Past Life

Our souls have undergone many lives. In these lives we have relationships with people or animals. We have children, friendships, and experience bonds. This could mean that we have met many past lives before, and as strange as this sounds, there's a reason we shouldn't remember them. Rituals in the Hmong funeral process and an afterlife stage known as "dej iab, deb dawv" prohibit souls from remember their past lives. This happens so that we can learn to move on into our next life, free of attachments or emotions that will hold us back from our next life. In the weird way we don't remember things as an infant or while we remain in our mothers womb, we also don't remember our past lives so that we can make room for better lessons and live our life according to what's happening now. But, strangely enough, there are moments in life where we do meet or remember people from our past lives. This came to my realization a few years after I started my journey of becoming a shaman.

As we meet a soul or person from our past life, we will begin to experience tremendous emotions or feelings when we're around that person. These feelings can be love, happiness, peace, or even hatred, fear, or anger. Another common experience is to feel like we've known them for ages without even having to talk to them for a long period. It is a sense of familiarity. When we do talk to them, we feel an instant connection like a magnet to a charged particle. Our souls from past lives have a deep connection with them, sometimes a blood connection and other times a love connection. Sometimes we even dream of them. These are our past families, close friends, past lovers, children, people who loved us, hurt us, or siblings. It is a connection so deep that our soul, when passing into reincarnation, makes it a mission to remember them. In other times, our soul waits for them in the afterlife so that we can both go and reincarnate together. It is possible that although we feel it or remember them, they themselves may not recognize this feeling and it may not be mutual. This happens because their soul has forgotten us, as it should, when being reincarnated into their current state.

What happens when we meet someone from our past life? Besides feeling like you have an instant connection and have a deep feeling when you're together, you may feel like they are an important person to you but can't figure out why. You feel as though you could spend hours or days together without ever being bored. When you separate or go your own way, you feel an emptiness. You feel sad. Nostalgic. You feel blue, left out, lost, depressed, heavy, and you keep thinking and wondering about them. Not in a creepy sense, but as a sense of wondering how a sick parent from out of state is doing. You have that constant worry and they remain in your thoughts. You relive the time you did spend together because your soul misses them. You've been separate for all these life times and when you finally get to see them or talk to them, you don't want to leave. It's as if you have so much to catch up on. Much of this can be the opposite if you meet someone from your past life who hurt you or treated you awful. Your feelings would be opposite to the contrary.

I've had only three instances, or three people, who I recognize deeply from my past life. In these situations, it's best to keep to myself because I don't want to sound like a crazy person. I also don't want my current mother or current brother to feel sad or "tu siab" that I call someone else my mom or my brother. I felt these feelings before I became a shaman and it was only after I started my "shaman in training" stage that I realized what this meant. In my interactions with these souls from my past life, they are all good feelings. But when I leave their presence or have to say good-bye, I get a deep sad feeling. Nostalgic. Depressed. Lost. It makes me want to cry. It takes me a few days to just come back around and realize everything is meant to be the way it is. We each carry with us our own lessons we need to learn in this life, and sometimes meeting someone from our past life, we simply have to learn something they promised us in our past lives. In this lifetime, I've met my mother from my past life and two of my brothers from some part of my past lives. I've had the same dream multiple times where it involves me running away from Laotian and Vietnamese soldiers and the dream occurs in the exact same spot every time, with the exact same people, and the exact same outcome. I've had the same dream of being in an underground bunker with other Hmong soldiers, trying to escape. I've had the same dream of seeing a Hmong daughter die from a sickness over and over, same people, same spot, same bamboo hut, and same outcome. Today, as I continue to see my past mother and past brothers, I get an extremely excited and happy feeling but also a very intense sad feeling knowing I'll have to say good-bye to them until next time. I'm sad we don't get to have the relationship we had in our past life. But I am thankful and wouldn't trade my current mother and current brother for anything or anyone. It's a feeling I've had to learn to pick myself up from knowing I will never be brothers with my past brother or have the same mom from my past life.

Karma is this train that as we push forward, the same energy is returned back. The people we meet in our past lives could have a karmic tie or loop with us. This could be why we come into this life with an intent to see, meet, or have a relationship or connection with people from our past life. The emotions we feel with that person is grouped with our karmic train. Sometimes we owe debt to that person and as they come back around, we finally pay back what we owe them. In some situations, marriages fall apart because the two couples have finally finish paying their debt to each other and their karmic train releases. They must go their own way. In some situations too, two brothers meant to be born as family could find themselves born into different families in this life. Causing them to miss their lifetime as brothers in this current life. The same goes for Hmong twins, as some Hmong people believe twins are past lovers. Instead of being born as lovers again (because they finished their debt or karmic loop) they are born as twins, sharing the same womb. They wait for each other and come to this life together wanting to be together, not being able to split up but literally coming together in the same womb.

For some people they go their whole lives without ever feeling these emotions. They go their whole lives without ever seeing, meeting, or remembering anyone from their past life. For others, we feel these deep connections and if you've ever had this, you know that feeling. These feelings aren't romantically motivated, but intrinsically motivated. These feelings are intriguing, captivating, and these past souls can sometimes mean more to you than any random person or even people you've known for a long time in this life.

TFL Hmong Shamanism