Talk:Why Don’t Most of Us Remember Our Past Lives

By Vishal Agarwal

The Benefits of Forgetfulness:

In most cases, memories recede into the subconscious mind (‘chitta’ as it is referred to in Vedānta) during the process of death and are not easily accessible to most individuals in their next life. Numerous arguments can be advanced to explain why we are unable to or must not recall our past lives:

1. Forgetfulness is inherent to our nature. We do not even remember everything from the previous day, let alone from earlier in this very life. As a modern author comments- “The other reason we cannot recall our past lives is more prosaic: we are no more capable of remembering the precise details of a past life than we are of recalling many of the details of our present life with any clarity. In essence, human beings simply aren’t very good at retaining long-term memories; instead, the bulk of our life experiences are filed away in some dark recess of the brain where they can only be accessed through hypnosis or brought back to conscious recall by some external stimulus. Additionally, the further back in time the memory is, the more difficult it is to recall – especially with any degree of accuracy – until, in most people, it fades from the conscious mind entirely. If this is true of our present life, then, how much more so will it be true of an even more distant past life – especially if that life was rather ordinary and forgettable to begin with?”

2. Forgetfulness is beneficial to our mental well-being. That is how we overcome traumas that we have experienced. As a modern scholar explains- “….consider for a moment how problematic past-life memories have proven to be to those who claim to experience them. Often the memories are so traumatic that such people require psychiatric counseling to overcome them, and they can even prove to impede in other ways to those who suffer from a type of “post-rebirth syndrome.” This is why pre-incarnate or past-life memories are generally bad: they prevent one from moving toward spiritual maturity until and unless they first deal with their past-life trauma. By way of an example, imagine that a man who was brutally tortured and murdered in a previous incarnation is so traumatized by the event that he lives his present life in a perpetual state of fear. Terrified of people and unwilling to leave the safe confines of his home or interact with others in any meaningful way, he is incapable of moving on to other lessons he needs to learn in this lifetime to grow spiritually. If such a person is fortunate, he may receive therapy to deal with these fears, but it may take years before progress is made. Plus, of course, some never seek help for their traumas at all and so are entirely stymied in their efforts to grow beyond their fears. In such cases, then, a past life memory has become a hindrance to the growth process and can stop it completely if not purged from the conscious memory. The problem then is not in failing to recall past-life memories, but in failing to rid our psyche of all of them.”

3. Forgetting our past is often beneficial because it relieves us of the burden of useless memories and enables us to live in the present with complete mental engagement. A modern scholar explains- “…The purpose of reincarnating is not to simply recall our past errors so that we might avoid making the same mistake again, but to grow spiritually – even if making the same mistakes over again is a part of that growth process. As such, it may be necessary for us to forget our past lives – along with both their mistakes and successes – so that we may once again acquire a platform upon which to experience life anew. Were we to recall our past lives in perfect clarity, we would not be experiencing a new life but merely continuing a previous incarnation in a new body. So it is important to process that each time we reincarnate, our memory and, for that matter, our previous personality in toto – with all its idiosyncrasies, quirks, mannerisms, knowledge, perceptions, and a lifetime of memories and experiences – disappear. Much like a chalkboard is erased at the end of each school day to prepare for the next day’s lessons, so too our “chalkboard” must be wiped clean so we may start our new lessons afresh.”

The story of Shanti Devi mentioned above is a good example of how someone who remembered her past life was not able to live happily in her present life. Her speeches and writings indicate that she constantly dwelled in her past life, missed her previous family, and could never reconcile mentally to the fact that she was now a different person and that her former husband and children were not hers now. Due to this baggage of memory, she never felt comfortable marrying and having her own new family in her present life.

An analogous and more verifiable situation is that of certain individuals who have a condition called ‘Hyperthymesia’ or the ability to remember an extraordinarily large number of incidents and experiences in their life in minute detail. Although such cases are rare, individuals with this condition often get exhausted mentally, burdened by excessive memories and their recall. They are unable to live in the present or the future because they constantly dwell in the past.

4. Instances of past life recall are more numerous than are acknowledged. Most of us are prone to dismiss them as imagination, and some cultures reject reincarnation altogether. This dismissal ensures that cases of past life recall are ignored. In this regard, ‘pattern recognition’ plays an important role. Individuals belonging to cultures in which rebirth is a popular belief are more likely to recall their past lives. Contrarily, individuals belonging to cultures where rebirth is not widely understood or believed in are less likely to attribute their memories to events in a past life. This ‘pattern recognition’ factor is apparent in even mundane matters. For instance, in a society where ‘allergies’ are acknowledged and understood (e.g. in the developed world), individuals with allergies are more likely to realize that they have the same, and people around them are also more likely to understand that these individuals are suffering from allergies. Whereas in societies where allergies are not well understood, a person who is suffering from debilitating allergies is more likely to be characterized as a ‘lazy procrastinator’.

5. Many past life memories might as well be useless at present due to changing times and technology. For instance, “…While at first thought it would seem to be advantageous to retain the accumulated knowledge of a hundred past lives, it would be more likely that such a capacity would turn out to be a problem. For example, imagine how much more a modern doctor knows about medicine than his nineteenth-century counterpart. As such, were his nineteenth-century counterpart to reincarnate in the twenty-first century with his medical knowledge intact, such knowledge – in being so out of date – might prove to be not only a hindrance to being a proficient modern doctor, but it might perhaps prove to be helpful, more likely is going to be detrimental, at least in the near term.”

6. Different people have different capacities to remember events of the past. Similarly, only a few can remember incidents from their past lives while most of us do not.

7. The retention of exact memories of incidents is not important. Rather, it is the lessons learned from those incidents that matter. “Finally, there is also the idea that while we may not retain conscious memories of a past life, we are still retaining the underlying lessons those past life experiences taught us. For instance, we may not recall the process by which we acquired our patience, but we retain the benefit of that process in this lifetime. Past-life experiences – while absent from our current consciousness – are retained on a deeper “soul level,” where they can be carried over from one incarnation to another. While the specific details of each past-life may be lost, it’s only because they aren’t important….”

A common life example is that we handle hot fluids like hot coffee carefully, knowing fully well that it can cause scalding if spilled on our skin. Hardly any of us remembers the precise incident when we learned of the dangers of mishandling hot fluids, but the lesson learned remains imprinted in our minds. Similarly, we do not remember the events of past lives, but the lessons that we learned from them often remain in our inner consciousness and manifest as our natural tendencies, talents, phobias, etc., in our present lives.

8. Finally, a knowledge of our past lives might lead to harmful effects on our present karma and emotional make-up: “Few people spontaneously remember their past lives. As we become aware of the implications of karma, it may seem strange that we do not have access, while on Earth, to our previous records. Yet to have that access would take away spontaneity and a great deal of individuality. Once we know where the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle fit, the puzzle may lose its interest! Knowing our past lives and our exact karmic debts might lead us to create more negative karma rather than less, since pride, false humility, escapism, or over-compensation could so easily get in the way. It would be too easy for us to be little other than actors on a stage, cut off from the true immediacy of our deepest emotions, thoughts, and interactions.”