April 7, 2025 • 21 mins
Have you ever wondered why some people seem born with extraordinary talents or why certain challenges keep appearing in your life? The answer might lie in what existed before this lifetime.
Dr. Douglas James Cottrell takes us on a fascinating exploration of pre-existence and how understanding our soul's journey can transform our perspective on life's purpose. He introduces the concept that our immortal souls originated from a place of pure love—what he calls "the Christos"—before venturing into the universe seeking experience and knowledge. Like teenagers given car keys, we eagerly set off to explore but eventually found ourselves unable to return home, leading to incarnations in physical form.
Your current life, according to Dr. Douglas, is one of many patterns your soul must experience to achieve completeness. He describes 144 distinct life patterns we must master, explaining why humanity displays such diversity of experiences and challenges. The difficulties you face weren't randomly assigned but chosen by your soul as opportunities for accelerated growth: "Pleasure puts you to sleep, pain wakes you up." This understanding shifts responsibility back to us, recognizing that our current circumstances—family, economic situation, challenges—were selected as learning experiences.
Perhaps most intriguing is Dr. Douglas's concept of "soul DNA"—a spiritual database your consciousness continuously fills with experiences across lifetimes. This explains why some people demonstrate natural talents from an early age; they're accessing abilities developed in previous existences. By remembering these past experiences, we can avoid repeating mistakes and advance our spiritual evolution more efficiently.
Curious about how your past lives might be influencing your current journey? Subscribe to Wake Up with Dr. Douglas James Cottrell for more insights that will transform how you view your purpose and challenges in this lifetime and beyond.
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Episode Transcript
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Announcer (00:00):
Welcome to Wake Up with Dr Douglas James Cottrell,
your source for helpfulinformation, advice and tips to
live your life in a mindful wayin this increasingly chaotic
world.
For over four decades, DrDouglas has been teaching people
how to develop their intuitionand live their lives in a
conscious way.
His news and views of the worldtomorrow, today, are always
(00:21):
informative and revealing.
And now here's your host, DrDouglas James Cottrell.
Douglas James Cottrell (00:28):
Welcome to the Wake Up, the broadcast
where curiosity leads to deeperunderstanding.
I'm your host, Douglas JamesCottrell, and my good friend and
co-host Les Hubert is here withme, along with editor Jack
Bialik, as we delve into thefascinating realms of life,
metaphysics, spirituality andthe pressing questions that
shape our world.
Hello, my friend.
(00:49):
What are we going to talk aboutthis time?
Les Hubert (00:51):
Hi Doug, we're going to talk about pre-existence.
What does having knowledge ofprevious existence do for us?
There was a book written by DrIan Stevenson, out of the
University of Virginia, showingthat 2,500 people have knowledge
of their pre-existence.
What can that do for us?
Douglas James Cottrell (01:10):
A whole bunch.
First of all, to my friends whoare a little skeptical and to
people who don't understand theprocess of pre-existence, let's
just step back and you remind meof what the question is in a
second if I get distracted.
But it starts off with (01:26):
if you believe you have a soul, all of
us do, I'm assured of it.
You have to discover ityourselves, my friends.
But if we have a soul, thenwhat I'm about to say makes
sense.
If, on the other hand, youdiscard the concept that we have
a soul, that we just have thisphysical existence, we live it
(01:48):
the best we can and then we passaway and we become dust and
there's nothing after, then whatI'm about to say might not make
sense to you.
But let's assume that you havea soul and that soul is immortal
.
That soul came from a greatconsciousness that we attribute
the Universal Mind to, bycalling it a Supreme Being,
(02:11):
Yahweh, God Almighty, and awhole lot of other names.
As we delineate or assign namesto God, you know what?
The name doesn't matter.
Because the names are only forus, the finite mind attempting
(02:33):
to describe the infinite mind,and so God Almighty is the best
term for me, because it says Godis Almighty, God is creation,
God is life, God is virtue, onand on we go.
So if you understand orsubscribe to the concept that
you have a soul and it was inheaven or the other dimensions
above, the other planes ofexistence, if you look at
creation, it talks about Godcreating the heavens and the
(02:58):
earth and created, moving ondown, the oceans and the land,
and moving on down to differentanimals and plant kingdom, and
then finally, on the last day ofcreation, created us people.
