Jain Journal 1982 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 17

JAIN JOURNAL
secrets and that I would have to undergo time to forget that knowledge. But I do have the memory of once knowing everything, that it did happen, but that it was not a gift that I would keep if I returned. But I chose to return to my children ... The memory of all these things that happened has remained clear, all except for that fleeting moment of knowledge. And that feeling of all knowledge disappeared when I returned to my body.
It sounds silly ! Well, it does when you say it out loud ...or it does to me, because I've never been able to sit and talk to someone else about
it.
I don't know how to explain it, but I know ... As the Bible says, “To you all things will be revealed". For a minute, there was no question that didn't have an answer. How long I knew it, I couldn't say. It wasn't in earthly time, anyway.
In what form did this knowledge seem to be presented to you? Was it in words or pictures ?
It was in all forms of communication, sights, sounds, thoughts. It was any-and every-thing. It was as if there was nothing that wasn't known. All knowledge was there, not just of one field, but everything. 11
The remark which Dr. Moody makes after presenting this case is of capital importance. He says :
There is one point which I would like to make here about this narrative. This woman plainly had the impression that part of the purpose of her lengthy recuperation was to make her forget almost all of the knowledge which has been revealed to her. This suggests that some mechanism was operative that had the function of blocking the knowledge acquired in this state of existence so that it could not be carried over into the physical state of being.12
11 Ibid., pp. 10-11. 19 Ibid., p. 12. Dr. Moody also compares this account with the story of Er told by
Plato "in an admittedly metaphorical and poetic way". Er was a warrior who came back to life on the funeral pyre, after having been believed dead. Er is said to have seen many things in the afterlife, but he was told that he must return to physical life to tell others what death is like. Just before he returned he saw souls which were being prepared to be born into life :