Why We Don’t Remember Past Incarnations

Why We Don’t Remember Past Incarnations

As a psychic reader and life coach counselor for many years, the question comes up often that possibly a past life might have something to do with the challenges one is facing in this present life. Others just want to know if they were Cleopatra or King Henry VIII.

Regardless of the reason, the vast majority of people and cultures believe that we live many lives. Sometimes, a gifted reader who has the ability to pick up on past lives can lift the veil to see those influences and then other times you may have dreams of being present in a past life situation.

The big question regarding the many lives we have possibly lived is why can’t we remember them and for what reason? Most of us do not recall anything in detail about the time before we incarnated into a human body.

The gift of not remembering

Occasionally a rare individual is reincarnated with full recall of their past life as in children who relate knowing where they lived, how they died and can point out their own tombstone but that is a very rare case and we still don’t know why they have the ability and the rest of humanity doesn’t.

There is an obvious gift in not remembering who we were when we are born into this lifetime and that gift is the ‘experience of the journey.’

There is no doubt that life on earth is difficult in ways that life outside of a body is not. As we modify our energy to move into a body, our consciousness make necessary changes. Forgetting past incarnations protects us from a confused and divided experience.

Not being able to know our past mistakes, successes, violence and heartbreaks brings us into alignment with our purpose here to be fully present in the gift of this journey. Focusing all our life energy to the experience we are having right now.

Following new tracks

One wise explanation to this profound question is found in Sri Madhava Ashish’s insightful commentary in The Secret Doctrine.

“If there were no barrier between [past life memories] and our present conscious integrations, we would be compelled, like trams, to follow the same old tracks of thought and behavior worn by the sum of our previous lives, each time wearing the grooves a little deeper. Our past inadequacies would crush us, our past glories would inflate us. It is enough to know that all that has ever happened has made us what we are, and that all that we ever were is present in us now. We do not need to know the details of past lives, for each life is, up to a point, a recapitulation of all our previous lives, just as the development of the human embryo is a recapitulation of the evolution of the species.”

The Immortal Actor

Just like when a professional actor takes on a new role, the character and the plot and the script from the previous performance are forgotten. What is not discarded are the acting skills honed through numerous theatrical performances. So, it is with each of us as we repeatedly return to the earthly stage, life after life, in a new setting and new personality.

The important thing to know is that throughout these cycles of birth and death, we are the ever-present equation as the Immortal Actor and not the roles we are playing out in a temporary lifetime.

Susan Z

Susan Z Rich is an emotional addiction counselor, spiritual intuitive and holistic therapist. She counsels others to see life in a more positive way and teaches personal accountability for life choices. She is also the author of several children’s books and Soul Windows…Secrets From The Divine.