Sadhguru: Lot of children below four years of age clearly remember their past. It's happened many times.
Suppose a few lifetimes of memory opened up, you know what a havoc it would cause in your life?
You're going to get into lots of trouble, more than you can handle.
Questioner: Sadhguru, how come like a boy who is six years old,
he can remember his last life, he can tell who he is,
who is his parent and after a time he can forget everything?
Sadhguru: Yes, how come he can remember? He should not remember.
Nature has given you this cocoon of life so that you do not remember.
It has given you a protective wall so that you do not remember.
Because if you remember,
you will become a far bigger mess than you are right now.
See, these few years of living here, ten, twenty, thirty, sixty years of living here,
people are just struggling with the memories of their life, isn't it? Yes?
People have great struggles with these few years of memories.
Suppose a few lifetimes of memory opened up,
you know what a turmoil and struggle it would cause within you?
Just being here you are still struggling with relationships,
you are still not able to forget what happened yesterday,
what may happen tomorrow, all these struggles are going on.
Suppose you realized… Let's say you remembered your past lives and you realized
that your dear son happens to be your neighbor's pet dog.
Suppose, I am just saying. (Laughter)
because these days dogs are having a better life than us. Yes?
You know what a havoc it would cause in your life and in your neighbor's life (Laughs)?
And in the dog's life (Laughter).
It wouldn't be good for anybody, isn't it?
Unless you are in such a state of understanding and dispassion
that even if you come to know this was your wife, or your mother, or your father, or your dearest friend,
you can still continue without even looking at them, then it's okay to know.
But if you're somebody who has emotions for everything that you think that belongs to you...
See, this is the problem.
People's emotions are coming only towards those things which they call as theirs.
Suppose, let's say, you have never met your father,
or you have not seen your mother since you were born,
or you had not seen your twin brother or a brother or a sister in your whole life.
Today I showed you, "See, this is your mother."
You have never seen her, you have nothing to do with her,
but now because somebody told you, "This is your mother,"
the moment you see "Oh, she is my mother!" Suddenly emotions burst out. From where?
You have not built a relationship with this person, you have nothing to do with this person
just because somebody says, "This is yours."
When somebody says, "This is your mother," somebody is saying this person belongs to you, isn't it?
So, your emotions flare up only to those things which you consider as mine.
So, if you have this problem that
everything has to be yours, only then it'll happen;
then I would say, get little more greedy, make everything yours.
That's what Isha Yoga is about, you know. Anyway you are greedy.
Why be stingy in your greediness? Take it all the way.
"Oh my children! I have tremendous feeling." Make everybody yours, what's the problem?
Somebody there to stop you (Laughs)? Is somebody there to stop you?
If that's your way, take it all the way. Or nobody is yours, that is also fine.
It's a harder way but that is also fine. "Nobody is mine" is fine.
"Everybody is mine" is fine. "This is mine, that is not mine" – this is a problem.
So, if you remember past lives and you are in this state that "This is mine and this is not mine,"
then you are going to get into lots of trouble, too much trouble, more than you can handle.
If you have reached a point – everything is yours, or nothing is yours,
then it's okay to remember. Then it would be useful to remember.
So, six-year-old boy just by chance remembered something, it's just a…
Sometimes the systems in the nature fail, you know.
Some data input mistake (Laughs).
It happens, such a complex structure, sometimes you know,
it happens; little bit of mistake, the necessary protection was not created in a particular child.
Even if they do, usually before they grow up they tend to forget.
Lot of children below four years of age clearly remember their past,
but by the time they become four years of age, it all dies out.
After four years of age, they get involved in this life, whatever is around them.
Till they're four years of age, it is possible, in their minds the past could be just going on.
I don't know if you are aware of this, in India for variety of reasons they said this.
They say till the child is four years of age, he belongs to God;
only after that he belongs to you.
Because they are saying, because he is running with so many memories,
he doesn't belong to anybody at that time.
After that once his memory goes off, he starts relating to everything around him in a deeper way
that's when he begins to belong to you.
At least he gives you an illusion that he belongs to you (Laughs). Yes?
They will break it after some time (Few laugh). They do, isn't it? One way or the other they do (Laughs).
So, it could happen. It's happened many times, but generally such people forget after some time.
That… that capability or that kind of...
aberration I would say, happens only at a certain phase of childhood. After that it dies by itself.