong. I believe in the view of Dr. Michael Newton according to which there are groups of souls in the spiritual world. I think there is a reason why they say it is "a small world": because you are near those who are also close to you in some way in the spirit world, so everyone who plays a part in your life has a certain connection to you on the soul level, even if minor. That way, no stranger is really a stranger. I feel there is a director to this great orchestra of ours. Even though I believe we are all individual souls, I also believe we are all one, and I see no conflict between the two notions. As if we were different rays of light sent out to the world from one sun...

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posted February 07, 2017 03:50 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Sulkyarcher:
What happens if a person gets amnesia? Do the memories come back once the person dies?

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posted February 07, 2017 04:54 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ayelet:
Yes, I believe so. In a certain way, most of us have amnesia, because we don't remember our past lives... but once the soul is liberated from the limitations of the specific brain, it retrieves all its capacities, including memories. Of course, in the case of past lives recollection, it can be made during life (one doesn't have to die in order to remember). When it comes to amnesia, I am not sure, as I don't know how damaged the brain is. By the way, "recovery" after death is also true of other disabilities; for example, the blind shall see, the deaf hear, and so forth.

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Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, if you're dead, your brain is destroyed, gone. So your consciousness doesn't need your brain, that is if you believe in consciousness without the brain!

posted February 07, 2017 08:36 AM            

I just don't believe a linear kind of reincarnation exists literally--in the sense that we are *the same* individuated beings---Ron and Mary, let's say--and they were a couple in Ancient Greece and now are reborn to find each other in this life---you can see from their asteroid conjunctions!!!---and even though in this life, Ron is happily involved with Jenny and not interested in Mary and has asked the Human Resources department at their work to intervene so that Mary stops texting him. The Ancient Greece part isn't real

A huge portion of us (according to my anecdotal, unscientific observations) who get interested in exploring this stuff at all have dysfunctional family-of-origin issues. 100% of the people I've known personally (offline) who have believed someone who was NOT their mutual, real-life partner was a "soulmate" or "twin" were abused in their family of origin----so I've seen them exhibiting love addiction-related behaviors and disordered attachment, and dressing it up as "chaser" and "runner" fantasies.

Then again, I've also known people who fantasize that their partner is fated it be with them as a soulmate from past lives--that seems innocuous enough to me. The part that seems so dangerous is the part where where the very dynamics that make a relationship abusive and/or not-mutual are the ones that troubled people are told to believe make them soulmate relationships.

posted February 07, 2017 10:23 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Lucia23:
In terms of the "kill three people in this life, get killed three times in future lives" thing----I believe we all experience the results and consequences of our choices in THIS life....but also, many/most people who do terrible things and make terrible choices were abused of harmed or traumatized in THIS life, often when they were too little to really make choices.

I don't think terrible things happening are a result of past lives, just as I don't think "life is a vending machine where we put in virtue and get out rewards"(I'm paraphrasing/misquoting an old episode of Six Feet Under here)-----I think many things, beautiful and terrible, happen to us in the world that are NOT a result of our own actions. But our choices do shape our experiences of those events.

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posted February 07, 2017 11:29 AM              

Excellent topic..
I've always wondered about the nature of "karma" as we see it. And how it ties into the grander *scheme* of the Universe, so to speak.

Would love to pitch in, will do so when I can marshal my thoughts properly.

posted February 07, 2017 11:41 AM            

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Originally posted by bananaz:
Have you seen this type of karma play out? There's some people I'd really love to see get handed some karma, but it hasn't happened yet.

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I don't know about killing/murdering karma, but I have examples of other misdeeds.

-Tiger Woods could be going through bad karma right now. The guy used to play so good.

-Bill Cosby may have raped and drugged many women. Now his career, and reputation, is down the toilet. He's going blind too.

-Steve Jobs could be a pushy bully, and a mean jerk, when he was a boss. He was fired from his own company. And it took him 12 years to make a career comeback.

-Elvis treated Priscilla Presley horribly, although it's more likely neglect. And in the 70's he became fat, depressed, bloated, and an overall mess.

-The whole Angelina Jolie mess.

posted February 07, 2017 12:17 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Lucia23:

I really do fully believe that in this lifetime, each of us reaps the rewards and/or punishments---the feelings and experiences---of the vibrational level we choose to live it. That doesn't mean that if we got raped at age three, we "deserved" it from choices in some other life or something, and it doesn't mean that if we're practicing living an openhearted, beautiful and loving life, the universe won't throw us a curveball that will lead us to have a trauma response--we can be very enlightened, and if someone punches us in the nose, our nose will still break. BUT, overall, our practices flavor our entire life experience---living a low-vibe life is a low-vibe experience. People who consciously do awful things are experiencing the yucky feelings that come with that.

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Okay Lucia, here's a conundrum for you then:

What if this person who has done this bad, awful deed feels 100% justified and are living in a vibration of positivity, harmony, etc. What if they are living in the vibration that they are the GOOD guy and they believe the real good guy is the bad guy...

This question comes based out of curiosity of my own experiences. These people I'm referring to exist and are delusional on every level.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lucia23:
@bananaz, I notice our Sun-Moon too! I wish I would meet more people offline I have that with!!

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posted February 07, 2017 04:49 PM            

Judging myself OR other people as "good" or "bad" is a low-vibe activity--even if the person I'm judging is Pol Pot--I can"t REALLY get all the way inside anyone else's experience (although, with my 7th and 8th house stellia, I can come close lol), but from my own experience, I know that when I'm inhabiting the world from an open-hearted, open-minded, non-judging place, I experience all of it at a higher vibrational level, which affects everyone I come into contact with.

With most people who are just sure they're in the right, it comes from a place of insecurity and suffering, even if they compartmentalize that and seem certain, and lucky, and like they aren't "getting what they deserve." At a higher level, those people are US and we are them, and we aren't separate, and we're all floating around in the same boat. The closer we live to that sense of unity, the more loving our experiences with EVERYONE. But then again, as a 12h NN, I'm meant to try to live more that way (and I've always dealt with/struggled with tendencies to be arrogant, prickly, and judgmental).....I've woken up in the gutter of judgment many times!

I do think people living small, mean lives and feeling pleased with themselves about it---or people living lives that are nasty and destructive on a big scale.....or people who are doing just fine, but are sure they're in the right and sure they're extra evolved......are living at a low vibrational level, and so there are whole octaves of beautiful human experience that they're blocking themselves from.

The question of intention is much, much tricker for me----if our intentions really are genuinely heartfelt and loving and clear, but we still do harm? I don't know how to figure that out

The vast majority of us (un)consciously and (un)intentionally participate all the time in systems that exploit or harm other beings.

posted February 07, 2017 06:01 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Sulkyarcher:
Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, if you're dead, your brain is destroyed, gone. So your consciousness doesn't need your brain, that is if you believe in consciousness without the brain!

It's possible that every thought that's ever been thought is recorded. Once it's thought, it exists forever. Of course, we can choose to think it, or not.

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