How Does Consciousness Know About Past Lives and Their Details?

The manas is also a consciousness, possessing the functional attributes of a consciousness's discernment. It can discern everything it has experienced, and its level of subtlety is no less than that of the mind consciousness; or with the help of the mind consciousness, it can know everything without exception. However, after knowing something, it is not easy for it to express that knowledge as clearly as the mind consciousness does, because it does not correspond to the language, written words, and sounds that sentient beings easily understand and resonate with. Consequently, the manas's expression becomes very hard for sentient beings accustomed to language, written words, and sounds to comprehend; it takes great effort for sentient beings' mind consciousness to decode the manas's code and understand its expression. Unless the mind consciousness has very high wisdom, or has long cooperated with the manas in close accord and understands the manas's intentions very well—especially for bodhisattvas at and above the first bhūmi who have already transformed consciousness into wisdom, whose mind consciousness possesses even greater wisdom and is capable of directly perceiving the manas—they can obtain a great deal of information from the manas.

Since the mind consciousness has not personally experienced events from past lives, without supernormal powers it does not know about past lives. However, under the manas's hints, through the manas's special mode of expression that differs from that of the mind consciousness, it can come to know some things about past lives, and can even know the details; these details are what the manas hints and conveys. In dreams and in meditative concentration, the manas uses subjectively imagined realms such as dream scenes and meditative states to reveal matters of past lives, which the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) can then comprehend. And when supernormal powers are present, the mind consciousness and the manas communicate and transmit information without obstruction, with no secrets or barriers to exchange between them.