It says that (03:11):
Go forth and multiply.
So if you kind of look at itthat way, we're kind of like on
the end of evolution, when Godwas creating things.
So I guess we're at the bottomof the totem pole when it comes
to that.
But to understand that Godcreated the heavens and the
earth, that means all thedimensions, all the planets, all
the nebula, those things thatthe telescopes are reaching out
(03:34):
to see.
God created all that okay.
And somewhere out there is aplace I like to call the
Christos, the place of all love,a place of existence for the
souls started out from.
Home base, if you will.
And so at some point in time,God looking upon itself, and all
(03:57):
of us souls together, for weare of God and from God.
We're pieces of God, fragmentsof God that we assign the name
soul.
He said you know what?
I need to know.
And he created souls, us.
We divided ourselves or Goddivided itself, maybe as a term
(04:21):
to understand and we were allgiven free will and free choice,
and so poof.
It's just like saying to yourteenage son or daughter:
daughter here's the keys to thefamily car.
What's that child going to do?
It's going to take off, it'sgoing to drive away.
.
If if they're us, we We took.
We we went through all theuniverse and we scattered.
(04:41):
We're immortal, we are part ofGod, we are God.
.
.
But when we everybody, got askout them, there in the universe
adult (04:48):
because it's so vast, we couldn't find say
We're lost in darkness andalone, and so we started to
experience things in differentended up here in the world, in
the earth, and so we're stuckbecause we still can't get back
(05:09):
to where we want to go, back, towhere we left home.
You know, everybody asks themwhen they're an adult why did
you leave home?
And they'll say because Ididn't know any better.
I had my own room, I had mealsprepared for me, I had my own
room, I had meals prepared forme, my laundry magically got
done.
I didn't have to worry aboutrent, mortgages, taxes or
(05:30):
anything else.
I had such a wonderful time athome.
Well, that occurrence hashappened to all of us and we
want to get back home.
We want to go back where it'ssafe.
Okay, to the point.
So, having knowledge that we'vecome into this world, our soul
has chosen a physical vehicle, atemple, our body, this frame,
(05:57):
and it entered into it.
We now have two aspectscoexistence, our physical body,
which is going through theevolution of birth and death,
and the soul, that's kind ofpiggybacking.
It comes into us, this physicalbody.
So this entity we call self, ismultiple.
(06:18):
It has a mind, it has aphysical form, it has a
spiritual form.
It has a consciousness and wehave a subconscious, as
everybody knows.
We have a waking consciousnessand then we have a soul
consciousness or a superconsciousness, all packed in and
(06:38):
jammed into this one littlevessel we call a body.
So you can see by my simpledescription here, and there's a
lot more to it, that we arepretty complex being ourselves.
So what's the purpose?
Well, we come into this life tofigure out life, because the
first time we came here wasexciting, like wow! We became
(07:02):
something.
Some theorists say that thesoul entered into mundane things
like trees, plants, rocks,lower life forms, etc.
But ultimately we arrived atthis human form.
And so, for the purposes ofdiscussion here today, we're
(07:23):
just going to talk about thehuman form and how remembering
previous times or existenceshelps you have a better
existence in this one.
Well, the first Les, is thatyou've gained knowledge and
experience, by going throughseveral experiences.
You learn what to do, what notto do.
You apply that in your naturallife, this time.
(07:48):
We've often heard people say ofpeople: hey, they're
mechanically inclined or they'rejust a natural at that.
I don't know where they learnedhow to play that piano when
they're two years old, like amaster, just amazing.
Well, it's the memory of theprevious experiences that you
gather up, and I'm going to usethe term soul DNA.
(08:10):
I came up with this a few yearsago and there's mention of it
here and there because I've beenbroadcasting it for a while.
But if you take it as a soulDNA, we know that the DNA has a
consciousness.
The consciousness is filling upthat void or that bank of
knowledge in the DNA.
(08:30):
Why?
So that we can know everything,what there is to know about the
world, the world we live in.
And when we fill up with allthat knowledge, well then we
move off to another dimensionand we find out about that world
.
And we continue on because wewant to know it all.
That's why we left.
We want to know whereeverything is, we want to have a
(08:52):
good time, we want to find outeverything we possibly can.
We want to evolve as aspiritual being.
Two things; One, the soul doesnot have emotion.
