The past life memory came from a holotophic breathwork workshop with Stan Grof and Jack Kornfeld.  I had been doing the breathing for about an hour.  I was suddenly thrown into a Mesoamerican life in which I was doing an initiation to become a full priest.  I had to spend time with a jaguar with the objective of making it a brother. We wrestled in a cage, fought, rolled over each other and exerted strength against each other as long as we could until we were both at the point of exhaustion.  At that point we realized that we were brothers and that we would work together in our life.

From there, that jaguar became me and I became a high priest.  I killed it and wore its skin.  As the priest I would take the prisoners who were caught in wars.  I would sacrifice them to the jaguar.  I would take the obsidian knife and cut their hearts out.  I would take upon myself all of the fears and hopes and concerns and desires of my people. All of the psychic phenomena – thoughts, feelings, and demons that would prey on them.  It was a sacrifice to the jaguar.  The prisoners were the vehicles by which the demons would go to the spirit world.  The jaguar is my ability to transmute the suffering of my people and get rid of it.  I had to merge with the jaguar in order to be able to do that.

Since I had that experience, years ago, it hasn’t had much effect on me because it’s so far out of the ordinary that I have never figured out how to use it.   My X made a needlepoint of a jaguar for me.  She still has it.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Healing the body

2. Healing the mind

3. Healing the soul

Jaguar, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am large, black, male jaguar.  I have very sharp eyes and teeth.  Lots of them and I’m very strong.  I’m in Felix – in his muscles, heart, lungs, stomach…

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I feel so strong, supple, and able.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

No.

Jaguar, you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?

We co-created each other, but yes.

Jaguar, what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

The ability to transcend normal consciousness. For healing, whatever.

Jaguar, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No!  Felix could make best use of me by calling me in during meditations.  He gets stuck thinking.  I do not do that.  I AM.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Jaguar, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10

Compassion: 10 I am compassionate toward Felix because I recognize that the deepest and darkest parts of him need compassion.  That which is fearful needs compassion. That which is petty needs compassion. That which is angry needs compassion. That which is joyful needs compassion.  All the things that he pushes away need compassion and I can give it.  I am strong enough to do it.

Wisdom: 10 I see what Felix needs and doesn’t need much better than he can.

Acceptance: 10

Inner Peace: 10 It’s a calm, restful state of being.  Completely at ease but ready to move at an instant.

Witnessing: 10

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

The transformations he is working his way through would go faster, easier, and occur more completely.  He would be so present that he’s not even aware of some of the abilities he would gain as a result.  All of the siddhis (psychic powers) come out of me.  He doesn’t even know what he can do, how powerful I am.

Are you at all concerned with Felix misusing your abilities, Jaguar, or not?

With great power comes great responsibility.  And there’s always temptation.

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

He’s just becoming awake again after being asleep for thirty years.  He’s had moments of wakefulness.  He’s finding I’m still with him.  All the stuff he was doing thirty years ago and put aside because he was told to – he slept through and learned through his misery.  And now it’s awakening again because his body has been given a death sentence (a diagnosis of metastasized prostate cancer).

What do you think about that, Jaguar?

Better late than never!

If you could live this person’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle his/her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Healing the body: He has to heal it in order to handle the energy that I am. Become a little more tenacious toward healing.  Keep focused.  He’s learning.  He’ll make it.

2. Healing the mind: He needs not to think that the thoughts are his.  They are just thoughts.  Like a car.  It’s not his.  It’s just a car.  His thoughts are not him.  They are just thoughts.  Same thing with his feelings.

3. Healing the soul: He is well on the way to doing that.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

1. Work with the magic.

2. Work with the siddhis.

3. Work with dying.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

When he needs strength and courage.   If he becomes me he transforms.  Fears go away. The pain subsides.  He understands.

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

We have been together for several lifetimes.

Why have you kept showing up for him?

We’re brothers.  We can’t be separated.

How do you feel about Felix listening to you now?

It’s about time!

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

Falling asleep.

What would you recommend that they do about that?

Remember to ask if something is a dream.  Keep practicing lucidity.  Keep practicing awakening from the dream.  Is this a dream?  Is this a dream?

I think this person had this past life memory because

It’s who he is.

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

The people are now thoughts.  Sacrifice them!  Let them go!  Let them carry their emotions to me and they will be transformed.

How would he go about doing that, Jaguar?

When he experience the emotions he thinks of as suffering, see me. Feel me, hear me.  And I will take them from him.  Whenever he wishes.  I will be with him for many lifetimes to come.

