Past Lives: Ideas About the Meaning of Life

Apparently nearly everyone has the ability to see into the future, begging the question, Does time exist at all? And, Is everything predetermined? Do we have free will, or is this just an illusion? And how does remembering past lives fit into all of this?

Here is a really good article explaining scientific experiments that seem to suggest we all have the power to see our own immediate futures.

My own conclusions are: Time does not really exist. Time is an illusion fostered by the brain, which is a computer designed to funnel consciousness into time (as evidenced by those with temporal lobe epilepsy who experience déjà vu, and who also can experience episodes where time speeds up or slows down at a measurable rate -- see HERE). Therefore, if those with epilepsy can predict what people will say or do because of a distortion in time, and if most people can sense five seconds ahead whether they will be shown a disturbing or happy picture, the future is either predetermined, or it’s following the strongest probability, which we can access and compute somehow. Maybe on some level, we are able to compute the likelihood of an earthquake or airplane crash based on probabilities; maybe we sign up for a certain life before we are born based on probability.

If everything is somehow predetermined, and if all decisions are made in the subconscious (as shown in THIS article) and we have no free will and no choices of right or wrong to make, then Karma does not exist -- which explains the lack of moral choices presented to mollusks and fish and whatnot. Whatever rules apply must also work in a world before human beings, and Karma would seemingly be meaningless amongst dinosaurs or trilobites.

If Karma is not the reason for life, then something else must be. That, simply put, is to feel: pain, fear, pleasure, and for the higher animals, empathy, compassion and love. Since our fates are written and our choices are made, we are only here to experience what can't be experienced on the other side (where all is placidity, happiness and oneness with God, and there is no adversity, save for those who are stuck on a lower plane). All life on earth experiences two things: the need to preserve one's existence, and pain (which helps to preserve life). These are the lowest common denominators, and when combined with the need to sleep which is universal in some fashion amongst almost all animals, it seems that our purpose is to feel, and to feed back that feeling and experience to the soul during sleep.

At least, these are my current theories on the subject. As usual, I'm sure I'll have a different theory tomorrow! (I reserve my right to change my mind.)