None.
It's just a sponge gatheringknowledge.
And two, as we continue tobuild up this existence of
knowledge, we also have to doand undo the things that we've
(09:18):
done, that we've learned in thislifetime.
And so the purpose ofexperiencing one experience
after another is sort of like alearning on the job.
It's not esoteric knowledge,it's experential knowledge,
where we learn by hands-on.
And that's the best way,because wisdom does not mean
(09:38):
knowledge, it means knowledgeplus experience.
We learn by trial and error.
If the life of this soul isimmortal, if it lives forever,
then this life is like onebreath in the life of the soul.
And if the soul lives forever,no need to rush, no need to
(09:59):
worry and, most importantly, noneed to be afraid that you only
have one kick at the can, thatone life, and it's over.
You're either going to go toheaven or you're going to go to
hell.
God does not create beings todestroy them because they make a
mistake, no matter what it isyou do, because what you think
(10:20):
is a mistake might not be, mightjust be a hard lesson to get
you to where you need to go.
So, to answer the question, whydo we live and why do we die?
Well, we need to have a freshstart all over again.
We get down so far.
Life is pretty tiring, it'spretty difficult, and if you
(10:40):
keep trying real hard and you'remaking all kinds of mistakes,
mistakes remember:, the moredifficult your life is, the
faster you are attempting tolearn all you need to know about
life.
Life is such that pleasure putsyou to sleep, pain wakes you up
(11:01):
, and so we're in a world ofduality, are we not Les?
Light and .
Forward forward, .
And and the key is to be ofservice and to learn how to love
.
We don't .
That's that's what we'reattempting to learn, learn to be
, loving, loving like GodAlmighty in our own little,
(11:21):
microcosmic, little, teeny, tiny, finite way.
And when we have figured it outand we become Christ-like,
christ-like the Christ christconsciousness or the
consciousness of the Buddhabuddha or other deities, Sathya,
Sai Baba sayababa, the avatar,or on and on, on throughout the
world's great religions, totheir highest level of
(11:42):
consciousness their they're holybeings, beings then we're .
We're we're able to move on.
And then what we normally do is,well, we got to the top of the
ladder.
Oh my gosh, here's the rule: said you all left, you all want (11:54):
undefined
to come back, you all come backtogether, or you don't come back
back.
So that's why we have angels,watchers, avatars, saints and
other pretend saints, if youwill, the dark side.
(12:17):
We're there to help and hindereach other to get up to the
highest level or the Christconsciousness.
Now I ask you to remind me whatwas the question to start off
with.
Les Hubert (12:28):
What does having knowledge of our preexistence do
for us?
Douglas James Cottrell (12:32):
So in summary, one it's our nemesis.
We got in trouble, we continuedtaking the car down the street,
spinning the tires, zippingaround corners, and we're lost.
On the other side, it's thepurpose of gathering experiences
, all kinds of experiences,total experience of what goes on
(12:57):
here in this physical life.
And then selecting to be ofservice, to be moral and just
and upright, to be fair with oneanother, not to take advantage,
not to do bad things to eachother.
That's when the golden rulebecomes our road sign.
It says (13:16):
hey, you want to get home?
Do unto others what you wouldhave them do to you.
And if you do that, step on thegas, you're going fast, you're
getting home.
So the meaning or the purpose ofhaving experiences is to go
through this university we callthe Earth or the physical life,
(13:39):
and so that we graduate withhonors at the end.
And so the purpose becomes toexperience the life, and I'm
talking about every possibleexperience, good, bad and ugly.
So one time you're a realperson.
To make up for it in the nextlife you're a real saintly
person.
(13:59):
This swinging back and forth onthe pendulum, some people call
it cause and effect, some peoplecall it blessings and sin, some
people have other names for it,like karma.
But karma is an action, it's acausational thing, it's not a
thing.
It's the process of thependulum swinging back and forth
.
So it's an action to make thatunderstood.
So voice, as we move forward inlife, all of us: me, Les, Jack,
(14:24):
behind the scenes here andproducing, everybody else out
there listening to our voice ifyou make a bunch of mistakes,
wow, look at all the lessonsyou've learned.
Because mistakes are thestepping stones to success.
If you're not willing to makemistakes, you're not going to
learn.
