A hairpin and a bathtub.

Day after day I have to bear superficial analyses and preconceived notions from newbies or, even worse, people without past life memories. I’ve talked about the frustration this causes me at great length, so there is no need to rub more salt in the wound. Then, one day comes when, unexpectedly, a new forum member posts something related to his own research that makes me remember an old memory. In this case, a blurred image with deep emotions that left me with some doubts. Well, not real doubts, it’s hard to have doubts at this point of the game, so I’ll just say “memories I left unverified”, but for no special reason, apart from laziness or other things keeping me busy.

I think I’ve talked about that image here before, though I’m not sure of the details I gave. But the scene is clear in my mind: I am in a bathtub, naked. It doesn’t look like a bathtub I’ve ever known in this life. It’s in the middle of the bathroom, it’s white with curves. We don’t have taps, I think we have a jar to fill it. I see the water all around me. I’m holding a sharp hairpin on my right hand, not too long. I use it to inflict some wounds on my left forearm. I see the drops of blood falling down into the water and dissolving, just like my tears. I’m married but my life has become a nightmare. I’m so very young, but I feel so alone and desperate. I feel like dying, with those little bleedings in the white of my eyes and the bruises all over my body.

Back in the waking state, you start to analyze everything with logic and distance. You start to wonder if that was possible or if you are just “fantasizing”, as many of those people who don’t have memories of their own often think. You forget about the emotions, the circumstances you were in, your desires to die. You come convinced that validating a memory is proof of something, if not for you, for everyone else. I’ve never seen a hairpin like that in my whole life, and the ones I have no way could slit anyone’s veins or make deep wounds on the skin. So, you doubt you could have done that in the past, and you doubt your sanity. You don’t give importance to the feel of the instrument in your hand in that memory, the way you gripped it hard with your fingers, with all the tension, pain, rage and hate you were feeling at that moment. It seems the look of it is more important to corroborate that memory and show the world you are not crazy and you really lived that. 

The thing is that months pass, and someone comes and casually talks about hat pins that were used in the Victorian era. You look at them and realize they are really sharp, so much that they were thought to be a good weapon. The truth is it doesn’t matter at all, but you suddenly realize your memory is more likely to be true now: hairpin or hat pin, you did hold that instrument in your hand while you were weeping in a bathtub, feeling like shit, and seriously considering suicide. You were having a quiet day at home, and suddenly such a silly finding, such a small verification, brings tears to your eyes and makes you remember the damned bathtub where you could have lost your life.

I’m not sure which my real intentions were when I hurt myself. Possibly not suicide, even though I did feel I wanted to die. Maybe it was the opposite: I wanted to feel the pain, I wanted to feel alive, as for me living was like being dead. Maybe I thought that’s what I deserved anyway. Probably that’s what my husband had forced me to believe, as I wasn’t the loving wife he wanted me to be.

While I’m thinking about those memories, I also realized a couple of days ago I fell down while I was skating in real life. I could have broken a bone. Luckily, I didn’t, but the following day I was indeed feeling as if someone had beaten me up. Was that the same feeling, the same ache I had when I was in that bathtub, and is that the reason I’m recalling those events?  

If you are unlucky enough, you’ll go to the internet and find some outsiders talking about past life memories, wondering if people just fantasize about it, or discussing the possibility alleged past life memories are just “symbolic stories our mind creates in response to our psychological issues”.

I wonder what kind of symbolism lies on wanting to slit your veins with a hat pin to stop so much suffering and bring oblivion to yourself.

THEN is when you want to cry your heart out.   

Related posts:

Hopeless.

Soul-killing.

  

Beliefs and facts (again).

Curiously, I was speaking about this in my Spanish blog just a few days ago. Not anything directly related to beliefs and facts, but I was saying the life of a hardcore reincarnationist like me is tough... quite tough. One of the reasons is you have to spend 99% of your time fighting against people with ridiculous beliefs. People who don’t remember past lives, have only fragments of a few past lives, haven’t researched reincarnation in deep, but want to convince everyone that you will suffer endless torture in dark places, surrounded by creatures that will feed of your energy during death and beyond, if you do something evil like... let’s say, committing suicide. This, in case someone doesn’t know, is comparable to being a murderer. So, yes, once more, imagining someone like Hitler having a wonderful life this time around, faraway from any kind of suffering, without being whipped or chained in a dark hole, or eaten by astral monsters, is just impossible for their little minds. Go figure.

