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I'd like to share my personal experience with regard to past life.By the time she was three, my daughter had begun to take an avid interest in Bengali channels particularly devotional songs on the television and would not like it if we changed the channel. Neither I nor my wife have any remote Bengali connection. As she grew up to be about four she would also watch programmes on surgery on NAT GEO and Discovery with a great deal of interest which was perplexing given her age and the blood etc on the screen. At about when she was five she told a few guests that "all my education is of Calcutta" while in point of fact she had never set foot in that city. With time she began to refer herself as Dr. Kalyani.Most un-canny was when she was with a few lady doctors and suddenly exclaimed Why do you not administer xXx medicine? They were taken a back because that medicine had been discontinued 15 years back. The very same year she came to me on the death anniversary of Indira Gandhi (1n 2006) and instantly recognised the picture of the former PM while I was reading the morning newspaper and asked me "Is'nt that Indira Gandhi?"I was surprised because Indira Gandhi had been assasinated way back in 1984.Anyway I thought maybe she may have heard her name in school or seen a TV documentary on her. In about ten minutes she came back and asked me "Did'nt she have a son Sanjay Gandhi who had died?"Now I was really baffled but without showing much emotion I asked her "How did Sanjay Die, was it an accident.....train accident.....car collision ?" She replied "'No" emphatically.I tried to probe her further and asked "Had Sanjay fallen sick?" She kept on repeating that "He died" .....then came running and said "Now I recall Sanjay had fallen from the sky" Now this was too much. Sanjay's plane crash had taken place when I was too young too. How did she know this.Another peculiar feature was that she was unusually petrified of fire. Eventually we learnt that there was indeed a famous gynaecologist Dr Kalyani who was quite popular in the Bengal- Bihar area and was a firm supporter of Congress and had died in a Pooja Pandaal fire ! I took professional opinion and was told that as she will grow these memories will recede and indeed by the time she was 8 these memories had all but vanished. Hindu religious scriptures telling us about transmigration of the soul and re-birth is one thing but experiencing it first hand in the form of my daughter was quite another.

Some children will be able to recall their past. This will generally last till the age of five and gradually fades out from their memory as they grow up. Some professors at NIMHANS in Bangalore have done research on this children's memory of the past and rebirth.

Wow Digvijaya!!

Digvijay Singh: I never confronted any incidence of rebirth directly but have heard few stories, real stories by some friends and acquaintances. This is a significant one...

Digvijay : That must have been some experience !! Unexplainable at best.

@digvijay singhji,what afacinating detail.

Digvijay Singh, it is not an ordinary incident, Wish you had documented it in audio or video.Why does it fade out of the memory subsequently?Even if the child is reminded frequently?

@Digvijay: I have a newphew who in his childhood days was recalling about his past, his wife and parents in the previous birth. His parents were very concerned about his memory of the past. But, it gradually faded away as he reached the age of around five. Some children will be very good at music/art upto an age. But their talent fades away from 3-4 years.

sometime back in another 'lifetime' [sic],while doing research on ancient maritime navigation I came across a beautiful jataka in which the navigator , a Bodhisattava steersman could ascertain his position by the color of the water of the region.( The Jatakamala Vol IV, No 463; 1963, Ed. by V.Fausball, pp 137-143.) Whether the ancient mariner had developed this science or had a highly developed perception of sea in marking the various areas of the ocean by its color is debatable. However we do know from this particular jataka, that this was the field which had been explored.

Research on these matters is still at preliminary stage.The Abrahamanic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) frown upon this as there is no scope of life after death particularly the ‘transmigration of the soul’ in those religions although we do find scattered references of the ‘journey of the soul’ in them and of course ‘vivid description of the day of last judgment.’ .For this reason only dead bodies are not exhumed..In Islam there is quite a clear description how after interrogation of the soul by archangels Munkar and Nakir it goes into a state of barzakh (suspended animation) till roz-e-mahshar (day of last judgment) Their opinions therefore despite their findings to the contrary in such researches are coloured by their religious beliefs, which is quite natural. Among Indic faiths (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and to an extent in Sikhism) there is no consensus either but the Bhagwad Gita clearly mentions that the“soul changes bodies just as we change clothes” Brighu samhita speaks about it in detail.Buddhism also speaks of a mirror (LCD screen maybe?) in which after death the major events of the human life are shown to the soul before it takes re-birth. But in all Indic faiths a soul takes re-birth according to its deeds in past life whether in impoverished or prosperous circumstances of the family in which it is born. Most fascinating are the findings of research on ‘near death experiences’ (where people are clinically dead for some time and are later revived through medical intervention).In Britain the most intriguing story is that of a young Pakistani girl who was born and brought up in London and was clinically dead before being revived after having been given an injection in the heart..The experiences of children are taken to be more authentic as their stories are not coloured by their religious beliefs and besides it is generally believed that children will not lie. This girl described of an ‘out of body experience’ in which she saw doctors and nurses hovering over her body lying in the operation theatre. Later she said she passed through a tunnel. (All those interviewed had identical experiences till this stage but nothing beyond). This girl however went further.She said that she went into paradise.When she was asked to describe paradise she said that paradise is a very beautiful garden.Now is the most interesting part……She said then I met God.Now nobody had went this far so there was avid interest in her story.when she was asked what does God look like? She could only say that “God is blue” Now there was some celebration in her family the very same year and she went to Pakistan for the second time only in her life.The first time when she had gone she was just an infant. Her parents were baffled when she was able to recognize her grand-parents photograph (both long since deceased ) on the mantelpiece.This was puzzling as the couple did not have any photos of them in London.When she was asked how did she know that these were her dada-dadi (paternal grand-parents) she replied I met them in paradise and they had showered me with love and affection and made me sit in their lap in that beautiful garden !!

Many thanks Satyakam, Shubha, Gauri,Swaroopa and Agha chacha for your interest and comments @ Agha chaca: The memories fade away as rationalism sets in.When the brain is confronted with conflicting emotions which it cannot substantiate with real life experiences and it chooses to relinquish it probably as a dream and erases it. Till date my daughter is obdurate in her decision that she wants to become a doctor only when she grows up and a gynecologist at that. When I ask her “why not a neuro-surgeon ,paedriatrician or an ophthalmologist ”? Her reply leaves me speechless: “Children will always be born. Do you not think there can be anything nobler than assisting them when they come here ?!”

Pray you and Rama treat her with patience.

reading the work of Dr. Satwant Pasricha would probably help understand.

“Many Lives Many Masters” is an interesting book on the subject.It made quite a splash across the world in the late eighties.The author was a professor ( Brian Weiss) of psychology in the South Florida University. It makes for interesting reading how a Jewish professor and his wife come to terms with a concept which is absolutely at cross purposes with their religious beliefs.This happens to them accidently while treating a patient (a young girl) who is suffering from a very peculiar problem.