past lives

as things happen in your life, as you meet people, as you experience new places or walk through a city you are constantly putting the people, places and events into context based on your past experiences. as i have been here in asia i have met people who believe in many things that i was told as a child do not exist. growing up irish catholic in the US, there were many things i was told that existed, but would never be able to see or touch, i just needed to believe. there were other things that i was told where simple figments of the imagination, which i should not be tricked by and that should never be trusted no matter how real they appeared.

i have come to see some of these things in a new light. both the things i was told to believe and those i was told not to have come into question. this is not uncommon as you experience a new culture, meet new people. what is new is the complete acceptance of these ideas. i have always been flexible and accepting of differing points of view. it may come from my pleasure at taking the counter point in any discussion where the other person is sure they are right. the pleasure is even more intense if the other person opens believing there is no validity in the opposite point of view.

it may also come from a movie shown in science class in 6th grade (is that standard 6 here?). the movie showed two people on a rotating disk, picture a merry-go-round without the horses, where one throws a ball to the other. from the viewpoint of someone standing on the side, the ball goes straight while the riders move around. when they placed the camera from the viewpoint of the rider throwing the ball, the ball appears to wildly curve to the side.

this simple experiment was meant to show the rotation of the earth and to explain a bit of physics to a group of irish catholic boys who may have otherwise believed an unmoving hand moved the ball to the side. for me it proved that point of view had much to do with the interpretation of the events.

when an old friend contacts you out of the blue, and the timing adds extra impact to over events that are happening in your life, do you believe it’s a coincidence or is somehow related? if you meet someone, and realize you have met them before, is the connection part of that chance set of events or something larger? when you are with someone you barely know, and you feel comfortable beyond all reasonable explanation, does it throw up a wall of doubt and guarded protection, or does it bring a sense of relaxation and warmth?

the point of view for the viewer of course is related to prior events of the viewer. more surprisingly, as i am exposed to asia and it’s people, i am coming to believe that the hindus had something in the belief in past lives. this teaching is not part of catholic doctrine, but i was told of past lives first my by devote grandmother. nana taught me that if you were not clearly good or bad in life, you would be sent back to “try again”. clearly, coming back would only be useful if some of the past were left as echoes you could hear when you listened to yourself. this, in the western context would be your conscience; your inner voice of past experience, reminding you why things are right or wrong.

if i believe nana, it is not just the past lives of this life, but those of other lives that are affecting us. it is not just the person who you loved a few years ago you are remembering and missing, but the one you loved in another time and another place. past lives from this life do impact you, they do come to mind, they do help us to remember what is important or right for us. but the echoes of the “past past” are there also. the feelings can be there if you are open to sensing the flows, listening to your voice and accepting the validity of what you sense is right. just like the ball thrower, sometimes the sense that something unseen is affecting events, is real. life is like physics, unknown energy is flowing through and around us. the gravity of time and space, the light of life, the heat of relationships are with us always.

we just need to accept and believe.