Won’t it help us spiritually if we remember our past lives?

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Who wanted to help us if we remember our past lives? I’ll answer it in three broad ways.
First is that, not necessarily. I wrote a book on reincarnation, where on demystifying reincarnation, I have studied on the several hundred cases of children who remember their past lives and then shortlisted about 25 of them in my book. After I published the book, I decided to do some further research to find out how many of these children who remembered their past lives actually became more spiritual because of that remembrance.
And not even one. Not even one. In fact, there was a case of a person who was named William Barnes and he was some James Black or someone.
He was the person who had designed the Titanic and he had sunk along with the Titanic. And William Barnes says I am the reincarnation of this Jones or whatever. And now he gave a very reasonable explanation of how the Titanic sank.
He said that before Titanic went on its first voyage, I was testing and I used a hammer to hit the hull. And at some points the hammer started resonating. And he said, I told our financer that actually we will have to thicken the hull because if any of the points where resonance is happening, if there the iceberg collides, it won’t be one hole, it will break at multiple places.
But the financer, he said that no, no, we have already planned everything. We can’t spend any more money. We can’t delay anything.
So he brushed aside my objections and then the ship went. And then the ship sank. And then that financer blamed him.
So this William Barnes, he actually explained that because of resonance the Titanic sank and then some scientist did some experiment and said it’s a reasonable explanation because the way the get some of the debris, the remains of the Titanic were there. So I’m not going to get into the merits of the case. But this William Barnes, he says my mission in life is to clear the good name of Jones.
His name was impugned by the financer. So he’s not thinking, oh, I died and I was born again. So there’s something spiritual and I should pursue spiritual life.
No, he’s thinking I have to clear the name of this person. So basically what happens is that a spiritual drive depends primarily on intention, not on recollection. Even these people remember their previous lives that doesn’t necessarily impel them to practice spirituality.
Having said that, let’s look at that particular second point you mentioned was that the child in the womb remembers the previous lives and prays to the Lord. Now at that time the child also prays, please don’t let me come out of this. Because outside the world is illusion and I don’t want to get into this world entangled.
So please let me stay here and let me remember you and stay devoted to you. But then why does he come out? The point is that that devotion under duress, devotion under the compulsion of the situation, it is it is still devotion, but it is not mature devotion. It is it’s like if I have nothing to do, nothing else works.
And there’s a time when I turn towards Krishna. Good, at least then you turn towards Krishna. But then what is happening? Krishna is your last alternative.
But devotion is Krishna is our first alternative. So if we practice bhakti simply because of the fear of the consequences of our misdeeds, that is devotion at the level of fear. You know, there are four levels of devotion, fear, desire, duty and love.
So. So that is also good, but that is nowhere near pure, pure devotion. So certainly we need to have some fear of the consequences of our own actions.
But fear of that fear driven devotion may protect us from doing wrong, but it won’t really connect our heart very deeply with Krishna. And it’s like if your child always obeys you, but the obedience is simply because if I don’t obey, my parents will cut off my pocket money. Well, OK, at least they are obeying.
But how much of a personal bond is going to be formed by that? It’s only by fear. There has to be more of appreciation, reciprocation. Then that’s positive.
So that’s the second point, that if even if we could remember our past life misdeed and the consequences of the misdeeds, and because of that, we chose, OK, I don’t want to do this. I want to do this. That is simply driven out of fear.
So the devotion that is driven out of fear of the consequences of bad deeds, it is devotion, but it’s not a very high level of devotion. It is certainly not pure devotion. And the third point will be that when we practice bhakti, at that time, in certain exceptional situations, some souls may get remembrance of their past lives.
Like Jai Sajar Bharat remembered that I had made a mistake. Now, these extraordinary situations are primarily given to highlight a particular point. So the point in Jai Sajar Bharat’s story is that how ultra-cautious he had become.
But is it really described as Jai Sajar Bharat was constantly remembering and berating himself? Why did I do that? Why did I do that? Why did I do that? No, Jai Sajar Bharat was like when he was instructing Rahu Gana, focus on instructing Rahu Gana. So he was not really living in a perpetual backflash of a previous life. Why did I do that? Why did I do that? So sometimes memory may be given in exceptional situations for particular purposes.
Usually the children who remember their past lives, it’s most often because they die suddenly and the soul doesn’t process the event of death. It’s like we leave India and come to Australia. The body still has some jet lag.
So like that we could say that some souls die in some murder or some violent accident or something like that. There’s like a soul lag. The soul is still in the previous body for some time.
And usually these memories, they don’t stay for life. About 7, 8, 9, 10, maybe they go and meet the person in the previous lives and the memories subside. Then even if they remember the memory, it’s more like a cognitive memory.
It’s not an emotional memory. Yes, I used to remember my past life, my childhood, but nothing, no emotional intensity involved. So generally the normal system is that every new life is an opportunity for the soul to start a new chapter.
So what has happened in the previous chapters does matter. But we still have the opportunity to make a fresh beginning. That’s why we are not given remembrances of past lives.
It’s actually, it would become an unbearable cognitive overload. If you start remembering everything that we have done in the past, say, if you meet, if you meet a family member or a friend. And at that moment, as soon as you see them, if everything you have done with them starts coming in your mind, you will be able to function in that.
So like that, if you start looking at, say, walking along and slip and fall. Slip and fall. Did you slip and fall because somebody spilled water here? Or you slip and fell because in your past life you have done some karma? Which past life? And what was the karma? So if you start going into that causal connection, the whole principle of karma is not for post-mortem.
It is for prescription. Karma analysis, we start going to post-mortem. Why did this happen to me? It’s practically not possible, but even if it is possible, it will be just overwhelming.
The principle of karma is meant more for prescription. Do this, don’t do this. It is not for post-mortem at all.
Any other questions?