Past lives.

[John Frusciante]

Mystress, have you any insight into who you were in past lives?

Anyone notable? (By that, I mean a Spiritual or Religious figure)

[Mystress]

  Well John, to begin with I only believe in past lives, every second Tuesday. That gives them approximately the right amount of energy/importance in my life.  This is the first Tuesday of the month.

   When you take a higher chakra view, the whole concept past lives falls apart, they do not make sense in the larger scheme of things.
   Consider this: You are All that Is.
    Time and space are illusion. There is only Here and Now.

    Without space and time, there is no past. If you are All, then All past lives are yours. The human linear mind has an experience of time that is actually an illusion.

Go looking for a past life, what you will find or pull up from the collective, is a reflection of who you are and where you are at, here and now because here and now is all there is.

  Further, I have met a whole lot of people who used their ideas about their past lives to either beat themselves up or puff themselves up. Its ego food.  I have met people who were wracked with guilt to the point of immobility about what they thought their past lives were, and I have met far too many "keepers of the temple of Atlantis" who were very hung up on their idea of specialness.   That temple must have been a very messy place, to need so many janitors. Do a search on the term and you might find hundreds!!

  Whether the attachment to a past life memory is positive or negative, it is still an attachment to a limiting belief about yourself and Kundalini goes better without that.

   Your own unconscious mind is very co-operative. It is your conscious, ego mind that has free will and it is your unconscious mind that shapes your life experience according to your beliefs. So, even if past lives do not exist because there is no past except in memory, if you choose to believe in past lives and go looking, your unconscious mind will go along with the game, and pull from the collective consciousness a resonant memory that is an accurate reflection of where you are at, Here and Now.

   The greatest benefit from exploring past lives is just that: to accept that they are a metaphor, and use them to get insights into Here and Now.  These insights are at once personal because you identify with them,  and at the same time emotionally distanced by the illusion of time and death, to become  less personal than what you ate for breakfast... which makes it easier to see them more objectively. 

  If today was next week, I might note that scholars from Glenn Morris to Kurt Keutzer have noted that my work is strongly Tibetan in its flavour, feel and methods.  This is interesting because I never made any particular study of Tibetan mysticism aside from reading a lot of Lobsang Rampa books as a kid. It was fun because my inner voice would give me a commentary, telling me what parts of the spiritual ideas in the book were true and which were not, and explaining things.
  Lobsang was actually an Englishman who never even visited Tibet.  Maybe a lost Lama..? Yeah maybe me too.  As a kid when times were tough I used to wish the monks would hurry up and find me already!! Now of course I realize that is not going to happen. They have much bigger problems on their hands than locating one lost lama from a small and quite unimportant monastery.

    My birth falls around a time when the Chinese were slaughtering any Lama they could find... which had the effect of scattering the Lama spirit energies all over the world,  like a stick of dynamite in a paint can.  There was no purpose to go back there, and considering the rigidity of the Tibetan hierarchies, a lot of good purpose escaping that, and not being found! Being able to fulfill the spiritual purpose without all the extra trappings of being a cog in the machine of a religious dictatorship.

  I do find it a little ironic that a lot of people who are very attached to the ideals of democracy and the separation of church and state, are also supportive of the Dalai Lama being restored to his throne in Tibet. Got no issues with the guy, just the irony in his western supporters makes me go hmmm.

  Since this is the first tuesday of June, it is equally possible and perhaps even more likely that my childhood interest in reading Lobsang Rampa stories + my Shaman gene, dysfunctional family and escapist longings,  caused me to pull a "Lama past life" out of the collective consciousness, along with the wisdom and knowledge contained therein, and it became a part of me.

  At any rate, I have never found a good reason to go looking to be validated about that. I can just imagine showing up at the Tibetan society saying "Hi remember me?" LOL.  I imagine they get a lof of wierdoes playing that game. 

   I am more interested in wondering what is your interest in my possible past lives? Why is it important to you? My sense is you are looking to validate your own interest in, or attachment to my energy and work. Wondering why you feel a need for that?

   Blessings...

[John Frusciante]

Thank you for the detailed response, Mystress.

Yes, I understand your point of dwelling unproductively on this subject, since everything is a construct of the mind anyway (including past lives).

