What happens to children who remember their past lives after they grow up?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So Prabhupada, the children who remember their past lives, what happens to them afterwards? What happens to them especially after they grow up? Usually most cases of past life memories are from the age of say 3, 4 till the age of 6 or 7. After that they forget. Now some of them may still remember, but that vividness of the memory is in state for so long. Because what happens is that the soul, normally when the soul goes from one body to another body, then the soul integrates into the new body.
And when the soul integrates into the new body, then the memories of the past life get pushed into the background. Now in some cases, the integration happens right from the process of birth itself. In some cases, the integration may take more time to happen.
And when that happens, the soul identifies, soul is in this body, but it is identifying with that body. But as the soul continues to live in this body, then over a period of time, the integration to this body happens. And then the soul either forgets, the child forgets the past life, or the intensity of those memories go down substantially.
The intensity of the desire for wanting to meet those people. Sometimes that particular child may have some unfinished business. So there is a story of one American boy, James Leninger.
He claimed to have been a fighter pilot named James in his previous life. And he was shot by some Japanese anti-aircraft missiles while he was in the Pacific Ocean in a place called Iwo Jima. He strongly remembered about the fighter planes that were used at that time.
The Corsair planes were used. He described the characteristics. And then his parents were completely sceptical.
But he had terrible nightmares. When he would say, oh, plane on fire, little man, can’t escape, scream, terror. And then his parents took him to some children counselors who suggested that Carol Bowman, she specializes in past life therapy for children.
She suggested that maybe he’s having some past life memory. We let him speak and seek out. And especially before sleeping and waking up, he started speaking many things.
And then as he spoke more and more in his waking life, his nightmares started going down. And eventually, as his nightmares started going down, the emotional intensity of that particular incident started going down. Eventually, his parents took him to the place, rough area in the Pacific Ocean, where the plane of James Lanninger, James had sunk in his previous life.
And there he went there and he was just crying fervently. He cried, cried, cried for almost half an hour to one hour, just wore himself out by crying. All that emotion just pent within him went out.
After that, he became like a normal child. So he remembered that, okay, I had those memories. But he accepted it.
Now this is a new life. And he integrated in this life and started functioning in this life. So in some cases, the integration may take more time than other cases.
But usually, the normal pattern is. So that’s why the window for research is also limited for past life researches. Around three to four, they start.
And till six, seven, eight, normally the children don’t remember.