How Do We Learn Spiritually if We Don’t Remember Past-Lives?

Let me preface this saying this explanation doesn’t imply I endorse how things work in our reality.

What does this mean? While I can appreciate the functioning of the metaphysical principles, at the same time I’m not particularly fond of how limited our 3D reality is, and how little continuity it offers on average between the awareness of the incarnated self and the broader spiritual identity beyond it. In higher realities, even when there’s incarnation/reincarnation, the factor of insulation between these two levels tends to be less severe. These are references I’m holding when doing my work and offering explanations.

In short, talking about this doesn’t mean this is “how things are supposed to be”. I’m simply offering clarity about how the metaphysical matters of our reality, at this time.

When the spiritual self plunges into the incarnation the metaphysical veil descends upon their consciousness, with the passively active effect of largely blocking and keeping away from their perception any evident signs of their memories and perceptions from what was before, and of their spiritual nature. Note that these are technically still accessible, as all human beings have the ability, active or potential, to access the Divine and their own Light; however, largely speaking, it may take the human self a degree of effort and learning to acknowledge and tap into that connection. Otherwise, by and large human beings conduct their everyday lives without any remembrance of their past-lives or anything else besides their current lifetime.

In incarnation/reincarnation, the only break in awareness that happens is in the instant of birth – not death – where one’s spiritual sight suddenly comes under the effect of the Veil and all that is not part of the new, ongoing life becomes “hidden”. Whereas the instant of death is, or is intended to be, a release of that veiling effect and a gradual transition back to the original, unrestrained perception of the self.

So, since our perception of anything beyond the current life is blocked or blurred, a question that’s often asked is: how do we learn and grow spiritually if we can’t remember our past-lives?

Well, we can learn – again, not to say we “have to”, only it happens as things stand – because even though there’s a break/interruption in each new incarnation in terms of conscious awareness, there’s a completely uninterrupted continuity in a spiritual sense. In other words: the spiritual self going through the experiences is exactly the same as the one who had just left the previous life, and had been having all the other lives before it. While there might have been an interruption upon birth, that interruption occurred only on the level of conscious awareness; the spiritual entity is entirely the same.

As human life unfolds, we can have the impression we navigate it majorly from conscious understanding, basing decisions and taking action based on logical reasoning. But that’s not really true. There’s a great deal that goes into human agency that is not so much conscious/logical, but rather of an emotional, and even unconscious/spiritual nature.

Many of our choices and intentions, both major and overarching as well as the minor moment-by-moment ones, are to an extent guided by the seeking of sources of pleasure, happiness, and fulfillment – or at least, sometimes, what the mind thinks it will/might/could bring these things. Conversely, sources of distress and trauma, both conscious and unconscious, create ongoing needs designed around the management or avoidance of things that are perceived or feared as being sources of more trauma. Sometimes the driving impulse for pursuits and behaviors was of an emotional, sensorial, fear-based, pleasure-seeking, curiosity-related etc. quality, with them being justified in a rational manner afterwards, as an added layer on top. Some of the values driving behavior won’t be realized consciously, or not fully, but they’ll still be able influence behavior just as strongly. Some will have originated from events that happened during the ongoing life; but others originate from previous ones, kept in a type of memory called the Akashic Records.

In short, the substrate human beings operate from as they breathe and live isn’t exclusively mental or rational, rather entailing a complex tapestry of emotional and spiritual values, some of them unconscious.

Likewise, spiritual growth isn’t something that’s taking place just with the mind. In other words, normally you won’t be able to think your way through your growth. Rather, a lot to personal and spiritual development takes place apart from the mind, sometimes entirely beyond it. Your “understanding” of an experience will include but is not limited to the mind; a lot to spiritual processing takes place as emotions are lived, which in turn involves the act of feeling as opposed to thinking. In fact, experiences are felt and processed throughout all layers of the self, and are engaged by those layers by being mostly felt rather than understood logically.