And you're unwilling to learn,you're afraid to learn, so
(14:48):
you're dormant.
And you know what?
The soul inside, inside itlives forever.
It's in no hurry, so it goes tosleep while you're down here in
the world, worried aboutmundane things, silly things,
one silly life after another, orone, let us say, unpurposed
life after another.
But there's no such thing aslife.
(15:08):
silly J ust just one unpurposedlife, until you wake up and you
decide (15:12):
decide I'm fed up, I don't want just to be a slave, a
worker, I want more, I wantlight.
And the soul says (15:20):
said Oh oh, ?
light Ding ding.
Okay, let's go over here andlook.
You talk to so-and-so andthey're going to take you to
school and you're going to learna trade.
Or, over here, you're going tolearn how to be a physician.
Over here you're going to be aphilosopher.
Or over here you're going to bea nurse or a doctor or some
other life of service.
And through service you get tolearn, get to see what other
(15:42):
people are doing, and you addthat to your record.
You know, I liken thisexperience to kids learning how
to drive an automobile.
The instructor sits in theright hand side with the, the
duplicate brakes and steeringwheel, and the student sits
behind the left hand side (inour country anyway) and can
steer and operate the vehicle.
And two other students aresitting in the back seat, aren't
(16:02):
they?
And they're watching, oh mygosh, what's going on?
Because it's going to be theirturn next.
They learn more by watchingthan the person actually
terrified behind the wheel.
And the instructor is alwaysthere, like God is with us,
always.
Silent, letting us steer thecar, steer our lives, and the
(16:24):
two people behind us are angels,or people in heaven that are
watching over, learning from ourexperience, or to the point
(16:47):
that we're learning by our ownmistakes.
And people watching us who arewiser than us are learning by
watching us make mistakes, sothat they don't have to go
through the trauma of makingmistakes and then repenting and
making things right and allthose things that we do when we
transgress.
So the point being is what's thepurpose of remembering these
past lives?
So you don't make the samemistake next time.
So you pick up where you leftand you advance, you go to a
higher octave the next life.
(17:13):
How many types of life patternsare there in the world?
Well, rule of thumb I came upwith this some ago: a
strological signs, there's 12 ofthem.
Numerological signs there's 12of them.
Different vehicles there'salways 12.
There's 12 disciples and the13th was the Christ.
So if we take a look at thatthe 12, then we come to the
understanding in a moreknowledgeable and, I guess you
(17:35):
could say, practical way thateach of those 12 signs has
themselves 12 more signs withinthem, or patterns more exactly.
So 12 with 12 is what?
144 patterns of life.
So we all have to go through,you and me, Les, we're on
(17:58):
lifetime maybe 96 o r patternnumber 103, or pattern number 25
.
But each of those patterns isdifferent and distinctly
different from all others, a llthe rest.
But they are the same, to acertain degree.
And so, if you look at it thatway, then you can say, oh,
(18:19):
that's why we have all kinds ofreally strange people out there.
They're strange to us becausethey're exactly opposite to us
and they are, of course, lookingat us the same way.
So it gives one a little bit of, let's say, breathing room to
say, okay, I'm going to have tolearn at least 144 lives or
(18:40):
patterns of life to get itperfect.
And what's the chances of doingthat Les?
Pretty close to zip.
So you might have to go throughone of those patterns, oh,
maybe a thousand times to get itright.
So the purpose of rememberingyour preexistences is to give
(19:00):
you knowledge that you livedbefore, you somewhere -- t he
great in-between life, lifebetween lives, the
post-existence, if you will --and if you're really wise,
you've probably my friendsalready figured out that if
you're in the post-existenceafter you die, you were in the
pre-existence before you wereborn Yeah.
(19:21):
A nd so the pre-existence andthe post-existence what?
T he same place.
But here's the ticket (19:27):
you get to choose better the next time.
If you remember the previoustime, when you're in the heavens
above, making the choice tocome down and be born into the
family, the economic situation,the race, the color, the
economic status, the place inthe world, etc.
etc.
you chose that as a soul, tocome down and gather the
(19:50):
experiences.
So when you're here, youshouldn't be saying: why is
somebody else so privileged?
Why do I always have the hardway?
Well, you earned it, you askedfor it, you chose it.
You don't like your parents andyour family and they're
supposed to take care of youforever?
You never asked to born?
