Past lives?

[superhelicase]

So I've been reading a lot of threads and stuff after finding this community. First of all hi there to everyone! And second I would be interested to know if a tulpa can be yourself from a previous life, or if they have to be new sentient beings. Sorry if it's a bit weird but this kind of thing has been weighing heavily on my mind since I've discovered the tulpa phenomenon.

[Quilten]

I personally don't subscribe to the idea of past lives, but given what I know about the idea, I guess you could make a tulpa based on a supposed past life. Let's say, for the sake of discussion, that past lives are a real phenomenon. If that were the case, I feel like you wouldn't be able to create a tulpa that IS you in a pat life, but merely based on that version of you. I think it might also be damaging to a tulpa's idea or concept of independence and self, if they are already basically just a part of your mind, making them closer to a literal you could cause issues. Then again, it might not. I'm not sure if anyone else has tried this, but I don't see why not.

[Guest amber5885]

This would Probobly be more suited for the metaphysical board. That being said I don't think a tulpa can be you from a past life...if reincarnation is a thing, which I do happen to belive then you are the you from a past life.

 

A past self or past life isn't another bring or spirit it is you in a different body and time,

 

As for what a tulpa actually is that's up for heavy debate and everyone has an opinion. For me it's basically an imaginary friend that had taken on a life of its own.

[Luminesce]

If I was Reisen in a past life, I'd sure like to know how. Moon rabbits aren't all that common from what I hear.

 

Also past lives mean absolutely nothing whether they exist or not. You're born without any memory and only biological hard-wiring, so your relation to your past lives is non-existent. Unless you can interact or learn about them through something like, say, astral projection, but even that hasn't been proven to be supernatural. It exists in some form (source: sane, drug-free friends), I just think it's related to dreaming and other similar states of mind. No evidence yet of any supernatural knowledge or accomplishment, so knowledge of past lives can't be 100% trusted yet.

But don't let that stop you. Lots to learn from mental exercises like this, regardless of legitimacy.

 

 

On the other hand, the idea that every single human being who's ever lived and ever will, is actually you, is a really cool concept to me. I'd say if I had any past lives, it would only logically make sense for ALL lives to be my past lives. And thinking about everyone you meet as a past or future incarnation of you is really eye opening, you should try it. You suddenly become 100x more understanding of everyones' unique situation and experiences.

[Faemon]

I would be interested to know if a tulpa can be yourself from a previous life, or if they have to be new sentient beings.

 

I consider the experience first, then the interpretation or the story you build around it. If you have a form that's vocalizing, then one interpretation of the is a tulpa, whereas another might be meditative theophany (hence the sticky advising people not to ask if God is a tulpa because that's been asked too many times already and discussed to death), and yes perhaps even another interpretation would be a past life self.

 

The thing is, because people are generally so hung up on their self reincarnating rather than their echo of a past life being heard in the present (the karma, the wyrd, whatever you want to call it...definitely not the "self" or ego) then it becomes a strange idea to dissociate oneself like in Legend of Aang when Aang is communicating with his past lives.

 

But it's also very common in past life regression meditations. You might be the possessor at first, relaxed enough to view a past life, and can only get a sense of what you look like by looking at your feet--not your face, because you're seeing through your face as in the eyes on your face, unless the scene in the regression has a mirror. But other past life regression meditations continue on to remember the people in your past life, childhood, and the way this life ended...and then to a meditative sort of wonderland where you can then converse with this past life "self" because you and this past life are different egos.

 

It makes sense to me because I believe it's all negotiating with your subconscious, which only becomes conscious through these symbols and characters. How can so-and-so dream character represent this, that, or the other part of the psyche? Wouldn't any part only reveal itself in how I live my life or the experience of life that I have? Well, not necessarily, because it's in the world of the mind.

 

TL;DR Yes, I have one. But I recognize this representation-symbol-tulpa and the surrounding story (reincarnation) as true in meaning but not in literal actual fact. I could easily shift that interpretation to this tulpa embodying the inner child of my psyche, rather than some cosmological echo...and this is all infinitely better-suited to the metaphysics board.

[Shulk]

If I was Reisen in a past life, I'd sure like to know how. Moon rabbits aren't all that common from what I hear.

 

Also past lives mean absolutely nothing whether they exist or not. You're born without any memory and only biological hard-wiring, so your relation to your past lives is non-existent. Unless you can interact or learn about them through something like, say, astral projection, but even that hasn't been proven to be supernatural. It exists in some form (source: sane, drug-free friends), I just think it's related to dreaming and other similar states of mind. No evidence yet of any supernatural knowledge or accomplishment, so knowledge of past lives can't be 100% trusted yet.

But don't let that stop you. Lots to learn from mental exercises like this, regardless of legitimacy.

 

 

On the other hand, the idea that every single human being who's ever lived and ever will, is actually you, is a really cool concept to me. I'd say if I had any past lives, it would only logically make sense for ALL lives to be my past lives. And thinking about everyone you meet as a past or future incarnation of you is really eye opening, you should try it. You suddenly become 100x more understanding of everyones' unique situation and experiences.

