Your Soul’s Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born
By paranominal
Published: January 16, 2010
Tagged with: Accidents, Aids, Alcoholism, Author Robert, Before, Blindness, born, Cancer, Courageous Souls, Discovering, Drug Addiction, Eternal Souls, Experiences, Handicapped Children, life, Life Challenges, Losing A Loved One, meaning, mediums, Parenting, plan, Planned, Premise, Product Description, real, Robert Schwartz, Souls, Spiritual Growth, Suffering, Were, your
I recently purchased this book just before Christmas to add to my growing personal library which is now over several thousand books. I’m only about a third the way into it but have to say it is one of the better books I have read, particularly about its fresh content. The book provides a thorough series of different case studies for various life events that affect people and their families. What I am finding of interest in this book is the depth of information and relevance to past lives, our present life, and our current life situations. It’s well written and I would highly recommend it to those looking for ‘answers’ to where they are in life as what we believe is relevant on this side, is most likely not what is relevant in the bigger picture scenario.
regards
Mark Bell
Australia
Rating: 2 / 5
When I first found out about this book I was skeptikal about the idea that we might plan our challenges before birth but was fascinated enough by the concept to at least give it a chance.
It did manage to keep my attention but I found it to be a bit far fetched. According to the book we should be grateful to those people who have caused us harm in our lives because they have done so not out of malice but out of love and respect for the paths we have chosen before birth. I guess I just don’t see how that fits in with the concept of karma or responsibility for one’s actions. It seems to me that buying into that idea would almost give those who hurt me an automatic get out of jail free card.
On the flip side I can see how those who are seeking a new way to look at their lives might benefit from this book. It certainly does present readers with an innovative perspective into some of life’s biggest challenges.
Overall, it’s interesting and thought-provoking but not very realistic.
Rating: 3 / 5
For the last 35 years I have devoted considerable attention to uncovering and writing about my own past lives, and studying how the karma from each of them has played out in the events and relationships of my present life. After uncovering three historically identifiable, though far from famous, past personas, I was, like many others, frustrated that neither I, nor any of the writers I had consulted seemed to be able to throw any light on the issue of what happens to us between lifetimes.
And while I’m sure many readers will enjoy what they find in “Courageous Souls,” in all honesty, I must confess to being very disappointed in it. At first, I thought perhaps the book just suffered from comparison to the writings of Michael Newton. But it was more than that. Unlike Newton’s works, this book just doesn’t ring genuine to me. I suspect that the quality of the material presented may have something to do with the methods by which the information in this book was collected, via channels and psychics rather than via the super-conscious minds of the actual subjects involved.
The works of Michael Newton, on the other hand, are arguably the most credible and fascinating accounts of this entire genre. By directing the focus of his subjects away from their subconscious and toward their super-conscious, it seems Dr Newton succeeded in accessing a spiritual dimension previously untapped by the vast majority of researchers in this field. Once there, he was able to painstakingly document over many years what is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive, detailed and believable models of what takes place in the afterlife anyone has ever put forward. Most importantly, it portrays in very convincing terms just how each of us goes about planning and designing our future lives. And once we absorb such a concept it becomes difficult for anyone to fail to take responsibility for their own lives, even with all its challenges and disappointments.
As fate would have it, I discovered Newton’s works just after reading “Same Soul, Many Bodies” by the prolific Dr Brian Weiss. In it he discusses his experiences with “future life progression” as a technique for inspiring and motivating patients to change the directions of their lives by revealing the potentialities awaiting them in future incarnations, if they can just make the right choices in the here-and-now.
Comparing the claims of Dr Weiss with those of Dr Newton seemed to leave me with something of a paradox, which was namely this: If Dr Newton was correct that when we die we return to the spiritual realm to take on the work of planning and designing our next life, how would it be possible for Dr Weiss to explore our future lives while we are still alive, since the planning process had not taken place yet?