Honk, honk, wake up.
Yes, you did, you chose it.
(20:12):
So wake up.
You're here, you're supposed tobe here because you chose to be
here.
And the more you remember fromthose previous times, the less
chance you're going to make amistake and go on that endless
wheel of life after life, afterlife.
Les Hubert (20:30):
Sounds good.
Doug, Thank you for that greatinformation.
Douglas James Cottrell (20:33):
Okay, my friend, until next time,
everybody.
We wish you peace andprosperity.
See you next time, Les.
Bye for now.
Announcer (20:40):
Thank you very much for listening to Wake Up.
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For more about Dr Douglas'sself-development classes, books
(21:01):
and other related products,please visit his website
douglasjamescottrell.
com.
Until next time, we wish youall of God's blessings: health,
wealth and peace of mind.
Welcome to Wake Up with Dr Douglas James Cottrell,
your source for helpfulinformation, advice and tips to
live your life in a mindful wayin this increasingly chaotic
world.
For over four decades, DrDouglas has been teaching people
how to develop their intuitionand live their lives in a
conscious way.
His news and views of the worldtomorrow, today, are always
(00:21):
informative and revealing.
And now here's your host, DrDouglas James Cottrell.
Douglas James Cottrell (00:28):
Welcome to the Wake Up, the broadcast
where curiosity leads to deeperunderstanding.
I'm your host, Douglas JamesCottrell, and my good friend and
co-host Les Hubert is here withme, along with editor Jack
Bialik, as we delve into thefascinating realms of life,
metaphysics, spirituality andthe pressing questions that
shape our world.
Hello, my friend.
(00:49):
What are we going to talk aboutthis time?
Les Hubert (00:51):
Hi Doug, we're going to talk about pre-existence.
What does having knowledge ofprevious existence do for us?
There was a book written by DrIan Stevenson, out of the
University of Virginia, showingthat 2,500 people have knowledge
of their pre-existence.
What can that do for us?
Douglas James Cottrell (01:10):
A whole bunch.
First of all, to my friends whoare a little skeptical and to
people who don't understand theprocess of pre-existence, let's
just step back and you remind meof what the question is in a
second if I get distracted.
But it starts off with (01:26):
if you believe you have a soul, all of
us do, I'm assured of it.
You have to discover ityourselves, my friends.
But if we have a soul, thenwhat I'm about to say makes
sense.
If, on the other hand, youdiscard the concept that we have
a soul, that we just have thisphysical existence, we live it
(01:48):
the best we can and then we passaway and we become dust and
there's nothing after, then whatI'm about to say might not make
sense to you.
But let's assume that you havea soul and that soul is immortal
.
That soul came from a greatconsciousness that we attribute
the Universal Mind to, bycalling it a Supreme Being,
(02:11):
Yahweh, God Almighty, and awhole lot of other names.
As we delineate or assign namesto God, you know what?
The name doesn't matter.
Because the names are only forus, the finite mind attempting
(02:33):
to describe the infinite mind,and so God Almighty is the best
term for me, because it says Godis Almighty, God is creation,
God is life, God is virtue, onand on we go.
So if you understand orsubscribe to the concept that
you have a soul and it was inheaven or the other dimensions
above, the other planes ofexistence, if you look at
creation, it talks about Godcreating the heavens and the
(02:58):
earth and created, moving ondown, the oceans and the land,
and moving on down to differentanimals and plant kingdom, and
then finally, on the last day ofcreation, created us people.
It says that (03:11):
Go forth and multiply.
So if you kind of look at itthat way, we're kind of like on
the end of evolution, when Godwas creating things.
So I guess we're at the bottomof the totem pole when it comes
to that.
But to understand that Godcreated the heavens and the
earth, that means all thedimensions, all the planets, all
the nebula, those things thatthe telescopes are reaching out
(03:34):
to see.
God created all that okay.
And somewhere out there is aplace I like to call the
Christos, the place of all love,a place of existence for the
souls started out from.
Home base, if you will.
And so at some point in time,God looking upon itself, and all
(03:57):
of us souls together, for weare of God and from God.
We're pieces of God, fragmentsof God that we assign the name
soul.
He said you know what?
I need to know.
And he created souls, us.
We divided ourselves or Goddivided itself, maybe as a term
(04:21):
to understand and we were allgiven free will and free choice,
and so poof.
