I agree as well. We may choose beforehand the people, places, events etc. that we will encounter, for reason of our spiritual development, but when we are born we forget all that. We waste countless opportunities that we never even realised were there, and can never reach our full potential. I think this is why things go wrong in our lives.

We do not choose our lives, we get what we created in the past lives due to our karma. The important thing is to remember that we have the power now, in this instant , to create a heaven in our futures, through our intent. What's done is done, start to behave positively and lovingly now to create a happy future now and in the future.

Karma is not objective though. What one person thinks is right, another thinks is wrong. In the spiritual world, we judge ourselves. No one is there to tell us what is right and wrong. They are only there to assist and guide us. They do not make decisions for us. We have our own free will to choose what we need to experience to learn, so we need to be able to choose our own lives. There is no one there to judge us and assign us to our next lives. We must be able to determine that for ourselves.

Perhaps it wasn't that your cousin was being punished but maybe that your cousins soul had some very hard lives before and needed a sort of rest life where he could be taken care of and see what it's like to be on the other side of the relationship (perhaps he spent much of his time in other lives always tending to others needs) I have heard this before and it seems to make sense. He chose his life before he came here for reasons that we on the physical realm may not be able to comprehend. His soul was still very much alive and awake during his life although his body and mind may not have been able to communicate. it will all make sense one day:)

Well, I believe so. Yes.

It may seem strange to choose a life of poverty, or tragedy, but a spirit without its physical body is a completely different image. Spirits/souls/entities (whatever name you would like to give them) have a higher understanding and knowledge, and have no ego. If they know that they have not learned a valuable lesson in their past lives, then they know they must choose a life in which they will.

(Personally, I see our ego and our higher self as two completely different beings. Our higher self is often asleep in most, but is still tortured by the things the ego allows the individual to do. When a person is enlightened, their ego is destroyed.)

Each individual has their own karma and lessons to learn. The lessons vary, of course. For some it can be not to be a bad person, and for some it can be not to be nice to everybody. I know that sounds horrible, but everything has to be in balance. If you were too nice to people in your past life, and just let people walk all over you, then in your next life you ought to learn that you're not a doormat.

So yes, I do believe so.

I used to know a spiritualist, someone like Edgar Cayce if you know him, he told me it's a bit of both, karma and choice. He said we accept our life here, knowingly that we are coming for certain reasons usually to balance karma and such. Not everyone though, some come on missions to help others, some to build their strengths , some to attain higher spiritual levels, some to even do evil. There are endless reasons why endless numbers of souls from anywhere that come here, and they Agree to it. It is free will ,even when coming here.
It makes sense.

Karma IS objective. There is no judgement, however. Every action depends on its energy. The formula is quite simple: did the action hurt someone? Yes -> bad karma++. Did the action benefit someone? Yes -> good karma++.
If my words hurt you intentionally, then I will have to balance that negativity. If my good words uplift your spirit, then I will attract positivity.

We don't chose our lives. It is fantasy to think so. We incarnate many times for our soul to learn lessons. We cannot learn lessons by picking where to incarnate, how and our environment. If we have accumulated too much bad karma in this lifetime, then we might have to suffer a bit more in the next lifetime to make sure we learn our lesson. That is why it is important for ourselves to become truly conscious.

If the soul that chooses is pure without ego, why would it need to incarnate? The reason we incarnate is to learn lessons. If your soul is pure, then it does not need to learn any lessons because it is perfect. In fact, our souls are NOT pure. Unfortunately, we cloud our souls with anger, fear, jealousy, lust and many other evils. Our souls are only pure in its deepest core, its highest level, the level of purity which we NEED to attain to become conscious of the soul. Instead, we live our lives with fantasy without being conscious of ourselves, which leads to the pollution of the mind.

Hello,

I agree with you hannah. I think the main ingredients in our life was already determined before we incarnated. It's how we live our lives and how much we open our hearts when we make our daily choices with these lessons to be learned. That's can either set us free from karma or accumulate karma. If you resolve a situation with love in your heart, that lesson is voided out and it doesn't need to be repeated. I never really think in terms of karma (only for the sake of this discussion) for my own spiritual evolution - I just think in terms of love or lack of love. Love is such an easy word to understand.

Boson

I still don't think its objective and am not convinced that it can be. I decided to divorce. Ex-husband was hurt from me deciding that. Totally not my intention though. Did I accumulate bad karma because he felt hurt? According to your formula that would be yes, but I don't believe that I accumulated any bad karma from deciding to divorce. Did the action benefit us? Again not so black and white. Benefit in some ways. Hurt in other ways. Which ways are "better"? That's not objective either.

There's no way to know, but I seriously doubt we choose these things. And I think it's offensive and cruel to tell someone who is suffering horribly that they "chose" it. If life is a classroom and it's to learn, as some people say, there would be no sense in making people suffer excruciating pain for years. They know what it feels like the first time it happens. And they're in no position to learn much else if they're bedridden and/or doped up on painkillers.