We don't remember our past lives because...

[Guest guest]

Spontaneous recall of past lives may be a rather dubious privilege. Suppose you were now able to have unfettered access to all your past life memories and were to discover that you were one of the worst monsters in history. What if you discovered that you were Genghis Khan, Hitler, or Stalin? Worse, perhaps, you realize you have spent lifetimes as a child abuser or village idiot. How would you feel? How would you deal with the horror and belated remorse? You would probably feel so depressed and discouraged, you would have no strength to keep on.

 

Moreover, imagine how much karma your life now and in the future would be subject to. You would have a mountain of misfortune to deal with. How could you deal with it? Perhaps you would live in fear of retribution for past sins. You would probably feel hopelessness, guilt, and shame and find it tremendously difficult to get on with your life. People don't like to remember things that are unpleasant or evil.

 

Fortunately cosmic law protects you with forgetfulness and gives you a second chance. People need to be protected even from comparatively innocuous past lives. Take for example the story of Shanti Devi, in the sidebar near this section. Twenty-five years after the events described, a reporter sought out Shanti to ask her about the case. She was working a quiet life as a government employee. She was not keen to talk about the case. "I do not wish to revive my past lives, either this one or my previous existence in Muttra," she confessed. "It has been very difficult for me to bury my desire to return to my family. I do not want to open that closed door again."

 

Your task now is to fulfil the destiny you set for yourself. You must work to learn the sometimes-hard lessons you have set. You do not remember your past lives because these memories might hamper your spiritual progress. They could cause feelings of guilt or yearning for experiences past.

 

The memories in your unconscious are immortal. Although the memory of your past lives has vanished from your mind, if the appropriate brain cells were awakened you would be able to remember everything. Very often, these silent areas of the mind are opened during sleep and the memories awaken during dreams.

[theist]

Good point. Yes we would be not be able to function. One life a demon the next ordinary , the next heavenly all mixed up and seeping in to our conscious experience in this one. Madness.

 

Sometimes though it can help to revisted some past trauma which may be the source of a present irrational phobia. Drowned in the last life and now paralyzed with fear around a swimming pool for example.

 

And I agree again with your idea of working with what is right before us. We have an oppurtunity to come to true knowledge of ourselves and not who we thought we were 'then 'or who we think we are now as we once again have a valuable human form. let's make the best of it.

[Guest guest]

 

Spontaneous recall of past lives may be a rather dubious privilege. Suppose you were now able to have unfettered access to all your past life memories and were to discover that you were one of the worst monsters in history. What if you discovered that you were Genghis Khan, Hitler, or Stalin? Worse, perhaps, you realize you have spent lifetimes as a child abuser or village idiot. How would you feel? How would you deal with the horror and belated remorse? You would probably feel so depressed and discouraged, you would have no strength to keep on.

 

Moreover, imagine how much karma your life now and in the future would be subject to. You would have a mountain of misfortune to deal with. How could you deal with it? Perhaps you would live in fear of retribution for past sins. You would probably feel hopelessness, guilt, and shame and find it tremendously difficult to get on with your life. People don't like to remember things that are unpleasant or evil.

 

Fortunately cosmic law protects you with forgetfulness and gives you a second chance. People need to be protected even from comparatively innocuous past lives. Take for example the story of Shanti Devi, in the sidebar near this section. Twenty-five years after the events described, a reporter sought out Shanti to ask her about the case. She was working a quiet life as a government employee. She was not keen to talk about the case. "I do not wish to revive my past lives, either this one or my previous existence in Muttra," she confessed. "It has been very difficult for me to bury my desire to return to my family. I do not want to open that closed door again."

 

Your task now is to fulfil the destiny you set for yourself. You must work to learn the sometimes-hard lessons you have set. You do not remember your past lives because these memories might hamper your spiritual progress. They could cause feelings of guilt or yearning for experiences past.

 

The memories in your unconscious are immortal. Although the memory of your past lives has vanished from your mind, if the appropriate brain cells were awakened you would be able to remember everything. Very often, these silent areas of the mind are opened during sleep and the memories awaken during dreams.