It's just like saying to yourteenage son or daughter:
daughter here's the keys to thefamily car.
What's that child going to do?
It's going to take off, it'sgoing to drive away.
.
If if they're us, we We took.
We we went through all theuniverse and we scattered.
(04:41):
We're immortal, we are part ofGod, we are God.
.
.
But when we everybody, got askout them, there in the universe
adult (04:48):
because it's so vast, we couldn't find say
We're lost in darkness andalone, and so we started to
experience things in differentended up here in the world, in
the earth, and so we're stuckbecause we still can't get back
(05:09):
to where we want to go, back, towhere we left home.
You know, everybody asks themwhen they're an adult why did
you leave home?
And they'll say because Ididn't know any better.
I had my own room, I had mealsprepared for me, I had my own
room, I had meals prepared forme, my laundry magically got
done.
I didn't have to worry aboutrent, mortgages, taxes or
(05:30):
anything else.
I had such a wonderful time athome.
Well, that occurrence hashappened to all of us and we
want to get back home.
We want to go back where it'ssafe.
Okay, to the point.
So, having knowledge that we'vecome into this world, our soul
has chosen a physical vehicle, atemple, our body, this frame,
(05:57):
and it entered into it.
We now have two aspectscoexistence, our physical body,
which is going through theevolution of birth and death,
and the soul, that's kind ofpiggybacking.
It comes into us, this physicalbody.
So this entity we call self, ismultiple.
(06:18):
It has a mind, it has aphysical form, it has a
spiritual form.
It has a consciousness and wehave a subconscious, as
everybody knows.
We have a waking consciousnessand then we have a soul
consciousness or a superconsciousness, all packed in and
(06:38):
jammed into this one littlevessel we call a body.
So you can see by my simpledescription here, and there's a
lot more to it, that we arepretty complex being ourselves.
So what's the purpose?
Well, we come into this life tofigure out life, because the
first time we came here wasexciting, like wow! We became
(07:02):
something.
Some theorists say that thesoul entered into mundane things
like trees, plants, rocks,lower life forms, etc.
But ultimately we arrived atthis human form.
And so, for the purposes ofdiscussion here today, we're
(07:23):
just going to talk about thehuman form and how remembering
previous times or existenceshelps you have a better
existence in this one.
Well, the first Les, is thatyou've gained knowledge and
experience, by going throughseveral experiences.
You learn what to do, what notto do.
You apply that in your naturallife, this time.
(07:48):
We've often heard people say ofpeople: hey, they're
mechanically inclined or they'rejust a natural at that.
I don't know where they learnedhow to play that piano when
they're two years old, like amaster, just amazing.
Well, it's the memory of theprevious experiences that you
gather up, and I'm going to usethe term soul DNA.
(08:10):
I came up with this a few yearsago and there's mention of it
here and there because I've beenbroadcasting it for a while.
But if you take it as a soulDNA, we know that the DNA has a
consciousness.
The consciousness is filling upthat void or that bank of
knowledge in the DNA.
(08:30):
Why?
So that we can know everything,what there is to know about the
world, the world we live in.
And when we fill up with allthat knowledge, well then we
move off to another dimensionand we find out about that world
.
And we continue on because wewant to know it all.
That's why we left.
We want to know whereeverything is, we want to have a
(08:52):
good time, we want to find outeverything we possibly can.
We want to evolve as aspiritual being.
Two things; One, the soul doesnot have emotion.
None.
It's just a sponge gatheringknowledge.
And two, as we continue tobuild up this existence of
knowledge, we also have to doand undo the things that we've
(09:18):
done, that we've learned in thislifetime.
And so the purpose ofexperiencing one experience
after another is sort of like alearning on the job.
It's not esoteric knowledge,it's experential knowledge,
where we learn by hands-on.
And that's the best way,because wisdom does not mean
(09:38):
knowledge, it means knowledgeplus experience.
We learn by trial and error.
If the life of this soul isimmortal, if it lives forever,
then this life is like onebreath in the life of the soul.
And if the soul lives forever,no need to rush, no need to
(09:59):
worry and, most importantly, noneed to be afraid that you only
have one kick at the can, thatone life, and it's over.
You're either going to go toheaven or you're going to go to
hell.