The worst of it all is that they will ignore, misinterpret (with conscience), adapt, twist and even change what they read just to keep believing what they want to believe about the matter. Yes, this could be the following chapter to my two latest entries (one and two) where I talked about suicide. As everyone was expecting, the original poster insisted on his question, as he hadn’t received a proper answer before the thread was deleted. This second thread was full of nonsense, but for some strange reason this one hasn’t been deleted (so far). I replied again, not because I wasn’t bored of it all, but because I think people has the right to know... and also, because other people were trying to derail the thread, leaving the question unanswered again, or even worse, answering with personal beliefs and not facts. I just can’t take it.

Some reincarnation books were mentioned. I read those books decades ago, so I usually talk from memory. But then I searched in those books, and also did a quick research on the internet. I just couldn’t believe my eyes: everything is clear there. People who tried to commit suicide and lived an NDE say more or less the same thing than people who did commit suicide in a past life, were regressed and taken to the period between lives by Dr. Michael Newton: there’s not any kind of punishment on the other side. Suicide is not the best of choices, but love and compassion are there for you anyway. You are not forced to reincarnate quickly if you don’t want. Rather, you go to a place where you can be alone and reflect about what you did, and then, when you feel ready, you return to physical life. This is not a dark, damp, prison-like place somewhere in the spiritual world. It can be a bright, green, nice place, not different than any other place in “Heaven”, though quite dull and silent. There are no "critters” anywhere, torturing your soul or feeding on your bad energies, as someone else said. Almost everyone who knows a bit of this type of creatures (and I know a few), knows they are in the astral realm... and some of them even know how to handle them. Saying they follow you to your next life to keep feeding on the bad energies of evil people or suicide victims is one of the greatest nonsensical claims I have ever heard in all my years researching reincarnation (and believe me, I’ve heard many of them). 

The problem usually comes when someone who has experiences in “the spiritual realms” mixes those with their religious beliefs. I’ve seen it so many times, I’m quite tired of it. Not in vain most religions have been founded after an “enlightened guy” who could see astral entities and what have you started to claim he knew exactly what they were and what they were doing. If there are “spiritual guides” giving messages, it gets even worse, as everyone believes that they must be right if they are disincarnate. It’s almost as if you’re talking straight to God. And as you were “chosen” to be the recipient of those messages, you must be “divine” too. And this happens over and over and over again in the history of humanity... Everyone chooses what they want to believe, listens to the one they choose to believe, takes whatever facts they like and ignore the other two hundred different accounts, quotes the Bible because everyone knows everything there is true and well-thought, and everyone happy!   

Of course, I have my own beliefs. But mine are always changing and they are always constructed by everyone’s experiences, not just mine. I try not to interpret things. Facts are facts. People interpret all the time, so when you read something you always have to separate beliefs from facts. And if you achieve this, you find the Truth is really so simple, unique and singular. Unfortunately, many people still think they can manipulate the Truth and treat other human beings as if they are kids growing up. They still think they can control them through fear, lies and partial truths. They think that they can deceive a child that is looking for answers. They think they will make this child do what they want him to do, when most likely this child will know they are lying and despise their advice. They will lose his trust, he will keep looking for convincing answers elsewhere, and make his own choices anyway. Wrong or right, it doesn’t matter, we are here for that, to live and learn (if we want). It is so ironic: this is one of the most accepted views within the reincarnation world (that we are here to learn), but it seems some people haven’t got it yet. I wonder how many of them think they are old and wise, without realizing they are the kids instead, still clinging to stupid little childhood tales they just can’t forget. 