To resolve this conundrum I decided to have a chat with my spirit guide, Prakash. He first reminded me that linear time is only an operable construct in the physical dimension, and that from the perspective of the spiritual realm all physical incarnations co-exist simultaneously in a moment of eternity. Therefore, it follows that all those between life episodes that Dr Newton describes likewise exist in that same simultaneous eternity. The only reason is seems confusing is because Dr Newton is exploring and reporting what appears to be a linear sequence of lives and their related planning episodes, which necessarily skews his perspective due to his viewing the information from his location here in this dimension of linear time.
This gave me an idea. From all of my past lives that I have explored over the last three decades, two have stood out as closely related, even though they were separated by 700 years. The first was my life as Genghis Khan’s nephew Yegu, and the second was my life as Field Marshall Count Helmuth von Moltke (the younger), nephew of von Moltke (the elder), his uncle and namesake, the military genius and hero of the Franco-Prussian War who helped Bismarck unite the German Empire. In the first life the plan for me to succeed my uncle Genghis failed, but in the second I did succeed my uncle as Chief of the German General Staff prior to and during the initial phases of WW I. As you might suspect, von Moltke (the elder) was a reincarnation of Genghis Khan.
What occurred to me is that exploring the planning stages of these two incarnations in tandem would provide a rare opportunity to see this whole planning process at its most complex. Fortunately, Dr Newton’s third book, “Life Between Lives” was designed as something of a do-it-yourself training manual for just such explorations. So I guess that will be my next project.
Maxwell Austin van Lack, Author of The Vortex: A True Story of Passion and Karma
Rating: 3 / 5
.
My review will not cover the basic contents of the book as this has been done by so many other reviewers already. This is a critical high level review of the book from the view point of the non-dual wisdom teachings of the east and is therefore probably only going to not going to make sense if you are not familiar with these teachings. If this is not the kind of review you are looking for then please skip it and read one of the other numerous reviews.
“We seek our own melding with the absolute”
In my life long search for the true meaning of life I have studied and investigated a lot of things. Ultimately I have become convinced that our truth purpose in life is enlightenment and now study and follow the so called non-dual religions of the east. Having found non-dual wisdom I abandoned all my previous spiritual / religious beliefs including the belief in channeled information as well as the new age idea’s that we reincarnate to learn specific lessons. So initially I was resistant to revisit the concepts that are presented in this book as they seemingly are in direct conflict with the non-dual wisdom path. How could both be right? One believing that the personal self is an illusion and that there is only one true nature and the other believing that there is a spirit world and that we have individual immortal souls that reincarnate to learn lessons. However it proved well worth my while to put aside my reservations and read this book!
“If you always – and I mean always – take the higher road, the higher frequencies will lift you into more loving actions towards others.” ~ Page 285, Courageous Souls. Non-dual wisdom says if you seek your true nature then the Self will begin to pull you in. What I discovered in reading this book was that it is far more inline with non-dual wisdom than I initially suspected. It now seems to me that reincarnation and life lessons are an intermediate stage (that we all go through) which will ultimately lead to the desire to seek enlightenment itself, which is where the non-dual teachings of the east begin. The channeled information in the book states quite clearly that the personality structure is an illusion created for learning; “The personality is the illusion that is required on Earth in this space-time to learn the lessons” ~ Page 222; “You must understand that the personality is a construct” ~ Page 230. Non-dual wisdom says something very similar that the personality is a construct / illusion and that enlightenment is seeing through the construct and knowing ones true Self, which is indescribable impersonal conscious non-duality (oneness).
I am university trained in logic and deductive reasoning and do not simply believe something because it sounds impressive or it is popular. I put everything I come across through rigorous logical analysis and cross checking and only embrace it when it stands up to thorough examination. Just because I have embraced spiritual teachings does not mean that I have thrown out logic and reason. Therefore the unscientific approach of this book grated on me and although I was pleased that the author validated the information by using several different sources for the same person the book is clearly written with no objectivity. I found the writing style too informal and loose for what I consider a serious subject. The author repeatedly inserts his own understanding of the material, his personal beliefs and common new age beliefs which requires some sorting through because of the different sources and levels of understanding mixed together. The reliability of the source of all information is of utmost important to all scientists.
