It is hard enough even to carry one life. It will become very clumsy and complex if old memories start harassing you. The implications are such that perhaps the person who is your wife now, was your mother in the past life. Now you will be in a very weird state. How to behave with the woman – as a mother or as your wife? Your life will become a great anxiety. The person who you think is your greatest friend, has been your murderer in the past life. Now how are you going to relate with him? – and you cannot manage to take anybody with you to your past life, so there is no evidence…! The friend will say, “Are you mad? I murdered you? You must have dreamed it. In dreams all kinds of things happen. Forget all about it.” But you cannot forget because you know it was not a dream. It happened in a deep meditation and whenever you go to that point, it always happens. You cannot repeat a dream. You cannot even connect a broken dream.

One night Mulla Nasruddin shouted loudly to his wife, “Bring my glasses! Quick!” – in the middle of the night!

The wife said, “What are you going to read?”

He said, “Don’t discuss. This is not the moment to discuss. Just bring!”

So the poor woman brought the glasses. He put the glasses on and he said, “Just go on back to sleep. I saw such a beautiful woman, but because my eyesight is not good, things were a little vague.” He tried hard to see the woman again with glasses on, but he could not manage.

Another time again he asked for the glasses….

The wife said, “You are going mad. Glasses won’t help your eyesight in dreams. In dreams your eyesight is perfect.”

But he said, “It is a question of great importance. Don’t you argue. Just bring my glasses!” And putting his glasses on, he said, “Okay, now come on.”

A man was offering him one thousand dollars and he wanted to be sure whether the bill was fake or real. But now neither the man was there, nor that one thousand dollar bill was there. He tried hard this way and that way. And he shouted loudly, “Where have you gone?”

You cannot join a broken dream. You cannot repeat a dream on your own. If it repeats by itself, that is a different thing, but you cannot manage to repeat some beautiful dream again and again – not even once.

But as far as past lives are concerned, this is the difference: as you go deeper into your meditation, if you want to open the doors, you can, but you have to be aware. You will be flooded with tremendous meaningful memories, and they will be as actual as if they are of this life. They will not be like dreams, that you open your eyes and the dream is gone. They will be as actual as your life, but that creates trouble.

If you remember two or three lives, you will be in the same state as the centipede I have told you about….

He had been living perfectly well and was going for a morning walk, when a little rabbit asked him, “Uncle, I have to ask a question. I have been resisting so as not to disturb your morning walk, but I cannot resist it anymore.”

The centipede said, “Okay, what is your question?”