Why can’t we remember our past lives?
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Question from Pancha Panda Prabhu Why can't we remember our past lives? Whenever we talk about reincarnation, many people have this standard question that if I have lived in the past, why can't I remember it? If we could remember our past lives, it would make accepting reincarnation so much easier and people could take to spiritual life much easier. Answer There are many presumptions here. Let's look at them one by one.
Firstly, there are three questions actually. Why don't we remember our past lives? Will remembrance of our past life make the practice of spiritual life easier? And does forgetfulness of a thing prove its non-existence? So the presumption behind this sort of question is many times. At one level, it's a natural question.
But at another level, the question is that if you have forgotten something, what is the proof that it exists? Well, firstly, that there are so many things which we forget, even from this life. If we ask our mother, her memories of our childhood, it will be more that probably more than 50% of those memories we won't have at all. What to speak of especially if our infancy is there, very early infancy, and even babyhood and you won't have those memories.
The mother has the memories. So they have gone out of our mind because we were too small at that time. So now what does this mean? The point is simple that just because we don't remember something, that doesn't prove its non-existence.
So now, along with this, that's because we simply have a tendency to forget. We simply have a tendency to forget. And now moving forward, we have forgotten things from this life also.
And another thing is that when we go forward, when we go backward, much deeper into our past, at that time we recognize that actually remembrance and forgetfulness are connected with our situations. That means that if we generally see something external, watch something, and something stimulates and then we recollect things. We may have been to a small village temple in our grandparents' place, in our ancient family village.
So now, say, 30-40 years later, when we go to some other village and we see a similar temple, maybe a small Hanuman temple with a red deity, then that may stimulate memories of the past. So the point which I'm making over here is, even when memories are present, often the memories are stimulated by external events, external stimuli, that are similar to the stimuli that we had experienced in the past. And often when the external stimuli change, at that time the inner memories, even if they are present, they get buried so deep that they are practically never recollected.
It's as if they didn't exist itself. So now when the soul changes from one body to the next body, at that time the soul's external environment changes drastically. Not just the place where one lives, not just the family and relatives and acquaintances with which one lives, not just the job that one does, but even the body that one has changes.
And because it's such a huge transition, it's such a huge transition from one situation to another and because most of our memories are triggered by our stimuli that are associated with our external, with our environments, so naturally when our externals change drastically, our memories, new memories are formed in relationship with our new externals and old memories connected with our old externals are often lost. And now those memories, are they lost in the sense that they have completely been erased? No, hypnotic regression has been found to be capable of reviving past life memories for many people. But then there is, of course, there's not a recommendation that people do hypnotic regression to find out what their past lives are.
I'll discuss that how knowing our past lives may not make much difference practically for us later. But the important point is hypnotic regression can also be a way to come up with false memories as if they were real memories. So therefore, there has to be a systematic critical testing of which memories are authentic and which are not.
And I have discussed this in my new book on reincarnation, which is coming soon. Now, moving forward, the point is that especially when our external environments change, then our memories get lost. Memories about the old environment, because those stimuli are not coming, they get lost and birth and death in general are traumatic events.
Because they are traumatic events, you know, traumatic events, they actually create big scars on us. But in general, we would like to forget those events as much as possible. Because, yes, there's something to learn from them.
We can learn from them. But apart from that, we basically want to forget those events because they're too painful. So now imagine some people go to watch horror movies because they just want some stimulation.
But if those horror scenes start constantly rippling in their mind, and not only that, that the horror scenes are horrifying them constantly, then they will be miserable. So now we as souls have been through many, many lifetimes. And if all those death, all the various ways in which we may have died, you know, we may have been crushed under a truck sometime, we may have been, our head might have been chopped off by a sword at some other time, a tiger may have devoured us sometime.
If all those memories of the brutal deaths and not just the deaths, all the miseries that we went through at those times, if all those we were to go through, then we would not have any peace of mind. Life itself would have become like a horror movie in which we are not just the safe audience, but we are the haunted protagonist where we are targeted constantly. So actually it would be very miserable.
So it's a part of nature's mercy that nature enables us to forget our past lives so that we can begin anew, we can begin our journey in this world again afresh. So in one sense a new life is like a new chance, new environment, new body and a new opportunity to lead a new life, to cultivate new, that is devotional, spiritual desires. So now at this point, so basically because of our tendency to forget, because our memories are triggered frequently by externals and because traumatic events are best forgotten so that we can go ahead with life.
