From the ancient Hasids, there’s this interesting story:
From the moment each of us is conceived in our mother’s womb and through the nine months following, God whispers to us all the secrets of the universe. As we develop in the watery but comfortable world that is our mother’s womb, God tells us how clouds are formed, where they come from and where they go. We are told of the rainbows; who bends and holds them fast upon the earth. We’re told of the names of birds and animals and trees, why honey is sweet and how come the bee stings. And after God has shared all the secrets, he tells us one last: that we are loved completely by Him. Then after having learned all these things, we are ready to be born. But in the process of being born, we forget all the secrets God has taught us. That is why, we spend the rest of our lives trying to remember and learn again the secrets God had revealed to us in our mother’s womb. END OF STORY.
Perhaps, the story is but a tale, or apocryphal in origin and character. But I’m quite struck by its noticeable twist: “In the process of being born, we FORGET all the secrets God had told us.”
Honestly, I’m quite fascinated to explore the underlying reason/s why with our incarnation into this world, we forget about our divine connection or origin. Let me scour some, at the very least, metaphorical explanations.
From the Christian perspective, perhaps the metaphorical reason could be that our “forgetfulness” may be attributed to our fallen human nature as a result of our first parents’ original sin and thereby effected our having been banished from the Garden or paradise.
Or perhaps, again metaphorical, for believers of reincarnation, we were fully conscious in our “previous life,” but we become semi-conscious upon incarnation, with the brain having “limiters” or “filters” that keep out information from our previous life.
Or another, from mainstream science, this could be akin to why we similarly forget our dreams after waking up. Scientists believe that our forgetfulness is attributed to neurochemical conditions in the brain that occur during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, and that neurons found inside the brain may be controlling our memory in general.
Or still, might it be that we’ve been purposely pre-programmed to forget upon reincarnation, as posited by simulation theorists? Reminiscent of the 1999 blockbuster film “The Matrix,” some theorists suggest that we’re living in a simulated universe, and one way to rid or decode our “forgetfulness” is to break away from our incarnated matrix.
But, veering away from “forgetting all the secrets God has taught us,” our Hasidic story cannot fail to posit the truth of our divine origin and design. It reveals to us three secrets or metaphysical truths.
One, the whole natural universe as created by God, is “one, true, good, and beautiful” (in Latin, “unum, verum, bonum, pulchrum”). This is an unrepudiated truth upheld by ancient and modern philosophers.
Two, we are NATURALLY GOOD or have been created EQUALLY GOOD by God. From the point-of-view of God’s creation, nobody is a junk. All the tenets of what is “true, good, just, and beautiful” have been embedded in our hearts even before we were born.
Three, by virtue of our divine origin and design, we are completely loved by God. Even without us knowing it, or us ignoring his love, God loved us FIRST unconditionally and it is eternally encompassing, whatever it takes.
Have peace. Let us be “who we are” according to our divine origin and design. Let us be true to ourselves and our purpose. Let us be conscious again of the secrets that God whispered to us while we were in our mother’s womb.