Must confess I really struggle with the ideas around reincarnation and past lives and the ability to choose this one beforehand, I don't know why but just never sat right with me and I have tried to understand! I believe in afterlife however :) so 1 out of 4 isn't bad?!:laughing6:
Loopy

well, there's other ways of viewing the reincarnation theory which encompasses all the reports of past life memories without having to adhere to the cruel concept of "karma" and the tediousness of a seemingly endless progression of lives.

perhaps begin with the idea that anyOne can gain access to the collective memory of the human species and you can get the in-formation you require without taking on the burdens experienced by the Ids you've accessed. in this way the painful SACRIFICES which previously manifested individuals have made are honored as epiphanies for the Whole (for you) and not as "karmic debt".

as to the pre-birth choice idea ... i take a more naturalistic view. a fluff suspended seed on the wind doesn't chose where it lands, it doesn't decide "oh hey! that looks like some nice soil to drop into" and commands the wind to drop it there. instead the seed is innocent of action of it's own, surrendered to the wind it lands where it lands and does what it can to survive and grow.

See that's more a pill I can swallow lol
Thankyou IQ, I might spend some time trying to understand it with these thoughts in mind :)
Loopy

well, you don't have to swallow anything that, to you, doesn't taste of truth. it seems the majority of folks on this forum believe in the standard linear reincarnation theory with it's cruel attending dogma of "karma accumulation" BUT the popularity of a belief doesn't necessarily indicate that the belief is an absolute universal truth. i'm just offering an alternate view of the reincarnation theory which allows for the learning from "past lives" without taking on the "sins", guilt and punishments for acts that one hasn't, in fact, committed.

I'm not sure if anyone would be interested or find it relevant but after reading this thread with interest yesterday I had a dream that I think is connected...

I was climbing onto a very old train with my mother and several other people. My mother had a dog called Vindo. As the train started to move off Vindo got left on the platform. My mother panicked so I pulled the communication cord which was green, not red. I had to pull it twice and the train stopped in a wood surrounded by trees. Someone went back to try and find Vindo. After a short time the train itself reversed back. There was fear that Vindo had bolted but in fact he was nearby. There was also a cow darting on the tracks that nearly got run over but the train managed to stop in time.

The name Vindo means butterfly. I was thinking about the film 'A Butterfly Effect' yesterday which is about our choices and how they influence others and change the course of our lives.

I only have my intuition that links this dream with this thread but I feel it does. I feel it is showing me that I have free will, i.e to stop the train, to go back and find what I feel I've lost. I am empowered to make my own choices.

I've always struggled with the idea of lives being pre-planned because I see no evidence of this in my own life. I made split second choices that changed the course of my life forever. With hindsight I can see that the universe was warning me against going a particular route, but I did anyway, for various reasons. I believe it is up to me. I made decisions and I continue to make them in conjunction with the consqeuences of my choices. I believe that my dream is saying that every choice I make has a consequence..which of course is true for all of us. We are here to experience the impact of our choices and make new ones. We work with what we've got. Not everything is or can be a choice. Life happens. Fate or whatever you may call it happens. But we choose how we deal with it.

I'm inclined to agree with Internal Quieries in regard to this. I've found many spiritual followers are uncomfortable with the idea of a victim. I see this in my own life. If your life is difficult, you chose it prior to birth etc. People who are starving are said to choose to experience starving. Well I can't believe that. I believe it's up to us as humankind to develop enough awareness and compassion to change how we think about those people and realise we are all One. We can do something about it and change history. We are each empowered individually and as a society.

That's my take on it anyway. I realise there is much none of us can possibly know until our time comes but I do think that much is down to us in this lifetime.

This is the principle of karma. All actions have consequences. When we choose our actions we choose the consequences of our actions whether or not we know the consequences when we choose our actions.
This is how karma is explained in the link above.

i have no problem with the idea of that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. what i take umbrage with is the idea that a baby is born "in debt", that the horrors visited upon innocent people are somehow asked for and deserved. the concept that i must pay for "sins" i didn't, in fact, commit is unjust and there's no real reason to believe such a notion.

it is a convenient dogma for keeping a caste system in place though. and i suppose it's much easier to view the cruelties of this world if you believe that the VICTIMS of those cruelties somehow deserve their agonies. not only that! if you're having a pretty easy time of it compared to the unfortunates who suffer all manner of pain and indignities you get to feel aloof and proud because you must have done something right in your past life. what a nifty little ego trip.

Clearly there is a difference between the notion of karma and the idea that we chose our lives before we were born? Or am I missing something?

You are not missing anything or so I think. Karma simply means action. Actions have consequences. But it is hard to predict consequences of our actions because there are many other inputs that determine the consequence of our one little action. kRSNa may have had this in mind when he said to arjuna in bhagavad gItA(2-47):kRSNa wants us to act with good intentions even though we cannot foresee the results of our actions. All we have control over are our intentions; results should not be our concern.

They're not cruelties, but valuable lessons. Everything we get in this life we deserve, and that includes myself. As a child, I have only had one parent who was either emotionally abusive or an alcoholic, an I've had to deal with that, but it was really an important lesson. That parent wasn't actually that way, an I have learned to see past that and to see that they are my parent and that they are human too beyond that masquerade of hurt.

Your higher self does really choose your life, and your fate and actions are pretty much predestined, methinks. Of course in saying that, you should not just stand there and expect life to fix everything for you if you have a problem, you ought to take action.