How We Remember Our Past Lives and Other Essays on Reincarnation by C. Jinarajadasa.pdf

How We Remember Our Past Lives by C. Jinarajadasa

How We Remember Our Past Lives

and Other Essays on Reincarnation

by C. Jinarajadasa

The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai(Madras), India 600 020

First Edition Published in 1915

THE CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVATION

IN FULFILMENT OF A PROMISE

Full moon of Chaitra, 1912

HOW WE REMEMBER OUR PAST LIVES

Page 1

THE VISION OF THE SPIRIT

Page 31

THE LAW OF RENUNCIATION

Page 52

THE HIDDEN WORK OF NATURE

Page 60

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How We Remember Our Past Lives by C. Jinarajadasa

HOW WE REMEMBER OUR PAST LIVES

Among the many ideas which have lightened the burden of men, one of the most serviceable has been

that of Reincarnation. It not only explains why one man is born in the lap of luxury and another in poverty,

why one is a genius and another an idiot, but it also holds out the hope that, as men now reap what they

have sown in the past, so in future lives the poor and wretched of today shall have what they lack, if so

they work for it, and that the idiot may, life after life, build up mentality which in far-off days may flower as

genius.

When the idea of reincarnation is heard of for the first time, the student naturally supposes that it is a

Hindu doctrine, for it is known to be a fundamental part of both Hinduism and Buddhism. But the strange

fact is that reincarnation is found everywhere as a belief, and its origin cannot be traced to Indian

sources. We hear of it in far-off Australia ( See The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, by Baldwin

Spencer & F.G. Gillen, 1904, page 175, et seq . ) and there is a story on record of an Australian aborigine

who went cheerfully to the gallows, and replied on being questioned as to his levity :”Tumble down black-

fellow, jump up white fellow, and have lots of sixpences to spend!” It was taught by the Druids of ancient

Gaul, and Julius Caesar tells us how young Gauls were taught reincarnation, and that as a consequence

they had no fear of death. Greek philosophers knew of it; we have Pythagoras telling his pupils that in his

past lives he had been a warrior at the siege of Troy, and later was the philosopher Hermotimus of

Galzomenae. It is not utterly unknown to Christian teaching, if we take the simple statement of Christ,

when questioned whether John the Baptist was Elijah or Elias reborn: “If ye will receive it, this is Elias

which was for to come,” and He follows up the statement with the significant words: “He that hath ears to

hear, let him hear.” In later Jewish tradition, the idea is known, and the Talmud mentions several cases of

reincarnation.

There are many to whom reincarnation appeals forcibly, and Schopenhauer does but little exaggerate

when he says: “I have also remarked that it is at once obvious to everyone who hears of it for the first

time”. Some believe in the idea immediately; it comes to them like a flash of light in thick darkness, and

the problem of life is clearly seen with reincarnation as the solution. Others there are who grow into

belief, as each doubt is solved and each question answered

There is one, and only one, objection which can logically be brought against reincarnation, if correctly

understood as Theosophy teaches it. It lies in the question: “If, as you say, I have lived on earth in other

bodies, why don’t I remember the past?”

Now if reincarnation is a fact in Nature, there surely will be enough other facts which will point to its

existence. No one fact in Nature stands isolated, and it is possible in divers ways to discover that fact.

Similarly it is with reincarnation; there are indeed enough facts of a psychological kind to prove to a

thinker that reincarnation must be a fact of Nature and not a theory.

In answering the question why we do not remember our past lives, surely the first necessary point is to

ask ourselves what we mean by “memory”. If we have some clear ideas as to the mechanism of memory,

perhaps we may be able to understand why we do not (or do) “remember” our past days or lives. Now,

briefly speaking, what we usually mean by memory is a summing up. If I remember today the incidents of

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How We Remember Our Past Lives by C. Jinarajadasa

my cutting my finger yesterday, there will be two elements in my memory: first the series of events which

went to produce the pain - the misadventure in handling the knife, the cut, the bleeding, the sensorial

reaction in the brain, the gesture and so on; and second, the sense of pain. As days pass, the causes of

the pain recede into the periphery of consciousness, while the effects, as pain, still hold the centre.

Presently, we shall find that even the memory of the pain itself recedes into the background, leaving

behind with us not a direct memory as an event, but an indirect memory as a tendency – a tendency to

be careful in the handling of all cutting implements. This process is continually taking place; the cause is

forgotten (though recoverable under hypnosis from the subconscious mind), while the effect, transmuted

into tendency, remains.

It is here that we are specially aided by the brain. We are apt to think of the brain as a recorder of

memory, without realizing that one of its most useful functions is to wipe out memories. The brain plays

the dual function of remembering and forgetting. But for our ability to forget, life would be impossible. If

each time we tried to move a limb, we were to remember all our infantile efforts at movement, with the

hesitation and doubt and perhaps even pain involved, our consciousness would be so overwhelmed by

memories that the necessary movement of the limb would certainly be delayed, or not made at all.

Similarly, it is with every function now performed automatically, which was once consciously acquired; it is

because we do forget the process of acquiring, that we can utilize the faculty resulting therefrom.