Spiritual truth can only ever completely be trusted when spoken by someone who knows because they have been there experientially. Second hand truth may be true but there is no way to verify that it is not simply nice cozy concepts that we want to believe in because they make us feel better. Lastly I definitely do not trust channeled information, for the same reason, you have a completely unverifiable source of information. You have no idea what level of consciousness that `spirit’ who is providing the information has reached, in fact you have no idea if information is even being channeled. A clever psychic or psychologist could simply be reading you and telling you what you expect to hear or giving you some spiritual information that they read in books especially after you have already provided them with a lot of information upfront. I am not saying that the information provided in this book is not true but rather that you can not verify the source of the information and therefore it is automatically less trust worthy. For these reasons the book lost one star. Despite my misgivings I still rated this book at four stars simply because of the inspiring and beneficial affect it had on me. And despite what I have said I have faith that the unverifiable `life plan’ information is reasonably reliable because I crossed checked the other channeled information with my non-dual wisdom sources and these sources I have complete faith in since I have been validating them for years.
Some further extracts; “Do not consider reuniting, for that betokens a separation. There is never any separation. What the personality feels after death, when it feels as one with God, is simply the brushing away of cobwebs that obscure its view” ~ Page 223. Non-dual wisdom says that the world appears as duality but in reality is non-dual. In other words there is no separation only a oneness, this applies to physical object as well as consciousness. Further it says that we can not see reality because our view is obscured. “we create the illusion in which we appear to be separate from one another and All That Is” ~ Page 203. “The realization and recognition that one is responsible for creating one’s own sense of happiness and well-being” ~ Page 143. This is also a teaching from a high consciousness level and indeed similar to non-dual wisdom which states that we project all meaning out onto the world. All emotion states stem from our mental positioning towards objects. Therefore if we give up our constant mental positioning we can experience peace. “What other activities are you engaged in? We, too, server as guides and mention for others, and we seek our own melding with the absolute”; a question that is asked of channeled spirit ~ Page 74. This is saying that there are other beings in other realms also seeking enlightenment in their own way and this agrees with the non-dual teachings that say we are seeking enlightenment.
I have given some examples from the book that I have been able to verify with my non-dual wisdom sources. Some other concepts that are mentioned in the book that also correlate with non-dual wisdom are impermanence, non-judgment, compassion and love. One of my non-dual western master teachers often says how judgment is reserved for God alone and that we think is just a beggar on the street may actually be an enlightened master. This book really helped me embrace this teaching. I have found faith in what else is offered about life lessons and despite my continued weariness and tendency to distrust channeled information I have found this book of great interest and usefulness. It certainly helped me become less judgmental, more accepting, inspired greater hope and meaning, and resolved a long conflict I had between my past new age beliefs and current faith in non-dual wisdom. In essence both teachings are true and compatible but vary in approach and target audience. I highly recommend this book to those of you who embrace new age and also to those who study non-dual wisdom (as an interesting and useful adjunct to your primary teachings). I end with one more validation with the non-dual wisdom teachings.
“The hermit who sits alone on a mountaintop radiating a vibration of peace does more to bring harmony to the world than the angry peace marcher.” ~ Page 270
Don’t forget you can click on the comment button to leave me a comment about this review.
Rating: 4 / 5
The book is a good read but most of the interviews with the channels are disappointing. I believe almost anything is possible but they really left me feeling like it was a joke. I also felt the stories left too much untold of our own free will. I think if he had just done the interviews himself with the people and left out the channels it would have been better. They just weren’t believable and were repetitious.
Rating: 3 / 5