 

I have discovered many lives that I have lived, and one of them in ca the 1300's as a blood thirsty chief pirate, so that was not so nice to remember, but I think most of the punishment for such an incarnation is right after death, like a time in hell plus more incarnations on earth. I also was a witch, that gave herbs to sick people, I was a drunken man that killed a person while drunk in the 1700's, and for that I got punished by being killed by 15 big women in a row plus another incarnation on earth (the one I live now). After that I was a good normal guy on earth, and after that a fish that got eaten, and after that a short life on Neptune as a good guy. I also was someone big in ca the year 50. I think it's worth remembering since most have lots of past lives, and the good incarnations often outnumbers the bad.

[Guest guest]

how did you remember these incarnations and past lives brother? what do you mean by good guy on neptune? the planet? but no life exists there? do you mean in spirit form?

[theist]

Simon,

 

The point I want to emphasize is the real eternal you. Being a pirate,king or villiage bum, these are just like pretend sessions that we have in our minds, like crazy people one day imagining ourselves to be Napolean and the next day Christ.

 

Who is it that remembers all these different incarnations. That who is the ,real you, the real I, the real objective in the search for self identity.

[Guest guest]

 

how did you remember these incarnations and past lives brother? what do you mean by good guy on neptune? the planet? but no life exists there? do you mean in spirit form?

I started remembering my incarnations after my father from Neptune came to visited me, I saw his invisible being, and he gave me two weapons, a trifork and a question mark staff, don't know what for, but it was fun. This event I had also seen when I was 11, I saw my own future.

 

After that I started to remember him and my other family members from Neptune, I died young when I lived there, ca 20 years old, I drowned in the earth atmosphere while visiting, and got stuck here. But it turned out, that it was my destiny, because of what I did in my former incarnation, and I ended up on earth, and got ready to be born.

 

An inner guru has helped me get those other incarnation to the surface.

 

They have bodies on Neptune, but also can use a out-of-body machine and fly to other planets, it's like a higher vibration than here.

[Guest guest]

 

Simon,

 

The point I want to emphasize is the real eternal you. Being a pirate,king or villiage bum, these are just like pretend sessions that we have in our minds, like crazy people one day imagining ourselves to be Napolean and the next day Christ.

 

Who is it that remembers all these different incarnations. That who is the ,real you, the real I, the real objective in the search for self identity.

 

I believe,

I Am eternal, I have always existed, and I am all I have been.

The memories from my former incarnations are real, I have no doubt in my mind that I have been there, of course I was the one that was there, they aren't just pictures in my head, like that I just believe I was there. I know I was there, just as I know I was there in my childhood memories, it's the same thing.

[AncientMariner]

At one time in my life I thought I might be the reincarnation of Christopher Columbus because I always liked to look out at the sea in wonder but the mind is too tricky to know if that stuff is real or not so I have come to the conclusion that most likely I am not the reincarnation of Christopher Columbus.

[gramo]

Mr. Simon,

 

There are very few persons who remember their immediate past life and they give evidence which force us to believe that. But knowing many past lives is heard for the first time. Nothing is impossible in this universe, but it is difficult to believe without any evidence. Faith is different from blind belief.

[theist]

 

I believe,

I Am eternal, I have always existed, and I am all I have been.

The memories from my former incarnations are real, I have no doubt in my mind that I have been there, of course I was the one that was there, they aren't just pictures in my head, like that I just believe I was there. I know I was there, just as I know I was there in my childhood memories, it's the same thing.

 

OK. They may be real as in you have lived through such incarnations but what I am saying is that what is perceived as real from the material position is not really real. Only the perceiver's are real, as in the real sense of the word.

[gHari]

Simon Peter, I want you to focus on your life before you accepted a material form, on the time when you had no attachments to this worldly plane. I think if you can remember that, you will never come back to this crass world of ego games.

[Guest guest]

SB 10.1.37: Vasudeva said: My dear brother-in-law Kaḿsa, you are the pride of your family, the Bhoja dynasty, and great heroes praise your qualities. How could such a qualified person as you kill a woman, your own sister, especially on the occasion of her marriage?

 

SB 10.1.38: O great hero, one who takes birth is sure to die, for death is born with the body. One may die today or after hundreds of years, but death is sure for every living entity.

 

SB 10.1.39: When the present body turns to dust and is again reduced to five elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether — the proprietor of the body, the living being, automatically receives another body of material elements according to his fruitive activities. When the next body is obtained, he gives up the present body.

