Talk:Children Recollecting Their Past Lives

By Vishal Agarwal

Instances of past-life recollection have been extensively documented across various cultures and historical periods. Some of the most compelling evidence comes from cases involving children who appear to remember events, skills, or experiences that preceded their current physical birth or even conception.

“Perhaps the strongest and best-documented evidence in support of reincarnation is conscious past-life memory recall in children. More specifically, this is the phenomenon by which children as young as two years can recall having lived past lives and can recall those lives complete with names, dates, and often the names of the villages in which they believe they previously lived. In some of the better cases, children have even visited their former homes only to be able to instantly identify members of their ‘former’ family and provide personal details of their previous lives with uncanny accuracy. Many even recounted how they had died in that previous lifetime with a degree of certainty and knowledge inexplicable for a child.”

In his research, Trutz Hardo (2005) documents numerous instances of children worldwide recalling their past lives. These cases reveal fascinating patterns:

• Some children are reborn into the same family they were part of in their previous life.
• They may reincarnate in the same gender or a different one.
• Many exhibit distinctive birthmarks or deformities believed to be reflective of karmic residues from past actions.
• Several children display phobias linked to traumatic incidents from their previous lives.
• A particularly compelling phenomenon involves children spontaneously speaking foreign languages (xenoglossy) that they had never been taught or exposed to in their current lifetime.

While such cases appear rarer among children than adults, researchers suggest that this scarcity may be due to societal dismissiveness, particularly in cultures where belief in reincarnation is not prevalent.

“The incidence of children remembering their past lives may well be the same among all nations of the world, yet among those who believe in reincarnation, the people take more notice of their children’s early comments regarding past lives and do not ignore what they say.”

“Accounts of children who remember their past lives are comparatively frequent, especially in countries where the possibility of having lived past lives is accepted. These memories often cause unease in ‘Western’ adults, who dismiss such statements as fantasies without considering their validity. This may explain why these cases appear rarer in Europe and the United States.”

Why is the evidence of kids recollecting their past lives more important than adults? Professor Ian Stevenson gives the following reasons:

1. Due to their age, children are closer to their previous earthly life and therefore find it easier to remember it.
2. Children’s minds are not as yet full of knowledge of the past, since they have heard little or nothing about these things and have certainly not read about them either….
3. Children are not afraid to be ridiculed or seen as stupid.
4. Adults may get real past-life memories mixed up or distorted over time, especially due to wishful thinking.
5. Science cannot reject childish statements as being lies or as having been invented.

A recurring observation is that as children mature, their recollections of previous lives tend to diminish. From a philosophical perspective, this could be attributed to the transition of these memories from the conscious mind (manas) to the subconscious mind (chitta), rendering them less accessible.

The teachings suggest that the Atma, although eternal and beyond physical existence, carries impressions (saṃskāras) from previous lifetimes. These impressions are stored in the chitta and, unless consciously recalled or triggered by external circumstances, often remain dormant as the individual grows older and becomes more absorbed in worldly experiences.