The Minds True Power is Innocence

Kripal's mention of the concept of "the great forgetting" really struck me. My biggest fear has always been forgetting. Forgetting my friends or family, forgetting my past, even the simple idea of having a memory that I just can't remember terrifies me. I had never heard the term "the great forgetting", but the concept which Kripal describes is relatively familiar to me. The idea of society enforcing a belief onto people that forces them to forget a truth or identity through social structures we are taught to believe. 

"We do not think. We are thought."

This idea of forgetting due to the engrained structure and beliefs of society made me think about stories of people remembering “past lives”. The concept of a past life is a fascinating belief that is ingrained in many religions and cultures, but the thought of remembering a past life is much stranger than just the idea of being reincarnated and to many people both of these are truly impossible experiences. I used to be obsessed with watching youtube documentaries of health and psychological mysteries, and had come across a series of videos about children who were able to remember extreme details about their supposed past life. These kids, often no older than six years old, tell their parents odd and intricate stories about a life they had lived, which is normally just passed off as a child's wild imagination. Though there have been cases where children were able to accurately describe the life of someone who had died, even a supposed case of a child solving the murder of his past self. Now I don’t really know how reliable and true these stories are, but they were mind shattering to 12 year old me.

The innocence and imagination of children is one that many people, including myself, envy. They are truly themselves and are able to form such wild and out of the box thoughts during the time that they are not under the harsh influence of the pressures of society and enforced ways of thinking. They are still forming their brain and sense of self, and that formation occurs as the child learns the ways of its culture and society. What if these “free thinking” thoughts that children have are truly just the brain's abilities at its full potential when not being forced to follow a guideline? What if it really is possible that every person has lived a past life, but has been forced to forget it as they develop and assimilate to the way of thinking society tells you to believe? It’s only ever really children who have these “believable” stories of their past lives, and sure this could just be taken as a wild imagination, but what if the innocence of a child allows them to achieve a wider consciousness that adults who have lost that innocence no longer have? This realistically seems like an impossible idea, although in the context of Kripal, the impossible is often possible and occurs all around you everyday, without even being noticed. All I know is that if I ever have a child and they start telling me about a past life they lived, I’m gonna have to start looking through some history archives.