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Past life resemblance

melon04

melon04

Senior Member
I am aware that there is a tendency for people to resemble their past lives. But is this always the case? Someone on Discord, who is a Buddhist, told me that Buddhism teaches that sometimes a person will look the same in different incarnations and other times they don't.

One interesting thing I will bring up is that when I saw my past life self, I could myself recognize him even though the physical features were (obviously) different. First thing I thought when I saw myself as "hey that's me". I could also recognize that my wife was my sister from this life (she had lighter skin and curly hair just like now).
 
No, it is not always the case. I don't know why or how, just that there are cases of reincarnation with close resemblance and cases without.
I have found a picture of what looks like me from the period of the spanish flu era- honestly I thought I was looking into my own eyes, I even showed Mom and she asked how I photoshopped the picture to make it look like I was there. But I don't feel connected so much, anymore, maybe it is an ancestor?
In another instance I've had a dream of a culture or way of life I had no idea existed until further research, suffice to say, the physical characteristics of those born in this region would not match mine today. But this dream would provide a foundation for the entirety of my spiritual journey thus far.
 
I look at lot like my past lives and so does my family but those are also the most recent lives.

Everything is possible and time between lives and also place changes and other things all have factors. From my experience, I thought that most people reincarnate with their families and for most western lives, that isn't true. I've reincarnated with my family multiple times (them all so far having been eastern) and that may explain why we all look similar. However for those that vary their birth locations and families, it's quit possible that your lives will all look different from one another.

I personally think though it's a mix of physical attributes and genetics in this world along with your own personal preference and imprint as you choose your next life.
 
I don’t think I look physically like my past lives except maybe for the color of the hair. With my last past life, what troubles me the most is rather in the facial expressions, the posture and gestures, the way of smiling and almost closing the eyes. When I saw the photo of my last life I knew it was me.
 
melon04 said:
Something I do have to say is that I strongly disagree with people poly relying on physical appearance to try to claim past lives (I've seen this numerous times, particularly with supposedly famous lives).
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The strongest form of proof should be knowing something that can't be or isn't known to the general public. Although that always isn't fool proof either, but it is a strong indication that should be considered along with all other kinds of validations and proof.
 
I believe it’s possible but aren’t entirely related. I have similar phenotypes with certain lives but not with others.

What helped me identify that they were me were their inner thoughts because I would’ve done the same if I were in their situation. They also think similarly to me, especially my German self(aka my most recent). He had my quirks too, like that picky eater trait and being too honest that I could hurt someone. ‘I’d prefer to leave innocent people alone, but I would be more than happy to be a monster towards other monsters. Clean up the trash,’ kind of thoughts.
 
As my memories tend to be first person and I don't remember looking into a mirror yet (or into water if I didn't have access to a mirror), I can't tell how I looked like. I sometimes see my hands or my legs, sometimes I don't see anything at all and just feel my body, or it is like in a dream or like a sudden childhood memory from the present life (when I think of my 4th B-day in my current life, what I remember first is the cake, followed by faces of other kids): I am somehow there, but more as some kind of presense/awareness, something with a sense of "me",like in this life when busy with what ever task.

It has happened to me that pictures give me a strong feeling of... not that is was me, but that I once knew someone who looked exactly like that. Now when you have paintings and statues, they don't necessarily look exactly the same as the person they are said to show (and sometimes the same person looks different on several paintings while sometimes several people look all the same).
I get this tingling sensation in my fingertips, and I just know that I have met this person. Somehow. Just that I can't tell who this person was, because this depends on who modelled for exactly this painting or statue, how much effort the artist put into detail and realism and so on. The artist might have produced the exact copy of someone else by accident. Death masks are a different matter, but just recognizing a face still doesn't mean much. When it is a famous person who showed up in public, I could just have seen them from a crowd, and if it is someone influential, they would have affected my life in one way or the other so that I would have admired, feared or hated them which could give me enough reason to remember their face. I am also aware that "doppelgangers" exist. Like all these Elvis imitators as an example.

I usually don't give much for look-alikes. It's kinda interesting, but I don't think it means much on its own. When look-alikes come together with other strong signs, they can be an extra. Maybe like Easter Eggs in a computer game, special greetings from the universe.

I also don't think that you necessarily have to look like your PL. There even are people who don't look the same anymore when they grow older in the same life (and I don't mean surgery, some people just change a lot while they are aging).
 
SeekerOfKnowledge said:
As my memories tend to be first person and I don't remember looking into a mirror yet (or into water if I didn't have access to a mirror), I can't tell how I looked like. I sometimes see my hands or my legs, sometimes I don't see anything at all and just feel my body, or it is like in a dream or like a sudden childhood memory from the present life (when I think of my 4th B-day in my current life, what I remember first is the cake, followed by faces of other kids): I am somehow there, but more as some kind of presense/awareness, something with a sense of "me",like in this life when busy with what ever task.

It has happened to me that pictures give me a strong feeling of... not that is was me, but that I once knew someone who looked exactly like that. Now when you have paintings and statues, they don't necessarily look exactly the same as the person they are said to show (and sometimes the same person looks different on several paintings while sometimes several people look all the same).

I get this tingling sensation in my fingertips, and I just know that I have met this person. Somehow. Just that I can't tell who this person was, because this depends on who modelled for exactly this painting or statue, how much effort the artist put into detail and realism and so on. The artist might have produced the exact copy of someone else by accident. Death masks are a different matter, but just recognizing a face still doesn't mean much. When it is a famous person who showed up in public, I could just have seen them from a crowd, and if it is someone influential, they would have affected my life in one way or the other so that I would have admired, feared or hated them which could give me enough reason to remember their face. I am also aware that "doppelgangers" exist. Like all these Elvis imitators as an example.