As to my interest in your past lives: well, I guess my mind likes to categorize and validate things wherever it can. You and this site remain a bit of a mystery to me. On the one hand, it contains the most powerful spiritual technique I have ever encountered, yet, at the same time, I feel a traitor to my Guru and lineage for being here and using the technique. I can't find the grounding technique in any yogic literature or in the teachings of any notable mystics. That bothered me. I guess somewhere in my mind I was hoping you had links with Yogic traditions (or even my lineage) in a past live. That would have been interesting.

I've come to realize that God gives to his devotee whatever he needs, at whatever time, in any situation, and through anyone he pleases (even new and undiscovered techniques). I needed the "grounding" technique, he made sure I got it. (Although I dislike the term "grounding". It sounds too new-agey to me, I prefer "self-shakipat    )

So that's why I asked.

I have no great interest in my past lives. Sometimes I wonder if I was previously a Christian mystic, which would explain why the name of Jesus Christ, pictures of Christian saints, and hearing beautifully worded prayers inspires incredible religious devotion in me. I have incredible Kriya movements when I go into churches, which is why I tend to not go in!

It can be an interesting subject, but also a bind for the ego,..

[stevenbhow]

Dear Mystress,

I'm deeply disappointed and saddened by your comments about the Dalia Lama. He has relinquished secular control of the Tibetan government in exile and stated repeatedly that he only wants autonomous rule for Tibet, not separation from China. 

Historically in Tibet there were times that the country would have seemed like a dictatorial monarchy to Westerners, but this certainly not the case now. Tibet was, comparatively speaking, a pacifist country for over a thousand years and continues to be  thanks mainly to the Dalia Lama's efforts. The Dalia Lama has often recognized mistakes made in Tibet's past and appreciates the positive things the West has to offer.

Everyone that I know who supports the Dalia Lama does so because of his commitment to kindness and compassion not because they view him as some godhead that needs to be returned to the throne. He has said over and over that he considers himself to be a simple monk, not deity in anyway at all. I'm sorry that you seem to have issues with Tibet, but maybe you need to more fully explore the Karmic link to these feelings and try and resolve them.

Sincerely,

Steve

[Steelyknives]

I understand your rational, when you state that the study of past lives hardly ever bear fruit. Clearly, the obsession that we have with what we were in our past lives is often nothing more than justification for who we are today or more importantly in the now, and i respect that.

however, my own personal quest as it relates to any interpertation of my self that has ever existed in any form in any lifetime, level or demension be it in ego or higher forms, has little to do with who i was or may have been.


at the same time , i do feel that i have brought a significant amount of baggage from other forms of exitance which my lifeform may have been   dedicated to being. And as such, a certain degree of clairity in that respect would mean the world to me.

i hope my request doesn't seem to selfish.

[Mystress]

Dear Mystress,

I'm deeply disappointed and saddened by your comments about the Dalia Lama. He has relinquished secular control of the Tibetan government in exile and stated repeatedly that he only wants autonomous rule for Tibet, not separation from China. 

Historically in Tibet there were times that the country would have seemed like a dictatorial monarchy to Westerners, but this certainly not the case now. Tibet was, comparatively speaking, a pacifist country for over a thousand years and continues to be  thanks mainly to the Dalia Lama's efforts. The Dalia Lama has often recognized mistakes made in Tibet's past and appreciates the positive things the West has to offer.

Everyone that I know who supports the Dalia Lama does so because of his commitment to kindness and compassion not because they view him as some godhead that needs to be returned to the throne. He has said over and over that he considers himself to be a simple monk, not deity in anyway at all. I'm sorry that you seem to have issues with Tibet, but maybe you need to more fully explore the Karmic link to these feelings and try and resolve them.

Sincerely,

Steve

  I wrote: Got no issues with the guy, just the irony in his western supporters makes me go hmmm.

  You (one of his western supporters)  obviously do have issues or you would not have needed to respond so defensively. Good luck with that.

[stevenbhow]

"I do find it a little ironic that a lot of people who are very attached to the ideals of democracy and the separation of church and state, are also supportive of the Dalai Lama being restored to his throne in Tibet."

I was bothered by this statement. This is basically the same argument made by the Chinese. The Dalia Lama believes in Democracy. He doesn't want to be ruler of Tibet anymore. He has recognized the mistakes made in the past has tried to change them. Yes, the Tibetan government in exile has many problems, but a desire to restore the religious monarchy in Tibet isn't one of them.

btw, I agree with everything you said about past lives though. I didn't mean to hijack this thread. And sadly, there have been cases where you pay a Lama enough money and suddenly you are a long lost Tulku that somehow everyone forgot about. I think Steven Seagal went that route.