 

SB 10.1.40: Just as a person traveling on the road rests one foot on the ground and then lifts the other, or as a worm on a vegetable transfers itself to one leaf and then gives up the previous one, the conditioned soul takes shelter of another body and then gives up the one he had before.

 

SB 10.1.41: Having experienced a situation by seeing or hearing about it, one contemplates and speculates about that situation, and thus one surrenders to it, not considering his present body. Similarly, by mental adjustments one dreams at night of living under different circumstances, in different bodies, and forgets his actual position. Under this same process, one gives up his present body and accepts another [tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ].

 

SB 10.1.42: At the time of death, according to the thinking, feeling and willing of the mind, which is involved in fruitive activities, one receives a particular body. In other words, the body develops according to the activities of the mind. Changes of body are due to the flickering of the mind, for otherwise the soul could remain in its original, spiritual body.

 

SB 10.1.43: When the luminaries in the sky, such as the moon, the sun and the stars, are reflected in liquids like oil or water, they appear to be of different shapes — sometimes round, sometimes long, and so on — because of the movements of the wind. Similarly, when the living entity, the soul, is absorbed in materialistic thoughts, he accepts various manifestations as his own identity because of ignorance. In other words, one is bewildered by mental concoctions because of agitation from the material modes of nature.

 

SB 10.1.44: Therefore, since envious, impious activities cause a body in which one suffers in the next life, why should one act impiously? Considering one's welfare, one should not envy anyone, for an envious person must always fear harm from his enemies, either in this life or in the next.

[Guruvani]

 

Simon Peter, I want you to focus on your life before you accepted a material form, on the time when you had no attachments to this worldly plane. I think if you can remember that, you will never come back to this crass world of ego games.

 

So, maybe we can hypnotize Simon Peter into remembering that he was once a parshada of Krishna, but he made eyes at a gopi and Krishna sent to him the material world for billions of years, starting out as a microbe and then gradually gradually becoming a worm in stool and then on to other higher life forms.?

[Guest guest]

Prabhupada said that we were living in Goloka with Krishna then when we lusted and became envious of Krishna, wanted to enjoy like Him, we fell down into the material world.

 

 

Bhagavad gita Chapter 3. Karma-yoga

 

TEXT 37

 

sri-bhagavan

uvaca kama esa krodha esa rajo-guna-samudbhavah

mahasano maha-papma viddhy enam iha vairinam

 

SYNONYMS

sri-bhagavan uvaca--the Personality of Godhead said; kamah--lust; esah--all these; krodhah--wrath; esah--all these; rajah-guna--the mode of passion; samudbhavah--born of; maha-asanah--all-devouring; maha-papma--greatly sinful; viddhi--know; enam--this; iha--in the material world; vairinam--greatest enemy.

 

TRANSLATION

The Blessed Lord said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of this world.

 

PURPORT

<b>When a living entity comes in contact with the material creation, his eternal love for Krsna is transformed into lust, in association with the mode of passion. Or, in other words, the sense of love of God becomes transformed into lust, as milk in contact with sour tamarind is transformed into yogurt. </b>Then again, when lust is unsatisfied, it turns into wrath; wrath is transformed into illusion, and illusion continues the material existence. Therefore, lust is the greatest enemy of the living entity, and it is lust only which induces the pure living entity to remain entangled in the material world. Wrath is the manifestation of the mode of ignorance; these modes exhibit themselves as wrath and other corollaries. If, therefore, the modes of passion, instead of being degraded into the modes of ignorance, are elevated to the modes of goodness by the prescribed method of living and acting, then one can be saved from the degradation of wrath by spiritual attachment.

 

The Supreme Personality of Godhead expanded Himself into many for His ever-increasing spiritual bliss, and the living entities are parts and parcels of this spiritual bliss. They also have partial independence, but by misuse of their independence, when the service attitude is transformed into the propensity for sense enjoyment, they come under the sway of lust. This material creation is created by the Lord to give a facility to the conditioned souls to fulfill these lustful propensities, and when they are completely baffled by prolonged lustful activities, the living entities begin to inquire about their real position.

