Can learned knowledge in one life be made available in the next?
(This post is to articulate a point about what the jeeva carries over from birth to birth and how to explain prodigies in arts, music, science, baala yogis... etc. This came up in a discussion in a class)
Question: You mentioned that apara vidya will not get carried by the jeeva to the next birth/births.
Yes, apara vidya is defined as something that is not paraa vidya according to upanishads. So, one has to know what paraa vidya is and by reasoning, the other could be understood.
Please read this informative wiki page for a general perspective. I think this would be sufficient to explain the differences, to begin with, between paraa and apara vidyaa in a vedaatic perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Para_Vidya
In this, reflecting upanishadic words, it is stated that "The higher knowledge (paraa vidyaa) is that by which the immutable and imperishable Atman is realized, and this knowledge brings about the direct realization of the Supreme Reality, the source of All. The knowledge of the Atman is very subtle; it cannot be obtained out of one's own effort; the Atman cannot be intuitively apprehended by mere intellectual equipments"
Rest of the knowledge and processes of learning we have been going thru the millennia could be summarized as apara vidyaa. This includes arts, literature, music, science, technology, quantum physics, biology, medicine, grammar, memorizing the texts etc.
When it is said that apara vidya will NOT get carried by the jeeva to the next birth/births, it is meant that whatever intellectual accomplishments one attains in one life cannot be stored and carried over to the next life. We do not carry a psychic HDD or USB to store all our knowledge by learning in one life and then download it in the next.
But is is also a bit more nuanced. Whether it is paraa or apara, knowledge as such is NOT carried over the lives. The evolutionary component is the jeevatman that transmigrates and the impressions left in that entity is what gets carried over. The residual vaasanaas in that entity determine the course of next life upon the termination of its current one.
I am using here crude language and a crude example: if atman is born as jeevaatman (atman resident in a bound condition as a jeeva) starts as 24 carat gold, over the period of time, the jeevatman that transmigrates appears to be of 10 carat. If by humane or spiritual practices, chitta shuddhi happens, that adds to the debugging of the jeevatman from its accumulated baggage. Maybe in one life it goes from 10 to 11 carat. In subsequent lives, if no such value-adding activities are not maintained, then it remains as such. When there is an effective spiritual living, the carat value of the jeevatman would increase and when it is reborn, the circumstances are arraged according to the status of the jeevaatman.
Probably, a lot of religious activities, spiritual seeking, svaadhyaaya happens but the 'corrupted, ashuddha' chitta is the same.. then those actions do not go waste but leaves good karmaas and deep vaasanaas. Once again, next birth is driven by these two factors and in the life too the jeeva is exposed to opportunities and drives in the same line. Whether one goes beyond the native status quo, it depends on its karma. Whether one evolves to 14 carat or 22 carat, depends on one's action in each life over many lives.. whether one gets opportunities to do so at every life depends on the karmic load and what kind of vaasanaas one carries over. This last statement alone is widely accepted from different quarters of the spiritual texts and their interpretations.
Mere intellectual accomplishments may result in good karmaas.. for example, when Bill Gates learned from his mother and his then wife that sharing his wealth matters, he started sharing their billions - from being a miserly rich man to a benevolent billionaire. He is passionate about it. He is a modern Karna and not a modern Midas. He is accumulating so much good karma by his charity, his impacts and life are historic and immortalized. He has a seat, so as to say, a seat in the heavens already. St Paul may come out of the gate and take him in his vehicle, probably... if he has another birth, may be he would be attracted to computers more than the cars or rockets because of his vaasanaas. Nobody could say, though, whether he would be writing code before he walks in that life..
Question: However, we observe many instances where a small child who has had no formal training or teaching in the present birth, in a particular form of art like singing, exhibits an extraordinary talent and performs like a seasoned artist.
