Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
Can
you call up learning from a past life?
You
probably know more than you think you do
Posted
If you acquired knowledge of a subject
or a specific skill in a past life, it is likely that you have an advantage if
you pick up the same discipline again in this life.
In her article “Reincarnation”, Annie
Besant says this:-
“When a philosophy or a science is
quickly grasped and applied, when an art is mastered without study, memory is
there in power though past facts of learning are forgotten; as Plato said, it
is a reminiscence”
In “Memories
of Past Lives” she say:-
“All the
great religions of the past and present have realised
the eternity of the Spirit: " God," it is written in a Hebrew
Scripture, " created man to be the image of His own Eternity", and in
that eternal nature of the Spirit lies the explanation alike of instinct and of
intelligence. In the intellect-aspect of this Spirit all the harvests of the
experiences of successive lives are stored, and from the treasures of the
spiritual memory are sent down assimilated experiences, appearing as instincts,
as unconscious memories of past lives, in the new-born form. Every improved
form receives as instincts and as innate ideas this wealth of reminiscence:
every intellectual and moral faculty is a store of reminiscences, and education
is but the awakening of memory.”
__________________
All of us must have this stored
reservoir of hidden learning but as we live in a society which regards learning
as something which can only be acquired by the traditional methods of study through
education or training. Teaching often quite simply doesn’t stimulate interest
and we just don’t give the knowledge chance to come through.
Education may not be the awakening of past
life learning that it should be, often it just kills interest and enthusiasm.
Have you ever taken up an interest in something to a level and with a commitment
which your school teachers would have found incredible? Have you ever come across
something which you wish you had heard of years ago?
Although there is a trend away from
rigid and conventional learning, to which the internet is contributing,
learning and training methods are still generally controlled by the official
knowledge establishments. This leaves no room for anyone to look for
opportunities to open up their hidden channels of learning or even consider
that they exist.
Of course it would be ridiculous to go
into an exam in the belief that past life knowledge will give you the answers
to the questions on the paper. In any case, exams are usually just an exercise
in information processing. On the other hand there will certainly be subjects
that you have picked up easily and with which you feel an affinity beyond that
given you by the teaching or by your studies. It may well be that these
affinities fall outside the disciplines associated with conventional study.
Just being good at a subject may not
signify past life learning, you need more than this and you will probably recognize
it when you see it.
The limitations of teaching and the role
of personal enthusiasm is touched at here by Annie
Besant:-
Extract also from “Memories of Past
Lives”
“Writers who garb their readers in second-hand opinions, as a
dealer in second-hand clothes dresses his customers, will never turn out a
decently costumed set of thinkers; they will be clad in misfits. But there are
lines of research to be
followed, experiences to be gone through and analysed, by those who would arrive at truth — research
which has led others to knowledge, experiences which have been found fruitful
in results. To these a writer may point his readers, and they, if they will,
may follow along such lines for themselves.”
_________________________
How do you lock into this past life data
bank? The first thing must be to accept the possibility that this power is
there and then simply to look for signs. If you want to pursue this seriously,
you will have to step back and view current activities objectively and make
time for inner work. We live in the Information Age and there has never been a
better time to seek out knowledge which may resonate with past life learning. I
don’t just mean the internet although this can be a good starting point.
Annie Besant offers this guidance:-
Another extract from “Memories of Past
Lives”
I think
that, by careful observation, we may find memories in ourselves, not only of
past events, but of the past training and discipline which have made us what we
are, memories which are embedded in, which form even
the very fabric of our consciousness, which emerge more clearly as we study
them, and become more intelligible the more carefully we observe and analyse them.
____________________
Clearly meditation on this subject and careful observation
should bring insights into what we learning we are carrying with us. Remember,
we have all had plenty of lives to build up experience. This experience may go
beyond just knowing a subject and extend to dealing with certain situations,
performing a certain role or solving particular problems.
______________________
The Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
__________________________
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