Past Lives

 

 

Don't think much about past lives, and don't think much about the future. The present is enough. Don't think that relationship is coming from the past -- it is coming from the past, but don't think about it because then you will get more complicated. Make things easier.

 

It is going on -- from your past lives things have a continuity, so I don't deny the fact, but don't get burdened by it. It will continue in the future, but don't think about it. The present is more than enough. Munch the cake and say: THIS cake is delicious. Don't think of the past and don't think of the future; they will take care of themselves.

 

Nothing is discontinuous. You have been in relationships in the past. You have loved, you have hated, you have made friends and you have made enemies. That continues, known, unknown to you, it is always there. But if you start brooding about it, you will miss the present moment.

 

So think as if there is no past, and think as if there is no future. THIS moment is all that is given to you. Work it out, as if this moment is all. Behave as if this moment is all and work out how you can transform your energies into a loving phenomenon -- this very moment.

 

People come to me and they want to know about their past lives. They had past lives, but it is irrelevant. Why this inquiry? What are you going to do about the past? Nothing can be done now. The past is past and it cannot be undone. You cannot change it. You cannot go back. That's why nature, in its wisdom, doesn't allow you to remember past lives. Otherwise you would go mad.

 

You may be in love with a girl. If you suddenly become aware that that girl was your mother in your past life, things will become very complicated. Then what to do? And when that girl has been your mother in a past life, making love to her now will create guilt. Not making love to her will also create guilt, because you love her.

 

That's why I say nature in its wisdom never allows you to remember your past lives -- unless you come to a point where it can be allowed, when you become so meditative that nothing disturbs you, then the gates open and all your past lives are before you. It is an automatic mechanism, though sometimes the mechanism doesn't work. Through accidents some children are born who can remember. But their lives are destroyed.

 

One girl was brought to me a few years ago. She remembered her past two lives. She was only thirteen at that time, but if you looked in her eyes they looked near about seventy -- because she remembered seventy years, two past lives.

 

Her body was thirteen years old, but her mind was seventy years old. She couldn't play with other children, because how can an old woman of seventy play with children? She would talk and behave like an old woman. And she was burdened, the worries of all those years in her mind.

 

She remembered so accurately that her two past families could be found. One was in Assam, the other in Madhya Pradesh. And when she came in contact with her old families, she became so much attached to them that it became a problem; where should she live now?

 

I told the parents: Leave the girl with me for at least three weeks. I will make an effort to help her forget, because this girl's life will be a perversion. She cannot fall in love with somebody -- she is so old! Your oldness is concerned with your memory. If the memory span is of seventy years, then you feel like seventy. And she seemed so tortured -- her face, the features, all tortured. She seemed so ill at her center -- uneasy, uncomfortable. Everything seemed to be wrong.

 

But the parents were enjoying the whole thing, because people started coming and the newspapers started giving the report. They were enjoying the whole thing. They wouldn't listen to me and I told them: This girl will go mad.

 

They never brought the girl to me again. But after seven years, they came -- the girl had gone mad. They said: Now do something. I said: It is now impossible to do anything. Now only death will be a help to her.

 

You don't remember because it would be difficult for you to manage. Even in this life you are making such a mess -- many lives remembered, you would simply go mad. Don't think about it. It is irrelevant also.

 

The relevant point is: be here and now, and work out your way. If you can work it out through relationship, beautiful. If you cannot work it out through relationship, then work it out in your loneliness. These are the two paths. Love means working out your path through relationship. And meditation: working it out in your loneliness. Love and meditation -- these are the two paths.

 

Feel which will suit you. Then bring your total energies to it, and move on that path.

 

-Osho, "My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, #7, Q1"