392- Why does the incarnate spirit lose the memory of its past?
“Human beings cannot and must not know everything. God, out of divine wisdom, wills it to be this way. Without the veil that hides certain things from them, they would be dazzled, like one who passes suddenly from the darkness into the light. By forgetting their past, they are more fully themselves in the present.”
393- How can individuals be responsible for their deeds and redeem their wrongs if they cannot remember them? How can they profit from the experience acquired in lives that have fallen into forgottenness? We could understand that life’s tribulations might be a lesson for them if they could remember what had caused them in the first place, but since they do not remember them at all, each existence is as if it were the first, and it is thus that they are always having to start over. How can this be reconciled with the justice of God?
“With each new existence, spirits gain more intelligence and can better distinguish between good and evil. Where would their merit be if they remembered their entire past? When spirits enter their life of origin (the spirit life), their entire previous life unfolds before them. They see the wrongs they committed, and which are the cause of their suffering, as well as what would have kept them from committing them in the first place. They understand the justice of the position assigned to them, and they thus desire a new existence that can redeem the one that has elapsed. They seek trials similar to those they have already experienced, or struggles they believe will be appropriate for their advancement. They ask spirits who are of a higher order to help them in the new task that they are about to undertake, for they know that the spirit who will be given to them as their guide in that new existence will endeavor to enable them to repair their wrongs of the past by giving them a sort of intuition about them. This same intuition is the thought, the wrongful desire, which frequently assaults you, and which you instinctively resist, most of the time attributing your resistance to the principles you have received from your parents. However, it is the voice of conscience speaking to you and this voice is a memory of the past, a voice that warns you not to fall into the errors you committed previously. In that new existence, if a spirit endures its trials with courage and resists them, it evolves and will ascend in the spirits’ hierarchy when it returns to be among them.”
If during our corporeal life we do not have a precise memory of what we were and of what good or evil we did in our previous lifetimes, we nevertheless have an intuition of them. Hence, our instinctive tendencies are a reminiscence of our past, about which our conscience – which represents the desire we have conceived to no longer commit the same wrongs – warns us that we must resist.
394- On worlds more advanced than ours, where beings are not subject to all our physical needs and infirmities, do they understand that they are happier than we are? Happiness, in general, is relative; we feel it by comparing it with a less happy state. In sum, some of those worlds, though better than ours, have not yet reached the state of perfection, and their inhabitants must have their own annoyances. Even though the wealthy among us do not suffer the anxieties of material needs like the poor, they are no less subject to the same types of tribulations that embitter their lives. Thus, I would ask whether the inhabitants of those worlds in their own situations feel as unhappy as we do, and whether they also complain about their fate since they do not have the memory of a less evolved existence for comparison.
“Two different answers apply to this question. There are worlds among those you are speaking about, on which the inhabitants have a clear and exact memory of their past lives. You should understand that these can and do know how to appreciate the happiness that God permits them to enjoy. However, there are other worlds whose inhabitants, situated, as you say, in better conditions than yours, are no less subject to great annoyances, and even misfortunes. They do not appreciate their happiness because they do not remember an even unhappier state. Nevertheless, if they do not appreciate it as incarnates, they will as spirits.”
In the forgetfulness of past existences, especially when they were painful, is there not something providential where the divine wisdom is revealed? It is on the more highly evolved worlds, when the memory of unhappy lives is nothing more than a bad dream, that the memory of such lives resurfaces. On less evolved worlds, however, would present misfortunes not be increased by the memory of everything that had been endured in the past? Therefore, we conclude that everything that God has made is well-made, and that it is not our place to criticize the divine works and say how God ought to have regulated the universe.
The remembrance of our former personalities would entail serious inconveniences. In certain cases, it could cause us a great deal of humiliation; in others, it could exalt our pride and so hinder our free will. God has given us just what is necessary and sufficient for us to improve ourselves: the voice of conscience and our instinctive tendencies keeping us from what could harm us. We would further add that if we had the remembrance of our own former personal acts, we would also be able to remember those of other people, and such knowledge could have the most unpleasant effects on our social relationships. Since we do not always have a good reason for being proud of our past, it is almost always a blessing for a veil to have been thrown over it. This concurs perfectly with the doctrine of the Spirits regarding worlds that are more evolved than ours. On those worlds, where nothing reigns except the good, there is nothing painful about remembering the past. That is why previous lifetimes are frequently remembered as easily as we remember what we did yesterday. As for the sojourn that one may have had on less evolved worlds, the memory of it is nothing more than a bad dream, as we have stated.
