Question: Guru, I've often wondered how we can be certain in our next incarnation to remember to do whatever it is that you asked us to do before we came?

Sri Chinmoy: Now the thing is, dearest daughter, where is the future? Is there any such thing as future? I use the term "here and now", or "the immediacy of today". The future we think of as something ahead of us. But in the spiritual life the future is not ahead of us; the future is inside us. The past, present and future of a spiritual person are inside him. A seeker like you embodies present, past and future. It is all there inside you.

A tree has three branches, let us say. The past is the lowest branch, the present is the middle branch and the future is the top-most branch. Even when you observe from the foot of the tree, easily when you look up you can see the first branch, the second branch and the third branch. Now it is up to you to climb up to the first one or to the second one or to the third one. So think of your future in that way. This is your life-tree. In your life-tree, the past is already there, the present is already there, the future is already there. Now you have climbed beyond one branch, the past. You are sitting on the present branch but you are not satisfied with the present one because you feel that still there is a higher one. Just because you were not pleased with the previous one, the past, you thought that still there was one higher, so why should you sit on the lowest one? So you said, "Let me climb up to the higher one." Then you came up.

Now you are on the present one. Now you feel that still there is one higher than this one, so you climb up. But it is the same life-tree that has three branches: past, present, future. If you remain as the life-tree constantly evolving and offering flowers and fruits to Mother Earth as a token of your love or as a spiritual gift to Mother Earth, then eternally you will remain in her consciousness, in her heart.

So please feel that you are the life-tree, the cosmic life-tree with three branches: past, present and future. It is up to you to decide where to remain. You can remain on the first branch, the lowest branch, all the time thinking of your childhood, your friends, your neighbours and what happened to you at the age of six or ten. That you can do. Again, you can think of your immediate necessity, which is God realisation. What will you do right after realisation? You will reveal God more powerfully, more soulfully, more effectively. This will be your aim. So think at every moment of the life-tree, the cosmic tree. You have three goals. The first goal already you have passed. Now you have reached the second goal. But you feel that still there is a higher goal than the goal that you have already achieved and attained. So if you cry, if you cry desperately for the third goal, then you will reach it.

Each time you reach a goal, even while you are in the process of reaching the goal, you manifest. Movement itself is manifestation. While you are moving, at that time you are manifesting. While you are moving in the present, you are manifesting. And while you are moving in the future, you will be again manifesting.

How will you know what to do in your next incarnation? You will always know because it is not like earth-knowledge. Earth-knowledge you forget, but inner knowledge you don't forget. Inner knowledge can be recovered after five years, ten years or much longer. I had my realisation in my previous incarnation. For all spiritual Masters, if they had realisation in their previous incarnation, it takes a few years to get it back. For me it took twenty years to revise the realisation-book, but I didn't forget totally.

Here on earth there are many things that we can totally forget. We have forgotten what we ate even the day before yesterday. We don't remember whether we ate Italian eggplant or Indian food. We can search our memory, but we have forgotten because here it is the physical mind that is operating. But if the soul is operating in and through us, then if at the age of four a significant incident took place, or even a most insignificant incident, we will be able to recollect it because everything is recorded.

I wish to say that the future is not something ahead of us; it is something inside us. The past, the present and the future are like the first rung, the second rung and the third rung of a ladder. Two rungs we have climbed up. Now, to reach the third one is only a matter of time. We can feel that the life-tree which we are climbing is our very existence. The cosmic life-tree is nothing other than our own life. God's eternal Life is our life, our eternal Reality. When we believe that, we become that Reality itself.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Inner progress and satisfaction-life, Agni Press, 1977
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ip