Past life karma, goal of life, and liberation

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, do you believe in past life?

Acharya Prashant (AP): That is irrelevant. Will I find you after your death? Will even you find yourself after your death?

Q: I may be in a different body.

AP: In a different body, will you have the same psyche, the same identity? You are a ‘person’, and a person is driven by identities. Forget about having a new life after death, even in this life if I give you the option that your personality will be totally wiped out, your memory will be totally wiped out, your body will be totally changed, and you will be taken to a different place, a different planet, will you still say that you are ‘you’?

Even in this life, if your memory gets wiped out, do you remain what you are?

Q: Then why do you talk of ‘past life’, and ‘future life’?

AP: Even in this life, if somebody strokes your head with a hammer and your memory is totally gone, which means your identities are totally gone, you are as good as dead. You are no use to anybody then. You do not remain.

You have disappeared, because you are a man of identities, because you are a personality. You live in a…