I usually don't give much for look-alikes. It's kinda interesting, but I don't think it means much on its own. When look-alikes come together with other strong signs, they can be an extra. Maybe like Easter Eggs in a computer game, special greetings from the universe.

I also don't think that you necessarily have to look like your PL. There even are people who don't look the same anymore when they grow older in the same life (and I don't mean surgery, some people just change a lot while they are aging).
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Hi, Seeker:

What a nice way of putting things you have.

More than once in this life I've seen how people couldn't recognize me only after 3-4 years of not seeing me.

I once went to a place where I had spent 11 years first as a teenager in a special school, then in a university and after that in a post-university period. I recognized some people I had known there, meeting them face to face at a 2-3 meter distance, and they did not recognize me.

It's what you say - the physical resemblance is not determinating: there is something more durable, maybe gestures, some body movement habits, voice timbre - things like that, that matter much more, especially when we speak of some across lives (PLs) recognition.

IMHO.

Best regards.
 
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I don't think so. I had one PL who had very similar coloring to me, but that's about where the physical similarities stopped. We have a lot of similar habits, I've noticed.

The only real constant seems to be the essence of the eyes imo. The color and shape will change, but the essence won't.
 
I think I have realized something about my past life's appearance in relation to my current appearance.

I know that Jews aren't a race and that there is no such thing as a Jewish race but I remember that I had more noticeably Middle Eastern features which would have made my ethnic background very obvious. (European Jews have mixed European and Middle Eastern ethnicity and can either look more like one or a mix of both.) Which reminds me of how in this current life I look 100% Asian despite technically being half White to the point that I have had people get confused about me not being 100% Asian ethnicity-wise. I found this very interesting and I wonder if I have a tendency to have more POC features (IDK what else to call it but I don't want to say "ethnic" in the sense of non-White because I associate it with weirdos and I feel like it reinforces White as the default race of humans which is not true).

Edit: regarding my opinion on the word "ethnic", I am 100% okay with the term being used in references to actual ethnicity (such as "ethnic group") but I hate whenever people use as a generic term for POC (such as somebody saying "ethnic hair" when they are actually referring to Black hair textures).
 
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Melon, I wouldn't cut yourself short. I would think Jews are a race to an extent. As you said, you don't want to default to everyone being white and I think in the early to middle 20th century many races were all "whitewashed". In this life, I have direct Italian ancestry on my mom's side and if you asked my grandfather, he would never admit to being white.

I think it's a shame that many distinct phenotypes and ethnic backgrounds simply get blended together and that's not just for white people. There is so much diversity in this world that is steamrolled over for one reason or another. There aren't just "black" people, there's Ethiopians, Nigerians.. Or "white" people.. There's Mediterranean people like me and my family, there's Anglos and so on.

All I'm saying is don't cover up your roots! Be proud of what makes you! Everyone has a story, in their family and genetic background and I think that's something that enriches the world around us. Much like how we are here in this plane, to escape the monotony and homogeny of "over there", how varied we are as people is what breaks up the monotony and homogeny here. Variety is truly the spice of life!

Regarding saying POC, I would speak in the first person and say that you have (or have had) Asian, middle eastern features. I don't mind the word ethnic so much, because to me it means closer to your roots, tradition or the genetic origin of your traits. It's common to say ethnic Chinese, to differentiate them from people of Chinese ancestry who live in America and simply identify as American. If you were to refer to Scotland, England and Ireland, it would be fine to refer to them as Ethnic "white people", although that's technically not correct as for example, ethnic Irish may be genetically distinct from ethnic English people.

That's all IMO and if anyone feels I'm wrong or being disrespectful, please let me know.. ! :)
 
Totoro said:
Melon, I wouldn't cut yourself short. I would think Jews are a race to an extent. As you said, you don't want to default to everyone being white and I think in the early to middle 20th century many races were all "whitewashed". In this life, I have direct Italian ancestry on my mom's side and if you asked my grandfather, he would never admit to being white.

I think it's a shame that many distinct phenotypes and ethnic backgrounds simply get blended together and that's not just for white people. There is so much diversity in this world that is steamrolled over for one reason or another. There aren't just "black" people, there's Ethiopians, Nigerians.. Or "white" people.. There's Mediterranean people like me and my family, there's Anglos and so on.

All I'm saying is don't cover up your roots! Be proud of what makes you! Everyone has a story, in their family and genetic background and I think that's something that enriches the world around us. Much like how we are here in this plane, to escape the monotony and homogeny of "over there", how varied we are as people is what breaks up the monotony and homogeny here. Variety is truly the spice of life!

Regarding saying POC, I would speak in the first person and say that you have (or have had) Asian, middle eastern features. I don't mind the word ethnic so much, because to me it means closer to your roots, tradition or the genetic origin of your traits. It's common to say ethnic Chinese, to differentiate them from people of Chinese ancestry who live in America and simply identify as American. If you were to refer to Scotland, England and Ireland, it would be fine to refer to them as Ethnic "white people", although that's technically not correct as for example, ethnic Irish may be genetically distinct from ethnic English people.

That's all IMO and if anyone feels I'm wrong or being disrespectful, please let me know.. ! :)
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I don't think you are being disrespectful and I am not ashamed of my ancestry either. I don't mind using the word "ethnic" as in saying "this person lived in France but was an ethnic Italian" or "some Malaysians are ethnic Chinese". Rather I oppose using it in the sense of saying "ethnic" as a catch-all for whatever non-White race instead of being specific like Black, Asian, Native American, etc. Like for example saying that somebody has "ethnic features" or calling certain aspects of of non-Western cultural "ethnic" while not doing the same for those of Western origin.

I don't think you understood what I was saying. I don't inherently hate the word "ethnic"; I only hate it when it is being used in certain contexts.
 
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