395- Can we obtain any revelations about our former lives?
“Not always. Nevertheless, many know who they were and what they did. If they were permitted to speak openly, they would make curious revelations about the past.”
396- Some persons believe they have a vague memory of an unknown past. It appears as a fleeting image of a dream, which in vain they try to retain. Wouldn’t this belief simply be an illusion?
“It is sometimes real, but much more often it is an illusion to be guarded against; it could simply be the effect of an over-excited imagination.”
397- In corporeal existences of a more evolved nature than ours, is the memory of previous lives more precise?
“Yes, as the body becomes less material, they become easier to remember. The memory of the past is clearer for those who inhabit worlds of a higher order.”
398- Since people’s instinctive tendencies are a reminiscence of their past, then by studying those tendencies can they know about the wrongs they committed?
“Undoubtedly, to a certain point; however, it is necessary to take into account the improvement that may have taken place in the spirit and the resolutions it made in its errant state. Their present existence could in fact be much better than the preceding one.”
– Could it be worse? In other words, could persons commit wrongs in their present existence, which they had not committed in the preceding one?
“That depends on their advancement. If they do not yet know how to resist trials, they could be drawn to commit new wrongs as a consequence of the position they themselves have chosen. But such wrongs indicate a stationary state rather than a regressive one, because spirits may advance or remain stationary; they do not regress.”
399- Since the tribulations of corporeal life are at the same time expiations for past wrongs and trials for the future, does it follow that, from the nature of these tribulations, we may deduce the kind of preceding existence we lived?
“Very frequently, because individuals are punished for their particular sins. Nevertheless, we cannot make this an absolute rule. The instinctive tendencies are a more certain indication because the trials that a spirit undergoes refer as much to the future as to the past.”
When the end that Providence has marked for their errant life has arrived, spirits choose for themselves the trials to which they desire to submit themselves, and which will hasten their advancement; that is, the kind of existence they believe most appropriate for furnishing them with the means to evolve, and such trials are always related to the wrongs they must expiate. If they triumph over them, they advance; if they succumb, they have to start over.
Spirits always enjoy their free will. It is in virtue of this freedom that in the spirit state they choose the trials of their upcoming corporeal life, and in the incarnate state they deliberate over what they will or will not do, choosing between good and evil. Denying humans their free will would reduce them to the condition of a machine.
Integrated into corporeal life, spirits momentarily lose the remembrance of their former lives, as though a veil hid them. Nevertheless, they sometimes have a vague awareness of them, and they may even be revealed under certain circumstances. However, this does not happen except by the will of the high order spirits, who may allow it to occur spontaneously for some useful purpose but never to satisfy vain curiosity.
Of course, future existences cannot be revealed in any case since they depend both on the manner in which the present existence is completed and the later choice of the spirit.
Forgetfulness of wrongs that were committed is not an obstacle to spirits’ improvement because, even though they do not have a precise memory of them, the knowledge they had of them during the errant state, in addition to the desire they conceived at that time to repair them, guide them through their intuition and inspire them with the thought of resisting evil. This thought is the voice of conscience, and it is seconded by spirits who will assist them if they heed their good suggestions.
Even though people do not know the acts they committed in their previous lives, they can nonetheless always know the kind of wrongs for which they became guilty and what their dominant characteristics were. They only have to study themselves in the present and they will be able to discern what they were in the past, not by what they are per se but by their tendencies.
The tribulations of corporeal life are at the same time expiations for past wrongs and trials for the future. They purify and elevate us if we endure them with resignation and without complaint. The nature of the trials and tribulations we undergo may also enlighten us about what we were and what we did, as in this world we judge the acts of a criminal by the punishment the law inflicts on him or her. Thus, those who were proud will be punished by the humiliation of a subaltern position; the self-indulgent and greedy by poverty; those who were harsh toward others by the harsh treatment they themselves will suffer; the tyrant by slavery; the bad son by the ingratitude of his own children; the lazy by forced labor, etc.
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