I've read with great interest the recent philosophical threads - thank you for the insights, they have really helped expand my thinking.
One area I'm puzzled with is ... before we are born, do we choose who we are born to? If so, why? And also, how do we know this to be the case?
It would seem that your parents and early experiences can shape your choices, behaviours and thoughts so much in life, surely it's not pot luck who you are born to? Or is it?
Hi Vanessa
By choosing our parents and place of birth etc, we can have a better chance of experiencing whatever it is we want to experience, before we are old enough to go our own way in life and make things happen directly for ourself. 😉
Yep, totally agree with Paul 🙂
My dad set me the example of standing up to injustice and making a difference. My mum set me the example of the importance of listening to people and how to keep a confidence and be trustworthy. Both examples moulded me in my early years to help me become the person I am today.
Love and light
reikiangel
This may be a very naive questions, but why do some people choose such suffering in the place or the people to whom they are born? E.g. the starving children in Africa, war torn areas, child crutely etc.
Because life is an experience.
I've read with great interest the recent philosophical threads - thank you for the insights, they have really helped expand my thinking.
One area I'm puzzled with is ... before we are born, do we choose who we are born to? If so, why? And also, how do we know this to be the case?
It would seem that your parents and early experiences can shape your choices, behaviours and thoughts so much in life, surely it's not pot luck who you are born to? Or is it?
Hi Vanessa . 🙂
The parents also choose their children . It matters not who Incarnated first In reference to choosing who becomes part of our soul group .
The parents can learn as much from their children as the children can learn from their parents .
daz .
I never thought of it that way round :rolleyes:. IMy children have certainly helped me see the world from a different perspective on many occaision. xx
I guess it really comes down to beliefs, as I it's something I've considered before, and have been told about by many, but no evidence has shown itself to me to allow me to know it as truth.
There are those who, simply from a spirtual belief, consider that we choose our parents so that we can learn certain lessons in this incarnation before returning to spirit, evaluating our experience and choosing our next one. I think this is supposed to go on until we have experienced everything and then we return to source. (so I'm told)
These spiritual beliefs can vary in style. One I was told of involved us all being in spiritual groups of 3, and any two of the 3 could choose to incarnate at any one time, with the third remainin in spirit as the "spirit guide", and the 2 incarnate were essentially the "soul partners" though that doesn't necessarily mean they are involved in a relationship, but that they will appear in each others life at some point whether briefly or for a while, to instigate the lessons that the other has chosen to learn. It is also possible that one of these incarnate may die and return to spirit and then the 1 remaining would have 2 spirit guides, until such a time all 3 are returned to spirit when they evaluate what they learnt and choose the next life.
Other beliefs consider it to be spirit pairs, one incarnate and one spirit guide, and others still consider it to be a mix of combinations with any of spirit being able to guide any incarnate etc. etc. It really depends who you speak to, though I'm not sure there is any one definitive souce of information you can put down as the truth.
There is the Buddhist philosophy which considers that we reincarnate, though the "choice" is essentially made as part of the previous incarnation as that effects our karma and in what form we return, and what suffering we must endure to use up that karma and whether we can progress with freeing ourselves of attachments and doing good to build up merit. So this doesn't really involve being in a spirit state where we judege ourselves and make choices.
And we can also look at other religions or philosophies... there are so many, some believing in reincarnation, most in different ways, some with the belief that we have lessons to learn, some without, some believing we can choose in spirit, others not.
What makes me curious is, to make a choice of a lesson to be learnt or an experience to be had, one would have to already know of these things (as we don't know what we don't know), and it is common belief that in a spiritual sense we are already complete in the knowledge of everythings. If that is the case, then why do we need these lessons or experiences? What is the point of them? I also don't understand why choices would be made as to make a choice requires discernments between one thing and another, which is to pass judgement on what is 'best' (for want of a better word), yet so many speak of there being no judgement in spirit (though admittedly others speak of us judging ourselves when we return to spirit).
To me, judgement is tantamount to a dualistic concept of the mind; considering 'this' against 'that' and somehow creating 'good' and 'bad'. To me, this is not truth, so as to my own knowlege of truth, I cannot say that I consider there to be a state of us being in spirit and choosing lessons or experiences to be had. The way the buddhists describe reincarnation seems to me to have more truth about it (and yes, I know I'm judging things you don't have to tell me :D) yet I believe that karma and merit are somehow misinterpreted to an extent (I do believe the energy of the past is carried to the present, so that could be called karma), and are really a model of understanding to help us recognise our attachments so that we can be free of them and act in the present moment and live truthfully.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Hi Giles
Let us leave religion out of the debate and consider this for a different perspective, we do different thing because we like to experience different things, if this was not so, then every time we ate something it would be the same food, we would wear exactly the same clothes every day and go to the same places etc.
So if we look at coming here as going to a city sized fun fair, then we could not experience everything that was available within the fun fair in one visit, so we would return and try out different rides and things, it is the same with our existences here.
Within the oneness, what one experiences all experience, but then we might choose to come and see what it is like to experience something first hand rather than through another being. 😉
Let us leave religion out of the debate...
I wasn't really bringing it in, just indicating there are different perspectives depending on different walks of life and beliefs. At the end of the day it's all philosophical understanding. 😉
... and consider this for a different perspective, we do different thing because we like to experience different things, if this was not so, then every time we ate something it would be the same food, we would wear exactly the same clothes every day and go to the same places etc.
And what is wrong with that?
So if we look at coming here as going to a city sized fun fair, then we could not experience everything that was available within the fun fair in one visit, so we would return and try out different rides and things, it is the same with our existences here.
Within the oneness, what one experiences all experience, but then we might choose to come and see what it is like to experience something first hand rather than through another being. 😉
But that's my point... Why is there a "need" to do this? What does it ultimately achieve to make such choices? Why is there a need to judge one experience as better or worse than another and thus make a choice rather than just letting whatever happens, happen.
Yes, our minds create judgement, based on how society has shaped it over time, so in the present moment, the mind is saying that we should choose "this" over "that" because it's somehow a better thing to do. But that is purely subjective. Likewise, why should we, in spirit (should we return to spirit) have any need to choose? Can't the energy that is us, just flow in the universe?
What is it that would make this choice? Such choices would require a conscious mind/thoughts that see some things as "other" from the "self" and "other" from each "other". The duality of it doesn't hold true to me.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Because we create our own reality. 🙂
Exactly. We can choose not to be the subject of our mind, but instead to be in control of it, and thus for there not to be a need in the first place.
😉
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Do you choose your parents? From a shamanic point of view the answer would have to be a rather unhelpful 'sometimes'. Many souls, not having got to the 'Land of the Dead' (generic term for 'where the dead should be'), will not have been able to make any plans for this life. Those who did get there will have made plans which may, or may not, include choice of parents. I've known several souls who did make such a choice. I don't know ways to find out, other than through shamanism, though ...