God does not create beings todestroy them because they make a
mistake, no matter what it isyou do, because what you think
(10:20):
is a mistake might not be, mightjust be a hard lesson to get
you to where you need to go.
So, to answer the question, whydo we live and why do we die?
Well, we need to have a freshstart all over again.
We get down so far.
Life is pretty tiring, it'spretty difficult, and if you
(10:40):
keep trying real hard and you'remaking all kinds of mistakes,
mistakes remember:, the moredifficult your life is, the
faster you are attempting tolearn all you need to know about
life.
Life is such that pleasure putsyou to sleep, pain wakes you up
(11:01):
, and so we're in a world ofduality, are we not Les?
Light and .
Forward forward, .
And and the key is to be ofservice and to learn how to love
.
We don't .
That's that's what we'reattempting to learn, learn to be
, loving, loving like GodAlmighty in our own little,
(11:21):
microcosmic, little, teeny, tiny, finite way.
And when we have figured it outand we become Christ-like,
christ-like the Christ christconsciousness or the
consciousness of the Buddhabuddha or other deities, Sathya,
Sai Baba sayababa, the avatar,or on and on, on throughout the
world's great religions, totheir highest level of
(11:42):
consciousness their they're holybeings, beings then we're .
We're we're able to move on.
And then what we normally do is,well, we got to the top of the
ladder.
Oh my gosh, here's the rule: said you all left, you all want (11:54):
undefined
to come back, you all come backtogether, or you don't come back
back.
So that's why we have angels,watchers, avatars, saints and
other pretend saints, if youwill, the dark side.
(12:17):
We're there to help and hindereach other to get up to the
highest level or the Christconsciousness.
Now I ask you to remind me whatwas the question to start off
with.
Les Hubert (12:28):
What does having knowledge of our preexistence do
for us?
Douglas James Cottrell (12:32):
So in summary, one it's our nemesis.
We got in trouble, we continuedtaking the car down the street,
spinning the tires, zippingaround corners, and we're lost.
On the other side, it's thepurpose of gathering experiences
, all kinds of experiences,total experience of what goes on
(12:57):
here in this physical life.
And then selecting to be ofservice, to be moral and just
and upright, to be fair with oneanother, not to take advantage,
not to do bad things to eachother.
That's when the golden rulebecomes our road sign.
It says (13:16):
hey, you want to get home?
Do unto others what you wouldhave them do to you.
And if you do that, step on thegas, you're going fast, you're
getting home.
So the meaning or the purpose ofhaving experiences is to go
through this university we callthe Earth or the physical life,
(13:39):
and so that we graduate withhonors at the end.
And so the purpose becomes toexperience the life, and I'm
talking about every possibleexperience, good, bad and ugly.
So one time you're a realperson.
To make up for it in the nextlife you're a real saintly
person.
(13:59):
This swinging back and forth onthe pendulum, some people call
it cause and effect, some peoplecall it blessings and sin, some
people have other names for it,like karma.
But karma is an action, it's acausational thing, it's not a
thing.
It's the process of thependulum swinging back and forth
.
So it's an action to make thatunderstood.
So voice, as we move forward inlife, all of us: me, Les, Jack,
(14:24):
behind the scenes here andproducing, everybody else out
there listening to our voice ifyou make a bunch of mistakes,
wow, look at all the lessonsyou've learned.
Because mistakes are thestepping stones to success.
If you're not willing to makemistakes, you're not going to
learn.
And you're unwilling to learn,you're afraid to learn, so
(14:48):
you're dormant.
And you know what?
The soul inside, inside itlives forever.
It's in no hurry, so it goes tosleep while you're down here in
the world, worried aboutmundane things, silly things,
one silly life after another, orone, let us say, unpurposed
life after another.
But there's no such thing aslife.
(15:08):
silly J ust just one unpurposedlife, until you wake up and you
decide (15:12):
decide I'm fed up, I don't want just to be a slave, a
worker, I want more, I wantlight.
And the soul says (15:20):
said Oh oh, ?
light Ding ding.
Okay, let's go over here andlook.
You talk to so-and-so andthey're going to take you to
school and you're going to learna trade.
Or, over here, you're going tolearn how to be a physician.
Over here you're going to be aphilosopher.
Or over here you're going to bea nurse or a doctor or some
other life of service.