It'd be cool if a fan made pony based off of Fallout made in 2011 named Littlepip used to be me from my past life. Confusing, yet awesome.

[Linkzelda]

The conversation going on so far seems to remind me of a concept of eternalism;

 

Eternalism is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time' date=' which takes the view that all points in time are equally "real", as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real.[/quote']

 

So to OP, I would have to say that it’s purely theoretical as any attempts for empirical underpinnings on something like past lives in general always has some kind of heated debate. But this doesn’t mean we can’t foster open-mindedness to see things from another angle. Though if we imply that tulpas could be ourselves from a previous life, it would imply there would be a telos, i.e., an ultimate objective behind their existence.

 

If this is the case, and if we emphasize on the implied telos, there would be some kind of inherent quality and meaning with their existence. If this is something that can be applied to everyone, despite of their biological upbringing and composition, then something like presentism (i.e., faithfulness in the present being the only thing that can exist) can be added for further questioning.

 

So if we’re going into this metaphysical sphere of experience for fun, and nothing too serious, this past lives being correlated to our tulpas being part of that becomes problematic. For one, how can we really find any origin to this notion of “truth” that others may want to feel is meaningful to them? Would this imply that there’s some objective form of ourselves that looks at all of the probabilities that have gone by, are going through at the moment, and moments soon to occur? Wouldn’t that be creating our own solipsism where the only thing we can be assured of is our subjective experiences being real seeing how we’re so tied into having processes to conceptualize said experience?

 

Even if that could be the case, said solipsism would be ripped to shreds when applying it to this spatiotemporal reality we’re in, i.e., a reality that can exist with or without our subjective experiences (and I say that loosely). So to question if our tulpas can potentially have a bit of our “past lives,” for the sake of implying means we have to find something to fill in the explanatory gaps of what reality truly is; that may be very difficult since we can only do so much when it comes to having a limited cognitive grasp of what we’re experiencing.

 

 

However, if we changed things around and theorized that our tulpas could be a bit of us in this life we’re living right now, it may seem more plausible. For example(s):

 

- A point in our lives where we were confident, at ease with ourselves, and used our wits to survive and keep going; it wouldn’t be surprising that we may have a larger propensity to associate that states of being into the development of tulpas because of the potential benefits of having said mindset and disposition.

 

- A point in our lives where we were surrounded by our emotions; trying to find a way out for enlightenment, or betterment of self, and finding people and/or philosophical inspiration to lead us into the light of enjoying our lives to the fullest. One could theorize that some people may be prone to express this when creating and interacting with their tulpas because of the potential experiential learning curve that one can implicitly believe to be true for their tulpa’s journey of finding authenticity in the “sentience” in context of private and subjective experience, and not finding legitimization in this spatiotemporal reality. In other words, what goes on in our heads, and our perception of reality vs. what reality can exist as with or without our subjective experience.

 

 

If we theorize within the context of the life we’re living right now, and the past that’s occurred since birth in this existence, then it wouldn’t be too surprising if we can see a little bit of ourselves in our tulpas; psyche-wise, if you will. They may not really be that person we once were (e.g. carbon copy), but just embodying some kind of essence of self we had and experienced before.

 

One could further the theorization that for a tulpa trying to authenticate their existence in general, the past can be a useful experiential tool to foster a sense of self for themselves. Especially if they’re being confined to some extent of the mental repository of their host’s mind, and whatever cognitive potential to augment something like apperception:

 

the mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas he or she already possesses.

 

 

Going along the lines of these ad hoc claims, this could be a useful influential basis for tulpas and host to fall back onto when running out of ideas of trying to authenticate, within the context of our own personal and subjective experience, of their existence, and things that may connect with that (e.g. sentience, autonomy, self-actualization).

TL;DR:

 

If we try to theorize past lives in the metaphysical sense as something that our tulpas are composed of, it’s fun for the sake of learning something in another perspective, but when taken into consideration of this spatiotemporal reality that we can imply that can exist with or without our subjective experiences, the theorization leaves large explanatory gaps.

 

But if we twist it around in context of who we were in this life we’re living right now, we could see those past selves as a “life” of their own, but more of metaphorical implications to it. And even if our tulpas can presumably be partially, or completely fused with those past occurrences in our life in this reality, it doesn’t mean they’re tied only to the past.

 

Because if we really wanted to hold value and meaning of the past in our life, and use retrospect to tap into an experiential learning of those events, we could see that we’re probably the same person as before, and probably will be until we die. Or we could see that we’re not always so rigid and made of stone when it comes to having dispositions and demeanors; distortions of how we conceptualize ourselves (e.g. psyche) were bound to occur and made manifest at some point.

