As a part of application for jobs it is not uncommon to be asked to provide a curriculum vitae (CV) or resumé. Often one is asked for references of referees. The offer of job is therefore based on something one writes oneself and what some other geezers say about you. If I understand it correctly it is not uncommon {these days} to do a social media trawl on an applicant and get them to sign some corporate social media usage contract if the application is successful. If people want to work, they must not express any controversial opinion or behaviour in public, there is a kind of thought police. PR concerns may be more important than ability to do the tasks required, adequately or well. The world is an edgy place with PR driven cancel culture.

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In this context I can say that my current incarnation is as a retired person specialising in gardening and DIY. The only person on earth who could write me a reference which is less than five years old is the wife. I have not been employed by a company or institution for nearly twenty years, so there is nobody who could write me, with any honesty, a reference less than ~ two decades old. The logic of this is that I am not qualified for any job which requires a current written or oral reference.

I could say that in a prior incarnation I was a university lecturer. The phlebotomist yesterday asked me why I needed a Ph.D. in chemistry and I said that a long time ago in a land far away I once taught at a university in London.

It is very much like a prior incarnation, an entirely different and pressured existence in a place with a high human density per cubic metre, a prior life. A different world entirely. I said to her, “Londres, c’est fou!”

Why do CVs not extend to prior incarnations?

Few actually check in detail what is claimed in CVs for even the current life. Though no doubt there will be CV fraud and certainly exaggeration. People are encouraged to big up the CV and add a hype polish. It may be interesting to do a statistical analysis of distortion in CVs submitted.

As far as I know only one culture is interested in past-life CVs, prior incarnations and that is the Tibeto-Bhutanese-Nepalese one, which extends by exile into India. Reincarnated Rinpoche Lamas, Tulkus, have travelled to and taught in the west. In that context a great deal of respect is offered to these beings and they get the throne of a lamasery or even to lead a country based upon their rebirth CV which may extend back more than ten incarnations.

How would you behave if you met a Rinpoche tulku lama? Would that differ to the criticism in your head about hocus pocus? Would you go through the motions or refuse to go along with charade?

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People who may not believe in reincarnation might offer respect to a high tulku lama if they meet in a certain cultural context. How they might behave in a pub or coffee shop could be a different matter. Kudos is of course culture specific, yet there is some transferability. An anointed Nobel prizewinning scientist has kudos in Academica and more widely, they have the stardust of deity attached. There are even questions about them on University Challenge!! This ranks them with Tintoretto and Da Vinci.

A CV is meant to be a witness of experience and kudos harvested. If you have been to a famous institution {not asylum} you get CV brownie points. A mere whisper of Harvard sprinkles some magic dust of assumed elite braininess and knowledge. You could have been shit, but the name-kudos camouflages this.

It is very difficult to check the truth of many CV claims. Employers tend not to keep aged records. I could make factual claims {according to my recollections} about where I was employed. But to get supportive records from human resources there may not be facile. I could, knowing this, make some shit up. Proof may not exist, not even in the pudding. There is an unwritten assumption that CVs are not complete packs of lies.

I have circumstantial evidence which suggests that I have had two {three} lifetimes as a Buddhist practitioner {monk / priest}. Does that mean I can put it on my CV to apply for jobs as a Buddhist teacher? Nobody alive could offer me a current reference because they all carked it centuries ago and I have not found them again in this lifetime. If things for prior lives are as difficult to prove as those from current lives why not put them on the CV.

There is a part of me, which might like to submit a CV dating back 3000 B.C.E for a job position just to see if they responded, binned it or kept in “on file” because there were other applicants more suited to the job description dogma grid. My bet would be zero response. I could then telephone to inquire…

Perhaps I could then write a movie script…

“A long time ago in a land far away…”

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….”

3000 B.C.E. Son of a Brahman Indus Valley, Northern India

The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent begins around 3000 BCE, and in the end gives rise to the Indus Valley Civilisation, which had its (mature) period between 2600 BCE and 1900 BCE. It continues into the Rigvedic period, the early part of the Vedic period. It is succeeded by the Iron Age in India, beginning in around 1000 BCE.

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Standard cubic weights from the Indus Valley 2600-1900 BCE

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Cubic “dice” made by me {unknowing} for Tibetan Mo divination, Brittany 2024 CE.

The measurments are made with a high precision capacitance micrometer and are accurate to plus or minus 0.01 mm..

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