This is what is continuously taking place in consciousness with each one of us. There is a process of

exchange, similar to copper coins of one denomination being changed to silver coins of smaller bulk

representing them, then into gold coins of smaller weight still, and later bank notes representing their

value, and last of all to a piece of paper, a cheque, whose intrinsic worth is nil. Yet we have but to write

our signature on the cheque, to put into operation the whole medium of exchange. It is a similar process

which takes place with all our memories of sensations, feelings and thoughts. These are severally

grouped into categories, and transmuted into likes and dislikes, and finally into talents and faculties.

Now we know that as we manifest a like or dislike, or exhibit any capacity, we are remembering our past,

though we cannot remember one by one in detail the memories which contributed to originate the

emotions or faculty. As I write these words in English on this page, I must be remembering the first time I

saw each word in a reading book, and looked up its meaning in a dictionary as I prepared my home

lessons; but it is a kind of transmuted memory. Nevertheless, I do remember, and but for those memories

being somewhere in my consciousness (whether in touch with some brain cells or not is not now the

point ) I should not be able to think of the right word to express my thought, nor shape it on this paper so

that the printer will recognize the letters to set them up in print. Furthermore, we know as a fact that we

do forget these causative memories one by one; it would be foolish if, as I write a particular word, I were

to try to call up the memory of the first time I saw it. The brain is a recording instrument of such a kind

that, though it registers, it does not obey consciousness when it desires to unroll the record, except in

certain abnormal cases. The desire to remember is not necessarily followed by remembrance, and we

have to take this fact as it is.

Here it is that Bergson has very luminously pointed out that “we think with only a small part of the past;

but it is with our entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will, and act.” Clearly

then it would be useless to try to remember our past lives by the mere exercise of the mind; though

thought can remember something of the past, it is only a fraction of the whole. But on the other hand, let

us but feel or act , and then at once our feeling or action is the resultant of all the forces, of the past which

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How We Remember Our Past Lives by C. Jinarajadasa

have converged on our individuality. If, therefore, we are to trace the memories of our past lives in our

present normal consciousness, we must note how we feel and act, expecting to recover little of such

memories in a mere mental effort to remember.

Every feeling and act, then, can be slowly traced to its component parts of impressions from without and

reactions from within. So much is this the case with each one of us, that we can construct for ourselves

what has been another's past, as we watch that other feel and act, provided he does both in an average

fashion. But if he manifests a mode that is not the average mode of thought or feeling, then he becomes

incomprehensible to us and needs explanation. Since, then, the average feelings and actions can be

readily explained as the result of average experiences, unusual feeling and actions must be explained as

having an unusual causation. If the present writer were to deliver a lecture in English in India, where so

many can speak English, each of his listeners would take for granted that he had been to school and

college, without perhaps enquiring further when and where. But were he, instead of speaking English, to

speak Italian, than at once each listener would be curious to know how and when that faculty of speaking

Italian had been grown. Furthermore, if an Italian were present in the audience, then judging from the

speaker’s phrasing and intonation, he would know that the speaker must have lived in Italy, or must have

spent a considerable time among Italians. Wherever there is any manifestation of feeling or action — as

indeed, too, of some expressions of thought — which has something of the quality of the expert , then we

must postulate for that faculty a slow growth through experiences, which are the result of experiments

along that particular line.

Now each one of us has many qualities of an average kind, as also a few of an expert kind. The former

we can account for by experiences common to all. Let us examine some of the latter, and see if we can

account for them on any other hypothesis than that of reincarnation.

Now one of the principal things which characterizes men is their likes and dislikes. Sometimes these

might be called rational, that is, they are such likes and dislikes as an average individual of a particular

type might be said normally to possess at his stage in evolution. We can account for these normal likes

and dislikes, because they are such as we ourselves manifest under similar conditions. But suppose we

take the case of an extraordinary liking, such as is termed “love at first sight.” Two people meet in the

seeming fortuitous concourse of human events, sometimes, it may be, coming from the ends of the earth.

They know nothing of each other, and yet ensues the curious phenomenon that as a matter of fact the do

know a great deal of each other. Life would be a happy thing if we could go out with deep affection to all

whom we meet; but we know we cannot, for it is not in our nature. Why then should it be in our nature to

“fall in love” with a particular individual? Why should we be ready to sacrifice all for this person whom, in

this life at least, we have met but a few times? How is it that we seem to know the inner workings of his

heart and brain from the little which he reveals at our conventional intercourse at the beginning? “ Falling

in love” is indeed a mysterious psychological phenomenon, but the process is far better described as

being dragged into love, since the individual is forced to obey and may not refrain.

Now there are two logical explanations possible: one is the ribald one of the scoffer, that it is some form

of hysteria or incipient insanity, due it may be to “complexes”; the other is that, in this profound going

forth of one individual as an expert in feeling towards another, we have not at first meeting but the last of

many, many meetings which took place in past lives. Where or when were these meetings is of little

consequence to the lovers; indeed Rudyard Kipling has suggested in his “Finest Story in the World” that

it is only in order that we might not miss the delicious sensation of falling in love with our beloved, that the

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