Yes, you’ll have times of realization and insight; there will be “ahah moments”, and other instances where you’re crossing thresholds and making important choices on a rational level. These are still important since spiritual evolution involves the participation of all of the self, including the one holding human awareness. But I would nevertheless say the vast majority of growth and development instead revolve around emotions, energy, feeling these things, and the act of experience in itself. An overall process the shorthand term of which could very well be called spiritual.

Thus these are processes that aren’t run by or exclusive to the mind, rather they can take place irrespective of it – and often bypassing it entirely.

As you face situations in this lifetime, and perhaps dealing with an element of distress and challenge in them when applicable, your conscious awareness is mostly addressing them and their circumstances as if they’ve occurred anew, in your (this) life. But on an emotional and spiritual level you’re feeling and navigating those situations from the emotional/spiritual substrate that carries over from the past. In other words, the layers of yourself that your mind might not be fully aware of, but that continue, virtually uninterrupted, from your past-lives.

Further, many of those situations will have indeed been co-created (from what’s known as “law of attraction”) from that substrate also, since one’s personal reality is at all times a reflection of their inner world. This is in fact how, with karma, certain situations from the past end up finding your way into your reality in the present. These may look like things that began in this lifetime, when in reality they will be, or match with, experiences that did not receive closure or healing, and need to be processed and offered so today.

And when you draw any new insights, conclusions, understanding, new decisions and commitments, or whatever else you take away from experiences, these things won’t be lost or exist in a vacuum; rather they’re being added at all times to that same broader continuum by which they are felt and navigated. This is how you can learn from new experiences, even if you might not consciously recall what happened in your past.

As a spiritual entity you are capable of learning from things you might not have full recollection of. The reasons for this are similar, in a loose comparison, to you being shaped by what you lived in this lifetime even if you don’t recall every single detail of what you lived.

Just to illustrate and speaking only of the present life for a moment, picture you’re in your sixties, seventies, or later, and from your vantage point you’re assessing where you stand as a person. By this point it will be valid to say who you are as a person has been drawn and strewn together from all the strokes and twists and turns your life took – even if you don’t consciously remember every single detail of it by this point – not speaking of losing faculties, only… the passing of time. Certain things you’ll recall perfectly, most of it perhaps in broad strokes, and critical moments will still be present; but there’s also going to be a great deal that you’ve filtered out, or don’t recall exactly. But while you don’t necessarily recall every single thing you lived (perhaps including possibly meaningful and impactful moments), you do retain most of that resulting transformations you underwent from all of those experiences, in an emotional or spiritual terms.

It is in a comparable fashion you as a spiritual entity are able to learn across multiple/many lifetimes: your current sense of identity isn’t necessarily tied to the remembrance of what brought you to the present moment. the only different being you may be able to recall things that happened during this lifetime, whereas you typically need different tools (Akashic Records readings, past-life regressions, etc.) to access data beyond it.

Now, of course, if you ask if your spiritual evolution can be augmented, galvanized, inspired by, or even warrant, gaining awareness from what took place in past-lives and by any other insight pertaining to your existence beyond human reality, I will undoubtedly say yes. It’s as I stated at the beginning: it’s part of our never-ending spiritual seeking the aim of exploring ourselves and Creation and induce our expanding of awareness, and which is something I strive to potentiate and support with my readings. As far as I’m concerned, the more we spiritually connect and expand our understanding of ourselves, the better; as far as I’m concerned, no harm, only good can be drawn from such endeavor, provided it is sought in spiritual integrity.

Still, to be technically accurate, while your mind and cognizance play important an role in your identity an ability to process life, you don’t need to consciously remember everything from your past in order to be able to engage with your process of spiritual evolution in the present moment. The totality of who you are is a spiritual continuum that, perhaps apart from your conscious awareness, isn’t interrupted by neither birth nor death.

It’s from that continuum that you are able to engage life’s experiences and draw your path from them, allowing you to continually grow and evolve even if you don’t remember what took place in the past.