Do you have anything else you’d like to say to Felix right now?

Don’t forget. Remember.

What have you heard yourself say?

That was a trance!  That was just a trance. It wasn’t like I was talking at all.  This is in me and when I fall asleep I lose a very powerful and impressively powerful part of my existence.  I’m not to do it.  I can’t do what I’m doing without him.  He’s part of so much of who I am and how I’ve been for lifetimes.  I have to awaken to him every lifetime.  I did thirty years ago.  I haven’t been awake to him.  But that’s changing.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

You have a whole lot of ability to do a whole lot of different things.  You better listen to the jaguar and listen to all the spirit world that you have contact with and succeed in working with them.  They are there to transform you and everything else.

The following example, which came from a regression years ago, is not a grandiose past life memory of being Napoleon or a disciple of Jesus.  It is chosen precisely because its mundane nature gives it a degree of plausibility that more glorious and esteemed accounts can lack.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Building IDL

2. Deepening my awareness of life’s abundance, joyful absurdity, and luminosity.

3. Acting. thinking, feeling within the context of the six core qualities.

Tell me a past life memory.

I am an orphan who has been adopted by a hermit.  He teaches me how to live in the woods.  We live in a cave-like place behind vines in a forest.  The floor is dirt. There is a three legged stool.  I walk into a small village and find it empty.  I go to the small church; there is no one there.  I go back to the woods and my home and become weak, sick, and die.

I figure that the people in the village must have died of the plague and I caught it.

Why do you think that you had this past life experience?

Maybe to partially explain my lifelong ability to be by myself and not feel lonely.

If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

Forest Hermit

These are the characters in the dream…

Me, Hermit, Woods, Cave, Vines, Stool, Village, Church

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

The stool.  It’s so inconsequential, yet almost out of place.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Stool, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am just a crudely fashioned three-legged stool.  I am made out of wood from this forest.  I am in this cave.  I am made to be sat on.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I hold people up.  I am useful.  I am reliable; I do what I’m made to do.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

No.  While I may be nothing special, I have a place and a purpose, and I fulfill both.

Stool, you are in Joseph’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right? What aspect of Joseph do you represent or most closely personify?

I am the life support that comes from simplicity, from the overlooked, from the easily obtained.  One doesn’t have to have much to live well.  Not having had much, these people do not experience themselves as impoverished.

Stool, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No.  I am content to be myself.  I like my life and I like my purpose.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Stool, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I have nothing to be afraid of.  I am not afraid of getting old and collapsing or being used as firewood.  Such things are my destiny.

Compassion:   ? I am not in the business of caring about anyone or anything.

Wisdom:   ? I do not need or use wisdom.

Acceptance: 10 I accept myself and life completely.

Inner Peace: 10 Definitely.

Witnessing:   8 I get to observe these people and the world from an unemotional place.  I don’t personalize anything and I don’t do drama.

(Character,) if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I wouldn’t be a stool any more if I scored ten in compassion and wisdom.  I would prefer to stay a stool.

How would the life of Joseph be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He would would not experience scarcity.  He would experience life as abundant, regardless of his circumstances.  He would have no concern for the future.  It would be enough for him to have a function and to take pleasure in fulfilling it.

If you could live the life of Joseph for him, how would you live it differently?

I would not base my life on thinking or caring; he already does those things anyway.  He needs to get into a deeper essence, a beingness that is not affected by other people or by the ravages of time.

If you could live Joseph’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Building his work:  Proceed with great confidence, yet serenity.

2. Luminosity, joyful absurdity, and abundance:  Be me.  I have more of those things than you do.

3. Living life from the six core qualities:  I can help with four of the six.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

The same.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

Whenever he takes life too seriously.

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

To help him put life in proportion.

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

I am just a three-legged stool.  Why should he listen to me?

What would you recommend that they do about that?

He values turning the mundane, secular, and profane into the sacred.  He could do worse than practice with me.

I think this person had this past life memory because

it points to the transitoriness of life, the value of simplicity, the abundance of nature, and how these values transcend space, time, and death.

Do you think it was a real past-life memory?

I think it is like a dream, a metaphor designed to help him wake up.

What have you heard yourself say?

That from the perspective of this self-aspect the distinction between waking experience, dreams, and past life experiences either is unimportant or non-existent.  What is important is how I understand such experiences and what I learn from them.  I can learn more and use them better if I interview other characters that appear in past life memories.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Spirit doesn’t make such distinctions.  To make your life sacred, focus on the six core qualities and their fruit, luminosity, abundance, and joyful absurdity.