Such happenings like you mentioned, young and child prodigies who create and are musical without even a teacher or time to learn, are indeed rare souls. Your allusion to carryover effects is widely recognized to be near explanation to such phenomena. Vivaldi, many carnatic music artists of the past and present, many artists who paint or geniuses who can solve math or what-not (Ramanujan, Harding...), indeed are such personalities beyond the pale of what is accepted for the most of the humanity any given time. 'Purva janma vaasanaas' is the phrase used to explain such phenomena as any other explanation in scientific terms fall short.
But it is more nuanced than saying, "This leads one to believe that the child must have been a great artist in a previous incarnation and has carried that expertise with it to the present life."
The phenomenon of prodigies as in child artists, child musicians or math geniuses does not prove that intellectual expertise gained in one life could result in more enhanced performing birth, next time over. There seems to be no elbow room for do overs or encore for mortal human magnificence.
Rather, in some cases, great artists whose lives are cut short by various reasons, who had intense unfulfilled desires at the time of their timely or untimely demise, whose passion for music or any other activities of such category is so intense that those hardened vaasanaas drag the soul to births in situations where they could spontaneously fulfill their residue vaasanaas in another life.. all these could explain such prodigies that defy observed passage of lives and births.
This is not just in art but also in math, logic, intuition, leadership due to charisma, scholarship in texts and languages, scientific acumen... we see such rarified prodigies. Sometimes they die younger as though they came to settle an account or two and leave. Any passionate, deep rooted desires and activities may also leave such vaasanaas forcing the subsequent births in similar situations that these work out... we hear about soul mates meeting for the first time and settling for life, we see people or places with which we develop immense attachment without any rhyme or reason...
We cannot easily correlate at what age a child or person unravels their own bundled up talents to the amount of knowledge they might have accumulated in previous lives. That would be silly to do so. But admiring the prodigies who spontaneously create, lead or do extraordinary things, one can easily see it is not the intensity of the knowledge but something more. For a jeeva immersed in the vaasanaas of music, for example, to be born as prodigy in the next life, factors like the correct place, time, environment, body, parents, environs - all matter. Sometimes, their destiny create suitable opportunities by having them transplanted in another place and environs so that their talents are expressed.
Mere learning and expertise in one field in one life alone is not sufficient, looks like. There has to be soul-binding passions and activities that leave deep deep traces or vaasanaas that the jeeva is dragged to another birth or two to unload the burden. Such deep rooted vaasanaas exist as the seeds of talent and mastery in the jeeva that when it is dragged to be born in a suitable kaala, desha and vartamaana - the seeds germinate spontaneously if the environs are opportune. This needs to be uncommon to be prodigal, though.
I believe vedaantic perspective of rebirth and transmigration explains this phenomenon. It happens by itself and one cannot will it. One cannot just will that one's apara vidyaa learnings and knowledge accumulations may result in that jeeva's prodigal next birth. One can determine one's efforts in chitta shuddhi and their results in one's spiritual evolution the efforts might have. Probably that is what Sri Krishna said that nothing in yoga is lost if stopped in one life.
Accumulating good karmaas and good vaasanaas are said to be the reasons for many many religious activities -- from nitya anushtaana, to studying scriptures to doing vrataas to following strict disciplined life by the calendar to pilgrimage to meeting saints and feeding mendicants to doing daana and charity without hesitation to building temples to building schools and hospitals etc. By following time-tested, karma-tested activities one can assure good credit history for the future lives. By doing something good again and again (nidhidhyaasana, satsanga), definitely good vaasanaas are built which leads to good samskararaas in that life or next ones to set us in set ways..
But one cannot consciously will that my 25 years of accounting experience or 30 years of rocket science expertise get seeded into my next birth... probably so if I am passionate to the extent that these consume my current mentality, it might end up like that. Or one carries out tapas to be born in certain way to fulfill certain desire.. like Ambaa did when rejected by every king in the block because of Bheeshma kidnapped her and tried to force her marriage against her heart. Not by intellectual samkalpa but due to all-consuming passion.. an artist or musician or any kind of prodigies trace back their unfulfilled passions because of their intensity of their passions and not by the density of their knowledge. I understand that is the context what I tried to summarize on this in the class.