 

This inquiry is the beginning of the Vedanta-sutras, wherein it is said, athato brahma-jijnasa: one should inquire into the Supreme. And the Supreme is defined in Srimad-Bhagavatam as janmady asya yato 'nvayad itaratas ca, or, "The origin of everything is the Supreme Brahman." Therefore, the origin of lust is also in the Supreme. If, therefore, lust is transformed into love for the Supreme, or transformed into Krsna consciousness--or, in other words, desiring everything for Krsna--then both lust and wrath can be spiritualized. Hanuman, the great servitor of Lord Rama, engaged his wrath upon his enemies for the satisfaction of the Lord. Therefore, lust and wrath, when they are employed in Krsna consciousness, become our friends instead of our enemies.

[Beggar]

 

Prabhupada said that we were living in Goloka

I can't see that you have given any evidence concerning this bold assertion. I am waiting for Ksamabudhi to give an authorized refutation of this but he's probably too busy watching the English Professional Football (soccer) League. He sees the Vedas everywhere, even with them Gators! How 'bout then cow herd boys!

[theist]

Out of respect for the intial post we should stick to the thread subject. Another (yet another) thread on origins can be started if someone wants but please not here.

[Guest guest]

We don't remember out past lives because...

 

who doesn't?

[theist]

Well considering how many lives we have had in the material world we can say no one does. Of course some bits and peices filter through. For instance I remember a recent death very vividly. I fell from a high mountainous region. I don't remember why I went over but as soon as I went over I was immediately outside of my physical body, astonished and watched the already souless form fall a long long way down.

 

Even today I have a love of heights but a great fear of being close to an edge. The impression of major traumas can run through lifetimes. But that snippet doesn't amount to much all things considered.

[Avinash]

What were you doing on the third wednesday of the August month ten years back in the current life? You must answer this from memory and not from some diary.

[Shakti-Fan]

 

What were you doing on the third wednesday of the August month ten years back in the current life? You must answer this from memory and not from some diary.

Chasing cars up and down the street, bark, bark. Then unceremoniously beaten by my master.

[sanatan]

If each physical birth is an end-product of the cumulative past ones, then by objectively analyzing the present life, an idea of the immediately preceding life should be readily apparent.

 

Thoughts regarding animal births:

 

I've had lots of pets in this life and most of them were/are better individuals than many people I've known.

 

I think I'd rather be reborn as a pet cat or dog with a lifetime of comfort ahead than as a human being in very unfortunate circumstances, with nothing but ignorance and suffering in the cards.

 

Certainly an animal birth is very often unfortunate, but always is an overgeneralization.

[Bishadi]

 

We don't remember our past lives because...

 

Memories do not convey. Period! Anything else is just being able to know the singularity or tap into the total of existance. We all can and what 'spiritual' theologies try and teach us; knowing God (the total).

 

The idea that your glial (what actually hold memories within the neural networks) carries an imprinted amount of memories to be reborne into another life is like Jesus walking on water.

[Tirisilex]

I remember bits and fragments of some pastlives with help froma hypnotist.. Ive had some really rotten lives and yes it is quite depressing to know it.. However at the same time I'm doing better than I had done in past lives.

[Guruvani]

Last night I had a dream that I was another person in a different life and I had a dog named Balaram.

At one point I remember some wild animals came onto our property and were chasing some livestock we had.

Then I got concerned that maybe these wild animals had harmed my dog Balaram, so I was walking all around calling out "Balaram", "Balaram" trying to find my missing dog.

 

Then I woke up and I was still in my mind calling out "Balaram", Balaram".

 

This is a true story, but I don't know if it was something from a past life or not.

[bija]

Some years ago my dog and I went to spend a week at a Krsna farm. A young boy devotee took a liking to my dog and asked, "what did you call him?"

 

"Boise" I said. "That's a strange name", the young boy said, "you should have called him Bala, because he is white, and white reminds me of Balarama."

 

Smart boy I thought, "Yes you are right, Balarama is a good name."

 

I dream of my dog, Guruvani. In the dreams he is often getting into trouble and I have to get him out of mischief. I never realised the nature of attachment can be so subtle....but he is a good spirit soul...often when I quietly chant my rounds

he calms right down and rests....a strange thing for a hyper JackRussel Foxy.

 

Eventually when he passes on, I will not get another dog....but all the same I have learnt alot from him....and he has enjoyed prasadam alot.