And through service you get tolearn, get to see what other
(15:42):
people are doing, and you addthat to your record.
You know, I liken thisexperience to kids learning how
to drive an automobile.
The instructor sits in theright hand side with the, the
duplicate brakes and steeringwheel, and the student sits
behind the left hand side (inour country anyway) and can
steer and operate the vehicle.
And two other students aresitting in the back seat, aren't
(16:02):
they?
And they're watching, oh mygosh, what's going on?
Because it's going to be theirturn next.
They learn more by watchingthan the person actually
terrified behind the wheel.
And the instructor is alwaysthere, like God is with us,
always.
Silent, letting us steer thecar, steer our lives, and the
(16:24):
two people behind us are angels,or people in heaven that are
watching over, learning from ourexperience, or to the point
(16:47):
that we're learning by our ownmistakes.
And people watching us who arewiser than us are learning by
watching us make mistakes, sothat they don't have to go
through the trauma of makingmistakes and then repenting and
making things right and allthose things that we do when we
transgress.
So the point being is what's thepurpose of remembering these
past lives?
So you don't make the samemistake next time.
So you pick up where you leftand you advance, you go to a
higher octave the next life.
(17:13):
How many types of life patternsare there in the world?
Well, rule of thumb I came upwith this some ago: a
strological signs, there's 12 ofthem.
Numerological signs there's 12of them.
Different vehicles there'salways 12.
There's 12 disciples and the13th was the Christ.
So if we take a look at thatthe 12, then we come to the
understanding in a moreknowledgeable and, I guess you
(17:35):
could say, practical way thateach of those 12 signs has
themselves 12 more signs withinthem, or patterns more exactly.
So 12 with 12 is what?
144 patterns of life.
So we all have to go through,you and me, Les, we're on
(17:58):
lifetime maybe 96 o r patternnumber 103, or pattern number 25
.
But each of those patterns isdifferent and distinctly
different from all others, a llthe rest.
But they are the same, to acertain degree.
And so, if you look at it thatway, then you can say, oh,
(18:19):
that's why we have all kinds ofreally strange people out there.
They're strange to us becausethey're exactly opposite to us
and they are, of course, lookingat us the same way.
So it gives one a little bit of, let's say, breathing room to
say, okay, I'm going to have tolearn at least 144 lives or
(18:40):
patterns of life to get itperfect.
And what's the chances of doingthat Les?
Pretty close to zip.
So you might have to go throughone of those patterns, oh,
maybe a thousand times to get itright.
So the purpose of rememberingyour preexistences is to give
(19:00):
you knowledge that you livedbefore, you somewhere -- t he
great in-between life, lifebetween lives, the
post-existence, if you will --and if you're really wise,
you've probably my friendsalready figured out that if
you're in the post-existenceafter you die, you were in the
pre-existence before you wereborn Yeah.
(19:21):
A nd so the pre-existence andthe post-existence what?
T he same place.
But here's the ticket (19:27):
you get to choose better the next time.
If you remember the previoustime, when you're in the heavens
above, making the choice tocome down and be born into the
family, the economic situation,the race, the color, the
economic status, the place inthe world, etc.
etc.
you chose that as a soul, tocome down and gather the
(19:50):
experiences.
So when you're here, youshouldn't be saying: why is
somebody else so privileged?
Why do I always have the hardway?
Well, you earned it, you askedfor it, you chose it.
You don't like your parents andyour family and they're
supposed to take care of youforever?
You never asked to born?
Honk, honk, wake up.
Yes, you did, you chose it.
(20:12):
So wake up.
You're here, you're supposed tobe here because you chose to be
here.
And the more you remember fromthose previous times, the less
chance you're going to make amistake and go on that endless
wheel of life after life, afterlife.
Les Hubert (20:30):
Sounds good.
Doug, Thank you for that greatinformation.
Douglas James Cottrell (20:33):
Okay, my friend, until next time,
everybody.
We wish you peace andprosperity.
See you next time, Les.
Bye for now.
Announcer (20:40):
Thank you very much for listening to Wake Up.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to subscribe so you'll be
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For more about Dr Douglas'sself-development classes, books
(21:01):
and other related products,please visit his website
douglasjamescottrell.
com.
Until next time, we wish youall of God's blessings: health,
wealth and peace of mind.
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