There is a saying by the great philosopher Confucius that one should “study the past if you would define the future”.

Or, if you want to know what will happen in the future you have to look back at the past.

I believe this to be true, not just as a student of our collective history as a civilization, but also when looking at our own, individual history and examining past lives.

To me, the power in studying about the past lies in the ability to discover patterns or cycles that tend to repeat and noticing the opportunities and lessons that come back to us again and again so that we can learn them on even deeper levels.

They say that “history repeats itself”, and when we look at the past, we can recognize and learn from our mistakes in order to make better choices and improve the future.

I think that it is easy in our modern society today to get swept up in the busyness of life: work meetings, carpools, laundry, dishes, emails, errands, that we don’t often stop and realize the context of our lives from a bigger picture perspective.

But, when you look back at your own past lives, as well as study history, you can gain this perspective and look at life from a bird’s eye view that includes many past lives over many centuries.

You will begin to recognize that there are many elements of our human existence that are timeless and universal.

We all seek love, fulfillment, safety, care for our children and families, and want to survive and thrive, in any time period.

Remembering your past lives can help you realize that a few things have changed, but some things have stayed the same over the many thousands of years of our human evolution.

When you look back at the past and see where you have been before, you can recognize your own patterns that repeat themselves, track your choices and notice your mistakes, and also measure just how far you have come to be where you are right now.

And then, once you gain this past life point of view, you can begin to chart a course for who you would like to become in the future – in both this life, and the next.

When you find out who you were before, in a past life, you also discover who you can become.