In his play Hamlet, William Shakespeare has the protagonist proclaim “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Particularly in the West, anything that references the possibility of past lives, inherited memories or capacities, or experiences, is treated with disdain and disbelief for the most part. The materialist mindset does not recognise the existence of the soul, the process of rebirth as a mechanism for the growth and development of the soul, or any mechanism that is not directly tied to material processes that can be scientifically evidenced. In recent times, the science of genetics has begun to recognise physical hereditary factors, and, if we add in to this element of ‘nature’ the support and education of parents and the social setting, in other words, ‘nurture’, the materialist now can recognise many traits that seem to carry forward from one generation to the next.
What is missing here, however, is an explanation for those cases that do not rely on physical heredity or the education, training and encouragement provided by the social framework of the family, the schools, the peers and the social forces of the time. Such cases exist. The case of prodigies such as Mozart are frequently raised in such discussions. How can a 5-year old child write music or begin a grand tour of Europe, performing before royalty, at the age of 6, and write his first symphony at the age of 8, if there is no predisposition brought in from a past lifetime? Materialists have their explanation of course, that certain mental, vital and physical predispositions based in genetic inheritance provide a basis and the education of the child by a father who was himself a composer and musician make this possible.
There are however intriguing cases that do not provide both the parental predisposition and the parental training that Mozart received! For example, the French composer Camille Saint-Saens apparently had a musical aptitude to pick out tunes on the piano already at age 2 and began composing at age 3, with more sophisticated compositions starting at age 5. Alma Deutscher is a more modern example of a prodigy who began piano at age 2, violin at age 3 and composed her first short opera at age 7 and full opera at age 10. She apparently claimed that the melodies she composed came to her in her dreams.
It is not only in the field of music, however, that we can see evidence of forces at work beyond those that the materialist explanation will succeed in covering. An individual by the name Terence Tao was already teaching older children spelling and addition when he was just 2 years old. By age 8 he achieved a high score on the SAT math section, a test usually taken by individuals in their final year of high school.
The question of past lifetimes becomes more intriguing when we study documented cases of young children who can describe details of a past lifetime in places they have never been, and circumstances they could never have experienced, and sometimes with languages they have never been exposed to in their current young lifetime. A substantial and documented study was undertaken at the University of Virginia with a number of cases that included mechanisms to eliminate possible alternative explanations.
One of the most well-known examples, of course is the reincarnation of Tibetan Lamas, such as the Dalai Lama and the method of identifying the reborn Lama that acts as a filter to prevent mistakes.
Many people will jump from the one extreme of non-belief to the other extreme of absolute belief in predestination and predetermination. Yet Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have added another element to this discussion, which is the evolution of consciousness and the conscious choice of the awakened soul. The stars, if you will, may provide a predisposition, but do not control entirely the destiny of the awakened soul. This provides a method for both a foundation and an evolutionary growth. In some cases we may even recognise, as The Tibetan Book of the Dead asserts, that the soul, at the time of death, can remain conscious and avoid falling into negative or useless births, and in some cases can choose a birth that will carry on the direction and aspiration of the soul into the next lifetime.
Generally the soul does not bring along all the baggage of the details of the past birth, but brings with it the essence of that prior lifetime and experience so that progress can be made without having to start all over again from the beginning in each new birth. While this may provide a foundation for progress, past habits or samskaras may carry over and create limitations and obstacles for the spiritual practitioner to recognise and overcome.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “It is true that we bring most of ourselves, — or rather most of our predispositions, tendencies of reaction to the universal Nature, from past lives. Heredity only affects strongly the external being; besides, all the effects of heredity are not accepted even there, only those that are in consonance with what we are to be or not preventive of it at least.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness — Subconscient — Sleep and Dream — Illness, pg. 90
Sri Aurobindo Studies 