According to Osho, past lives can be known because nothing experienced is ever lost; memories persist in the deep unconscious and can be accessed through disciplined regression—hypnosis or deep meditation—after first retracing this life back to conception. Yet nature wisely veils them; premature recall can overwhelm and unbalance the mind. Approach only with understanding, guidance, and purpose, not curiosity; Mahavira and Buddha pioneered such remembrance.
Yes—you can remember past lives, but those memories are very deep, so use careful guidance and go slowly or it can be upsetting.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
In this connection, a friend has also asked: Osho, can we know our past lives?
All the truths of life, all the experiences up to today, are turning false. All the heights of life that were touched till now are becoming imaginary. They are turning into ancient stories. In a hundred or two hundred years children will deny that people like Buddha, Mahavira, and Christ ever existed—they will say these are all stories. In the West a man has written a book in which he says that no one like Christ ever was; it is merely an old drama. People slowly forgot it was a drama and began to think it was history. Even today we stage the Ramlila. We think Rama existed and therefore we stage the Ramlila. A hundred years later children will say that Ramlila was written and performed, and people were deluded into thinking that Rama existed—it must have been a play long performed. Because when before our eyes men like…
Can we know about past lives?
We can certainly know about our past lives, but at present you know nothing even about this life. Knowing past lives is far more difficult. Man can, of course, know about his past lives, because once something is imprinted in the form of a memory on our minds, it is never destroyed. It always remains in our deep unconscious levels. Whatsoever we have known, we never forget. If I ask you what you did on January 1, 1950, perhaps you won't be able to answer. You might say, "I don't remember anything. I have absolutely no idea what I did on January 1, 1950." But if you could be hypnotized... and it can be done easily. Thus, by making you unconscious, were I to ask what you did on January 1, 1950, you would give me the whole day's account as if the first of January were passing before your…
So, it is of much more importance to discover how your soul has entered your body, rather than how a soul can enter someone else's. In somewhat the same vein, another friend has asked whether we can know anything of our previous births. Yes it is certainly possible to know about one's previous births, but when you know nothing about his life it is very difficult to know about past ones. It is possible to be conscious of previous births because whatever has happened to you whatever has been imprinted on your unconscious cannot be really erased. Deep down in your unconscious mind whatever has happened to you is always present. Whatever you have known you do not forget. If I ask you what you did on January 1, 1950, you may not be able to recall anything.
Osho, regarding the mind—as you say it continues from lifetime to lifetime and remains the same—does any subtle memory remain after a person dies?
Yes, the mind remains the same, and after a person dies all the memory remains with them. But layers settle over it. Imagine we don’t clean this room for seven years: today dust will come, and it will keep coming every day for seven years. After seven years, when we return, the top layer will be today’s, and below it the earlier layers will be pressed down. The seven-year-old layer will still be there, but buried very deep. It’s possible the top layer won’t even know that seven years of dust lie underneath. So the mind is traveling, and the journey is progressive. Every day you add something to it. Yesterday gets buried under today; then today will be buried under tomorrow. The previous birth gets buried under this birth, and the one before that under two births, and so on—down into what psychologists call the unconscious. Sometimes it happens…
In this regard a friend has also asked: Osho, can we know our past lives?
Sri Aurobindo undertook another experiment. He did not appear to succeed, and did not succeed outwardly, but his direction was absolutely right. His experiment was this: Is it possible for a few souls to rise so high that their very presence begins to lift and call other souls upward? Is it possible that when one person’s soul rises, the overall level of the soul of humanity rises with it? This is not only possible; today it is the only possibility. Nothing else can work now. Man has fallen so low that if we plan to change people one by one, perhaps the change will never happen. In fact, the one who goes to change them is more likely to be changed by their company—to be corrupted along with them. You can see it: those “servants of the people” who go to serve the people—within a short time it is discovered…