 

And how one can react to the latter statement of the previous paragraph, and tie it together with their tulpas:

 

- Because of the constant changing, subtle or significant, of ourselves in the past, it can become a component of accumulative assurances to our tulpas that they don’t have to be bound to the past to augment a propensity that they can validate themselves for a better future. Instead, the past within this life we’re living right now can become an influential base to fall back onto whenever we feel we can’t get anywhere. Because at some point in our lives, we were probably that person that had moments of serendipity that allowed them to keep their center despite of limitations of a cognitive grasp of reality and themselves. And for a host to say something like:

 

“Hey, if you feel insecure about your existence, and questioning your authenticity of sentience, it’s alright. You can be inspired from whatever I went through in my life, and how I assessed myself through certain dispositions and behaviors to cope with that same challenge of finding meaning in our lives despite not being able to know if there’s any inherent truth behind it all, or not. But that’s okay; things didn’t really go the way I wanted to during those moments at times, but we’re not always rigid in our sense of self; there’s bound to be discrepancies with how we analyze our psyche, and that can be an inspiration to keep going, or use the past to distract ourselves from moving on.”

 

That would be a nice discussion for sure.

[Chupi]

This discussion is better suited to the metaphysical board. I'm moving it there and leaving a redirect here for a few days so you can still find it.

[superhelicase]

Thanks for moving the discussion, I was kinda waiting before posting some more. And thanks to all the people who responded to me so quickly. It was a lot of good food for thought.

 

To LZ I totally agree that we and any other sentient being should learn and grow, taking special condideration to past experiences and how we can behave/choose better paths for the future. That's what I believe to be the meaning of life. Live and learn eh?

 

But more as to why I postulated about previous lives in the first place, which I suppose will require a bit of background about my own experiences.

 

I am a furry, as I'm guessing number of tulpamancers here are. I have been for about 16 years. I have a character that I created then and while the physical form has changed a bit over the years, the person has always been the same. I suppose that might be that this character wasn't just something that I could play as, but I considered it to be me in actuality. Almost to the point of being otherkin, but not quite. For most of that time I had also grown disillusioned with religion (mine being Christian) and became agnostic almost atheist, and remained that way all through college, taking comfort in the fantasy world of my furryness. But after I graduated, I attended a party with some friends where I had and intense psychedelic experience, with a now mostly outlawed plant. During it I witnessed merging with matter, higher entities and the end of the universe, but was back to "normal" in a matter of minutes. That day changed everything. I actually became spiritual again (though not religious) and began investigating things such as higher planes and past lives. About a year ago durring some "meditation" I came to the realization/belief that this furry character was actually me from a past life. What started happening next was actually what caused me to come to this community once I found that it existed. Every now and then since that realization, I have heard a mind voice calling my name. I know that this wasn't me because I know what my own mind voice sounds/feels like, and not only was it different from me it came unbidden as I wasn't thinking about anything in particular. Additionally in recent weeks since discovering this site and the tulpa phenomenon, I have experienced emotional responses that had the same sort of feeling to them as the voice calling me.

 

Sorry for being so long, but this is why I was thinking a tulpa could be kind of coalesced out of memories and ideas from a previous life burried deep in the sub/super-consciousness.

[Enoch327]

Thanks for moving the discussion, I was kinda waiting before posting some more. And thanks to all the people who responded to me so quickly. It was a lot of good food for thought.

 

To LZ I totally agree that we and any other sentient being should learn and grow, taking special condideration to past experiences and how we can behave/choose better paths for the future. That's what I believe to be the meaning of life. Live and learn eh?

 

But more as to why I postulated about previous lives in the first place, which I suppose will require a bit of background about my own experiences.

 

I am a furry, as I'm guessing number of tulpamancers here are. I have been for about 16 years. I have a character that I created then and while the physical form has changed a bit over the years, the person has always been the same. I suppose that might be that this character wasn't just something that I could play as, but I considered it to be me in actuality. Almost to the point of being otherkin, but not quite. For most of that time I had also grown disillusioned with religion (mine being Christian) and became agnostic almost atheist, and remained that way all through college, taking comfort in the fantasy world of my furryness. But after I graduated, I attended a party with some friends where I had and intense psychedelic experience, with a now mostly outlawed plant. During it I witnessed merging with matter, higher entities and the end of the universe, but was back to "normal" in a matter of minutes. That day changed everything. I actually became spiritual again (though not religious) and began investigating things such as higher planes and past lives. About a year ago durring some "meditation" I came to the realization/belief that this furry character was actually me from a past life. What started happening next was actually what caused me to come to this community once I found that it existed. Every now and then since that realization, I have heard a mind voice calling my name. I know that this wasn't me because I know what my own mind voice sounds/feels like, and not only was it different from me it came unbidden as I wasn't thinking about anything in particular. Additionally in recent weeks since discovering this site and the tulpa phenomenon, I have experienced emotional responses that had the same sort of feeling to them as the voice calling me.

 

Sorry for being so long, but this is why I was thinking a tulpa could be kind of coalesced out of memories and ideas from a previous life burried deep in the sub/super-consciousness.

 

 

Somewhere in one of my books is the idea of creating a tulpa to house one's consciousness until the next birth body is found. Think Dalai Lama. If I believe that humans reincarnate (and I do), then I would have to admit the possibility of tulpas reincarnating. However, I think it is more likely that one is recreating a tulpa that one created in a previous life. If that is the case then there is essentially no difference. It becomes semantics at that point. I hope this helps in your thinking process.