I hadn't just seen what I had done, but I felt and knew the repercussions of my actions. I felt the injury or pain of those who suffered because of my selfish or inappropriate behavior.
For example, four years earlier, a friend and I had gone down town to a nightclub. Once the dancing stopped and the bar closed, they served breakfast. My friend had ditched me. I was alone and in no condition to drive. About 2:30 a.m. a guy came in for breakfast, and I struck up a conversation with him. He was about 23, had just gotten off work, and was very nice. I was deliberately doing and saying anything to get him to agree to drive me in my car to the north end (about 35 miles) so I could be close to home. I invited him to a party, and he agreed. When we got to my friend's house in the north end, I told him to wait outside. I went in and hid, leaving him miles from home and not knowing anyone in the middle of the night. After a while he came to the door sort of pleading to speak with me; my friends shut him out. Fortunately, the friend who ditched me showed up minutes later, and the guy that she pulled up with agreed to give the guy who drove my car a ride back to the nightclub. I never gave this incident a moment of thought after it had happened. But, during the review of my life, I was grieved to see how totally selfish, thoughtless and downright cruel I had been. I felt his complete panic and fear, and his change as he became less trusting. I was sickened. I had such total guilt that I tried to pull my view away. I was being pounded with the fears, pain, injuries, and anger I had caused in others, and the repercussions that had been passed on and on.
[...]
As I waited, I remembered what I had forgotten, which was everything. I was astonished at the simplicity of why, what, who, where...all of it. I knew it all. I remember thinking that it is so weird that we don't remember any of it on the other side. It's so apparent, yet we cannot see it while living in the other form. At that very moment I likened it to an ant that could never perceive a human in its entirety, its complexity, or its completeness, yet we are right there to be seen if only the ant had the capacity.