So these are the various reasons why we tend to forget our past memories, past life memories. Now the question comes up, does evidence of past life, does remembrance of past life contribute to seriousness in spiritual life, in this life? Not necessarily. There are many people who remember their past lives and they don't really feel that because I am immortal therefore I have to find out an immortal destination for my life.
Their past life memory is just one part of their life and unless they are innately philosophical, unless they are innately spiritual or their past life memory quest, their past life memory triggers an existential quest, a quest for the purpose of existence which is fulfilled by coming to some authentic spiritual teachers and scriptures. Their practical life doesn't transform all that much. Yes, they may be a little less materialistic but they may be a little more spiritually minded, that's possible.
But as far as the commitment to spirituality is concerned, that doesn't happen. For example, there is the quite a well-known reincarnation case of Thomas Andrews who was one of the maker, the designers of the Titanic and he sank and board the Titanic and there was another person, Mr. Black, who was one of the main movers of the project and Thomas Andrews was another captain, one of the leading captains in that, one of the leading members of the crew in that ship. So he had pointed out structural problems with the Titanic's design.
He had stated that actually he had taken this main financer to the hull of the ship before it moved and he just hit it with a hammer sort of thing and clang, a huge echo and resonance had been set off. And he said he pointed this out, it was a metallic ship with a largely metallic hull. So he said that this resonance will make it vulnerable.
So now the financer basically said that we don't have time now, everything has been moved, we cannot remodel the design, let's just take it out. And eventually, actually when the collision of the Titanic with the iceberg occurred, basically what caused its sinking was that because not just that collision occurred but because that collision set off a resonance which led to multiple cracks and multiple splits and rapid seeping in of water and the sinking of the Titanic. So now how the Titanic sank, there have been many mysteries, there have been a lot of investigation about it because it did sink quite quickly it seems.
Now this Thomas Andrews was on the ship and he died. And then later on another man named William Burns, he started remembering his past life as Thomas Andrews and he actually gave many details about the Titanic which were not known in the public media, which were not known to anyone for that matter. And by many of his accounts, factually correct accounts, it was more or less established that he was an incarnation of Thomas Andrews.
Now what had happened was the financer had pushed the blame on to Andrews that because of him only the ship had sunk, because of his mismanagement. But then William Burns said actually the Andrews family is a very honorable family. Thomas Andrews was a very honorable man and his name has been besmirched.
He was not to be blamed for the sinking. Actually the design was a problem and that's why the ship sank so quickly. And actually he gave ideas about how the ship had sunk and computer models were used to test his hypothesis.
Actually his hypothesis gave the most intelligible reasonable explanation for the sinking of the Titanic. So the point is that now this William Burns, he is himself convinced and he's convinced a good number of people that he's Thomas Andrews. But after knowing that he is Thomas Andrews, has that increased determination that oh I'm not the body and the soul, therefore I have to find out what is the soul's ultimate destination and focus on achieving that.
No, his whole purpose is to clear the name of the Andrews clan. That the Andrews clan name was spoiled by the Titanic sinking controversy and he was a good man but he was blamed unfairly. So I have to clear his name.
So there's nothing wrong in wanting to clear the name of someone who has been blamed. Especially that one is I myself. But the point is that just remembering our past life does not necessarily trigger an existential quest.
It's no guarantee that remembering past life will necessarily make a person serious about spiritual life. So even after one remembers the past life, only if one goes on an existential quest and finds the right teacher and the right scripture, then one will be able to make spiritual progress tangibly. So in general, there is a fascination of the human imagination, of the human mind with the paranormal.
Now some people ask, oh have you seen God? Have you had some paranormal, some devotional visions, some revelations? Some people may claim, oh I saw Krishna in my dream. Krishna came and told me all these things. Another devotee may feel in fear that, oh Krishna never came in my dream.
Now we have to understand one important thing that such paranormal phenomena are not very important in the process of bhakti, in terms of our growth in bhakti. Paranormal phenomena actually may or may not happen, but they do not necessarily indicate our growth in bhakti. What determines our growth is our commitment to the normal process of bhakti.
When we study scripture, when we apply scriptural teaching and practice spirituality, practice meditation, then gradually we start getting realization of our spiritual identity. And that commitment to a process is actually far more valuable in terms of actual spiritual growth than any recollections of any past life. So in general, we shouldn't overemphasize the necessity of remembering past lives in terms of being able to practice spiritual life seriously in this life.
