What is the container of memories? It cannot be the body as there seems to be evidence that some kind of container of memories remains cohesive between incarnations. Also there are claims that non-physical bodies is one mode of life through which that container of memories manifests – “spirits”, for short.
The real question is “What is the container of all containers?” The investigation of this or that phenomenon belongs to the realm of science. At that level, the question “What is this?” can never be answered, science can only answer the question “How?” The question “What?”, the question about the reality of a phenomenon cannot find its answer at the phenomenal level.
The real container of memories must be the place where they appear, where they unfold, where they disappear. We know this place, we call it awareness, pure consciousness or “I”. We mistakenly believe that things in general, and memories as a case in point, continue to exist in the same form before we begin and after we cease to perceive them. Where is the evidence to support this view? We tend to attribute any cohesiveness or consistency between two perceptions to an object that would have continued existence during the intermediary absence of perceptions, forgetting that such an object by design can never be experienced and that our hypothesis will always remain only that, an uncheckable hypothesis. This cohesiveness can be attributed instead to a Reality that is not bound to be a phenomenon, a Reality which can be and must be the reality of both the external world and our subjective experience of thoughts and perceptions. Besides, this Reality is not an assumption but an experience, the direct experience from which we derive the certainty that there is being, that there is something rather than nothing, that there is consciousness.
It is this Reality that dynamically creates, sustains and annihilates all things, including memories, from moment to moment.
Just as this Reality creates the appearance that physical objects have continued existence between perceptions, it can create the appearance that “some kind of container of memories remains cohesive between incarnations”. It can also create the appearance of non-physical bodies manifesting as thought-like perceptions. In fact, in its absolute freedom, it can manifest anything it chooses.
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