Ask The Council

Future Lives, Connecting with Famous ‘Dead’ People, & the Importance of the Present

This post describes part of a session with The Council inspired by a question from Jose about how the past, present, and future all happen at the same time. Topics addressed include:

1. Jose’s question: Why does The Council sometimes refer to ‘past’ lives when they say at other times the past, the present, and the future are all happening at the same time?
2. Future lives
3. The connection all human beings have to the creative genius of any human being who has ever lived, and your ability to access this creativity.
4. The importance of your ability to choose
5. The importance of the present moment
6. Karma

Why Refer to ‘Past’ Lives?

The Council’s response to Jose’s question about ‘past’ lives can be a little difficult to follow. After their response we describe how we understand their answer.

“We can always say past life [or] future life.

“You’ve had many past lives; you are always creating many, many future lives.”

“All of these lives are going on simultaneously.”

“We can say, ‘This is your life now… and now… and let’s talk about now… and this life now… and now… and now.

“And so the word ‘past’ helps many people, and the word ‘future’ helps many people.

“But we’d like to throw a little something to think about here.”

—The Council
(The formatting above throughout this post represents The Council’s comments during our session. Text [in brackets] in these quotations has been added to improve readability and clarity when this seems useful.)

In other words:

1. As an eternal spiritual being each of us creates many, many lifetimes.
2. From a spiritual point of view these lifetimes are all going on at the same time. (More on this in the next section.)
3. Sometimes when they talk about one or more lifetimes other than the one usually thought of as the current lifetime, The Council will refer to the other lifetimes as a ‘past’ lifetime or a ‘future’ lifetime when they think this will make it easier for the reader to understand what they are talking about (more on future lifetimes in the section after next).
4. Referring to each lifetime as ‘now’ might be technically accurate from a spiritual point of view, but it can also be confusing to readers and distract from a point The Council would like to make.

The “little something” they offer for you to think about continues below under the heading, Because We are All Connected. The following two sections offer some thoughts on what The Council has said so far.

All Past and Future Lives are Going On Simultaneously

Jose’s question implies some understanding of this idea, but it can be a challenge to appreciate what The Council and other spiritual teachers mean when they say the past, present, and future are all happening at the same time. Although The Council didn’t go into an explanation during the session, here’s a way of thinking about this idea that might be useful.

Imagine all physical reality experiences have a unique energy, vibration, or frequency that distinguishes each experience from every other experience. Now imagine spirit is able to tune into the unique frequency of any physical reality experience in a manner similar to the way you’re able to use a television remote control to tune into many different individual television broadcasts all going on at the same time.

This analogy is more or less how we currently understand the simultaneity of time from a spiritual point of view. As our understanding of this concept expands we’ll include it in new posts. Like Jose, if you’re particularly interested in this subject, feel free to post a specific question for The Council on this subject and we’ll do our best to get you an answer.

Future Lives

During the session we didn’t think too much of The Council’s mention of future lives relative to past lives, but a little later in the session they revisit this idea and discuss it at greater length. Beginning in the section after next under the heading, Your Greatest Power is Choice, and in several sections after, we describe what The Council said about this idea of future lives

Because We Are All Connected

As we indicated at the beginning of this post, Jose’s question on past, present, and future seemed to inspire The Council to discuss several subjects related to our perception of time. It was as if they were saying to Jose (and the rest of us), if you’re interested in why we say past lives, you may be interested in these other ideas also.

Continuing where we left off with what The Council was saying above:

“But we’d like to throw a little something to think about here.”

“And this is a giant leap in thought for some.”

“Some people think, ‘I wish I knew the Buddha, I wish I knew Henry VIII, I wish I knew Julius Caesar.’ [Or] because you may want to be a great psychic you think, ‘I wish I knew Edgar Cayce’ (and we use that because we know Cynthia loves him dearly).

“And here’s the giant leap: Because we are all connected… a part of you was Edgar Cayce… a part of you was Julius Caesar.

“Have we said too much?” [said a little humorously]

In some other sessions The Council has mentioned that people have the ability to connect with their own other lifetimes in order to learn from experiences in these other lifetimes and benefit in the current lifetime from talents and skills that were part of these other lifetimes. But this is our first recollection of The Council suggesting that people have this same ability to connect with the consciousness of anyone living or not and experience similar benefits because all human beings are connected as spiritual beings.

There appears to be a lot of creative potential in these ideas. We look forward to exploring them. If you’ve had experiences similar to what The Council is talking about here, we’d like to hear about it.

Your Greatest Power Is Choice

Although The Council’s question about whether they said too much seemed rhetorical, I replied that I didn’t think so, and they continued:

“And so if you need help from anyone — if you want to be a great painter and you want to paint like Picasso — think of him. ‘What would it have been like to be Picasso, because I was… I am?’

“And so in those kind of thoughts you bring in the energy and the help you are looking for. We hope your readers will like that one.” [Laughs]

“And so in the same way that there are many, many past lives, your greatest power is choice; you are choosing and any time you wish to create another future life, and another one, and another one… [you choose].

“And so there is no limit to what you can do… to what you can experience. Is that understood?”

This is where we began to realize there’s more to this idea of future lives than the casual mention offered earlier relative to past lives.

Going back to at least 2011, The Council has reminded us in many sessions that the power of choice is our greatest power. These reminders are often in the context of our power in any moment to choose the focus of our attention, and how our focus of attention determines to a large extent the kind of experiences we attract into our physical reality.