It's not necessary that we have to remember past life to practice spiritual life seriously. That many people who remember past life may not practice spiritual life and many people who don't remember their past life may still practice their spiritual life seriously. So now Krishna, we may ask that why does Krishna give remembrance of past life to some people? That is just the karma of some people.
Just like some people in this life have variant memory. Some people have very sharp memory. They can remember practically everything.
Some people have poor memories. They forget most of the things. So this variation in memory is a result of karma.
And we shouldn't necessarily think that the remembering of past lives is a pleasant memory. Because if it inspires somebody to go to spiritual life, then it has served a good purpose. But often it can lead to an existential crisis.
Not necessarily existential crisis, but just identity crisis. Who am I? It's not a very pleasant experience either for the child or for the parents. When the child suddenly starts saying, Mummy, I want to go to my other mummy.
The parents are often shocked. And now the parents are often shocked because primarily they want their child to be their child. And for the child also, even if the child is taken to the previous life situation and then that is the case of whose child is this, the child also gets traumatized.
Who am I? And for the child to psychically process all this, Okay, there are two parents and it is quite difficult quite often. So then it's not necessarily good karma to remember one's past lives. It can lead to some sort of traumatic experience also.
And this brings one more point, important point where people forget why we don't remember our past life memories. Because there is childhood separation of past life memories in today's culture. Not just in today's culture, in general in culture.
Now as I said, parents want their children to be their children, not someone else's children. So therefore, when their children start speaking, I had another mummy, I had another papa. Actually, Sir Ian Stevenson has done extensive research in children's past life memory.
He says that actually the children speak about their past lives. Many children all over the world, he has reported thousands and thousands of cases. And most of the thousands of cases he has correlated also.
Generally they start from the early days and start speaking, say two years, three years, four years, five years, six years. By six years, most of the time their memories die out. And even within this, many times the parents suppress the memories of the children.
Means when the child starts saying, I have another mummy. What? What nonsense are you speaking? The parents get upset and for the children their whole sense of identity right now comes from their parents. So, the parents' disapproval of their speech makes children inhibited in expressing their memories.
And quite often, it's only when the children are very insistent that the parents start investigating. Sometimes there are cases when a small four year old child says that, I want to go to my other mummy and if you don't take me, I will go there myself. And the child starts walking out of the home.
And the parents get panic struck at that time. What is this child doing? There are cases, there is a case of Anushir Khan. He was a Hindu, was born in a Muslim family.
And actually, when he started recollecting his past lives, the parents, the Muslims don't believe in reincarnation. Now, so these parents actually took that small baby. They had some local superstition that talking about a past life is caused by a possession of a ghost.
And a ghost can be removed by putting a small baby, by putting the person who has got a ghost on a potter's wheel and moving him round and round and round and round. The idea is that, you move him round and round and round, that person, the ghost will get a chakkar, will get vertigo and will go away. So this small child was put on a wheel, swinging wheel, wheel, wheel.
And now even after that, this Mushir, Mushir said that actually, I was Naren Kumar. And then finally, when he was just not ready to give that up, then finally he was taken and then the correlation with his past life memory was made. So somehow in tradition, in many villages, there is the notion, and Ian Stevenson finds out there is no basis to that notion in terms of empirical fact.
There is the notion that actually, if a child remembers past life, his or her past life, then that child will die soon. And therefore, remembrance of past life should not be encouraged. So here we have both ways a problem.
When the parents belong to a culture that does not believe in reincarnation, then there is separation of memories because the parents just can't process it. Is my child going crazy? They can't process it. And if there are parents who believe in reincarnation also, often those parents suppress it because there is this notion that, Oh, remembering the past life will cause my child to die soon.
It's a superstition, but somehow it is there. So it's not that parents are eager paranormal investigators, who after the child is born are eager to know, Oh, who were your parents in your previous life? Most parents have no concern about that, even if they have some vague idea of reincarnation. That's why the childhood suppression of memories also plays a major role in forgetting.
So our tendency to forget childhood suppression of memories, the change, the drastic change in our external circumstance from one body to another, and the psychological defense mechanism provided by nature to help us cope with traumatic events in terms of forgetting those events. These are all reasons why we tend to forget our past lives. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.