Memory and the Death Process
A student yogi approached on the astral planes with a question about the death to rebirth process, as to how it is that someone does not recall the past life when that person takes a new body through human parents.
There is a doubt about reincarnation, regarding that if it is true, how is it that most people have no recall of it and the few that do, have only partial recall and cannot accurately describe every scene from the previous life.
In reference to the new life as an embryo, the transit from the old body into the astral existence, and then to being a child of somebody, is a natural one which is formatted by the physical and psychic nature. This means that one must study how nature operates and do one’s best to make the transit as convenient as possible.
The incidence of lack of recall in the new life, can be studied by observing what happens to someone who is born as a baby. Such children show no or very little cohesive recall. Why is that? It would be much easier for people to accept reincarnation as a fact, if there was recall. However, we must understand that in so many facets of existence, nature is unconcerned to make the situations service our needs.
During the life of a body, even then, even in the young adult stage, one experiences memory lapses. This is when the physical body is at its healthiest stage. Hence during the infant stages and during the elderly years, it is unreasonable to think that nature would allow for full recall on demand.
The evidence is that an infant body is derived from the parents with no memory from a past life. Even if the subtle body has/had memory from the past life (lives), still the infant body does not come with that information installed into its brain. It seems that nature manufactures the infant form with no capacity to hold memories from the subtle body.
In the process of assuming the infant form, the personSelf as a subtle body loses grasp on the memories which are stored in the subtle body. It shifts to having the blank memory capacity of the embryo it will assume.
In an old or damaged physical body, someone should prepare for the process of rebirth by considering that some memory will be unavailable as the physical body ages. This would be memory which required a physical brain for its storage.
Some memories are stored in two locations. Some others are in one or the other location but not in both. A memory may be stored in the subtle body and in the physical brain. Some other memory may be only in the physical system. Yet, another memory may be in the subtle body only.
Access to memory is reliant on various factors. One should not assume that one will recall every memory. It depends on the access of the information. When a person first departs from the physical body, he/she lives as a ghost but not in the negative meaning of the word. Ghost means a subtle body which is difficult to perceive by those who have physical forms. If it is perceived it may be regarded as spooky and frightening. The fact is however, that it is neither spooky nor frightening because it is just the subtle body of the person. It is the same subtle body which was used by that person when that someone had a physical form. It is the same body which was used in dreams when that person was on the physical side.
Because humans are usually anchored to the physical side of life, their awareness of a dead person’s subtle body or ghost may cause feelings of fear and trepidation. One can get over this in time, if one switches one’s reference to the subtle side, abandoning the physical existence as the main reference.
During dreams one can have some idea about the condition of memory after death. This is because in the hereafter, one will be left with only the memories which are in the subtle body. None of the memories in the physical system will be available unless those memories were photocopied over in the subtle body when those events took place. In addition, when from the hereafter one takes a new infant form, one will not have access to the subtle body memories during the early years of that new body. More than likely there will be little or no recall, and whatever recall there is will not be cohesive and sensible.