Here The Council suggests we have the ability to choose an unlimited number of future lifetimes and these choices aren’t all that different from the way we’ve created/chosen the many past lives we’ve experienced. In the next section The Council develops this idea of future lives further.

You Are Here Right Now to Expand Love into Right Now

“Some people…think, ‘Well the way I live my life now is going to create my next life, or my future life way in the future.’

“This life… the way you live it now… there are no benefits and no negative experiences going to your future unless you wish it to be in your future.

“Your benefits… your experiences that you are going through now… the importance of it is now. Whatever you create in the future will be what you wish to create in the future.

“And so if you are creating one life in the future for now [or] if you are creating 500 future lives out there now, we ask you to focus on what you want to experience now; now in the present where your attention is… where this human body is… where you find yourself now. Concentrate on that. Bring in the love of spirit into this situation.

“The other parts of you — and there are many, many parts of you that are in spirit; the greater part of you is in spirit – can break off and go into these future lives.

“And while it is wonderful to remember what you consider a past life, and to want to see it and experience it, you can do the same with the future lives; but again it is a fun thing to do, but you are here right now to experience right now. Is that clear?”

Negative Behavior in One Lifetime is Not Responsible for Negative Experiences in Future Lifetimes

The Council addresses a popular belief that what we think of as negative behavior in one lifetime is responsible for creating negative experiences in lifetimes to come, and they advise this is not the case. Echoing a point they made in the previous section, The Council does allow for the possibility of deliberately choosing a future lifetime with what can be thought of as negative experiences, but we assume the reason for a choice like this would be to experience the expansion of the love of spirit into that lifetime to uplift the so-called negative experience.

Focus on Your Present

The Council emphasizes that while it can be fun to experience ‘past’ lifetimes, or ‘future’ lifetimes you choose to create, their guidance is to focus attention on what you think of as the present, and doing what you can to bring the love you are as a spiritual being into your present human reality. This guidance is becoming increasingly emphasized in recent sessions with The Council. They add that who you are as a spiritual being is well-equipped to address the needs of future lifetimes while you focus on the present.

Responding to The Council’s question if it was clear what they were saying about focusing in the present:

Bob: I believe so. It sounds like you’re saying that what we in our human experience perceive to be the present, what you seem to be calling right now…

Council: …the now, right now…

Bob: …is the place where we have the most power to influence what we think of as our future lives.

The Joy of Heaven/Spirit Doesn’t Depend on Correct Behavior

The Council continued:

“Too many people worry if they do not live this life now in what they feel [is] a correct way, they will pay for it in the future. And we say that is not so. [It is] only if you wish to create some problems —  what people consider karma — [you think] I must pay back the karma.

“The benefits of this life is right now. It will not affect your future life because [in] your future life you will create it the way you want it. And as there is expansion in spirit, as there is expansion in your thoughts and your feelings, you will take that into future lives.”

This restatement of The Council’s comments in the previous section seems to emphasize their importance. In case there was a question whether The Council was referring to the concept of karma in the previous section, their mention of it here seems to clarify this point.

The Takeaway

During the session segment on Jose’s question about past, present, and future, The Council addressed what seems to be a wider variety of subjects than usual. The upside is lots of different and interesting things to think about, but we also like to understand what The Council says in terms of what it means to us personally. The two aspects of this segment that stand out for us are:

1. The Council’s re-emphasis on previous guidance that our purpose as spiritual beings in a physical body is to focus on our present circumstances and find ways of focusing our attention that let the feeling of love we are in spirit expand into physical reality.
2. The idea that in every moment we can choose by the focus of our attention to create as many future lifetimes as we desire, and that who we are as a spiritual being attends to these creations for us in a way that allows us to experience these future lifetimes as our expansion catches us up to them.

Of the other ideas mentioned in this post, you may find your takeaway is more focused on experimenting with connecting to the consciousness of creative geniuses to learn how you can bring this into one or more future lives you choose to create. Or your takeaway might be a re-examination of your beliefs about behaving in certain ways in order to be rewarded in a future lifetime. Please feel free to let us know what you find most helpful in this post.

In Closing

We want to thank Jose for his question on past, present, and future, and for his other interesting questions that are being answered in other posts. The guidance we received from The Council in response to this question feels like an expansion of our understanding of several subjects.

As we finished the section of the session on Jose’s second question and began to introduce Jose’s next question, The Council made the following appreciative comment:

“Very good questions.”

Additional posts that describe the parts of this session focused on answering Jose’s other questions include (in the order the posts were published):

1. Every Question Is Important
2. Why Do People Appear Unable to Fulfill a Spiritual Intention to Have Fun and Remember Who We Are?
3. Does Spirit’s Pre-Birth Planning Negate Human Free Will?

 Let Us Know What You Think

Thank you for taking time to read this post. We hope you feel your time with it has been well spent. We’d love to know what you think of this material. Please consider leaving a comment in the Leave a Reply section below. If you have any questions for The Council about ideas mentioned in this post or other posts, the Leave a Reply section is a good place to submit your questions. For questions not related to a specific post we suggest you write them in the Leave a Reply section at the very bottom of the Welcome page. We will be notified by email and reply as soon as we can.

May 7, 2013 - Posted by Cynthia & Bob | Choice, Expansion, Karma, Love, Multiple Realities, Other Lifetimes, Part of a Series, Questions & Answers, Religion, Spirit, You Create Your Reality | Expansion, Future Lives, Heaven, Love, Past lives, Power of Choice, Present Reality, Reincarnation