By the way, all this reminded me of just another of my struggles regarding the astral, "demonic entities" and sleep paralysis. Incredibly, many people still believe sleep paralysis is caused by beings like the one shown in the picture. The other day I read a quote from one of my favorite authors: "Graveyards are the maximum expression of our ignorance". In this case, we could say something similar: "Astral monsters are the maximum expression of our blindness". Most of the times those monsters are created by our thoughts and negative emotions, yes. Believing we can be controlled by them to the point of committing suicide or killing someone because they were whispering in our ears is blaming someone else for our misdeeds. The day we understand WE ALL ARE RESPONSIBLE OF OUR DECISIONS, maybe we will get rid of all those "monsters". The problem is in our minds, nowhere else. Now try to explain this out of here. I won't be doing it again, as then I do feel like killing myself... and never come back.   

Related entry:

Beliefs and facts.

UPDATE 7-DEC-15

Surprise, surprise. The second thread about suicide was also deleted. I don't know what happened after my post saying nothing happens when you commit suicide. I also put some links to interesting NDE accounts where people who attempted suicide describe how they reached a "heavenly place" and were halted by spiritual beings saying it wasn't their time and they must come back to go on with their lives. This is no different from any other NDE, but for some reason it scares the forum admins. I am so happy to have my own place to talk freely (a few of them really). As it may interest readers, this is just one of those links. There are hundreds of similar accounts. I also clarified what Michael Newton says in his books: he talks of "isolation places" for people who killed themselves. They are not dark places where you are chained and whipped for all eternity, like I said above. They are just normal places but you will be alone for a while, reflecting about what you did, until you understand you lost some good opportunities to grow (if this applies, of course).

And, just as I was saying about treating people as kids, now I have a private message from the OP saying he would like to talk to me. I bet he could perfectly discern who was being honest here and who was trying to deceive him with silly lies. He even tried to start a new thread which of course was also quickly deleted. What a waste of time. 

Insanity.

This is one of the darkest aspects of reincarnation, and one that is quite hard to talk about. I have been thinking about it the last few days, trying to put into words something that most of the times is just a weird feeling during regression. Weird, hard to understand, mysterious... but also crystal clear.

I have observed that when you remember to have done "evil" things in a past life, the first thing you ask yourself is whether you were sane or not when you did it. I suspect being insane is a great excuse to do things you know are unjustifiable. It is also a natural tendency we all have: when we watch in the news a serial killer killed a dozen women in the last five years, we all want to think there was something in his mind that didn't work quite right. And if this is not the case, we just think he was "evil" or a monster. Believing someone can do that just because he likes to kill is almost inconceivable. However, I think this is so in the majority of cases. And the worst thing is we can't do anything about it. It is his choice, as is everything else we do in our human lives.

Then I read a book called The Projection of the Astral Body by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington. It said that one of the reasons a person can stay in the astral after their death is precisely insanity: an alteration of the mind, so frequent in the last years of many people who suffer from dementia, for instance. I don't remember to have stayed in the astral for this reason, but it made me reflect on how deep an alteration of this kind can affect your behaviour. If it does after death, I guess it is equally (or more) powerful while alive, obviously. And though I don't think I have even been so insane as to not be able to act perfectly knowing what I was doing, and therefore, being totally responsible of my actions, I have felt in a few occasions, in more than one life, how certain events influence your mind, and pain can indeed make you lose your sanity. I can understand how someone might end up killing all their family, in a given moment, out of suffering, jealousy, despair, fear, or whatever emotion overcomes that person. I guess our minds are the tool we use to control our basic instincts. Sometimes feelings are too overwhelming and cause a lot of confusion. And, scary as it sounds, sometimes they win the battle against the mind, and then we lose it.

Well, when doing a regression, you can feel it. You can feel how your thought patterns have changed and they are not the same anymore. You also can feel how cultured you are, whether you were good writing or reading, or you hadn't learned these abilities, or how intelligent you were. Of course, this is obvious for people who regress regularly, but maybe it is not so obvious for people who haven't tried to remember past lives using this method. This is how we believe our minds are different in each incarnation. And feeling how it can be altered, unbalanced or destroyed through events happening to you, is surprising and so, so interesting. Frightening too, as it makes you realize none of us is immune to commit certain crimes, insane or not. You also realize you could have done even worse than you did, so at least you can be glad of this fact. When terrible things happen to you it is not easy at all to keep your balance and make the right choices. And I am sure all this has a lot to do with what living means, with that gut reaction we all have to certain events, the results of which will determine our future and the outcome of that particular life.