| The Cycle of Reincarnation
Reincarnation stems from the fact that we are not this body, we are an eternal spirit soul within the body. Just as our clothes cover our body, in the same way the body covers the eternal soul. The soul, known primarily through the presence of consciousness, does not go through the changes of the physical body. In all living entities the consciousness continues along with the soul to be born again and again. This is reincarnation. At the time of death the soul goes from one body to the next based on one's actions in life and one's consciousness at the time of death. At the moment of death, the state of being you remember is that which you will acquire. As this life is a preparation for the next, our karma situates us appropriately upon our return. Here are some viewpoints to ponder: "Reincarnation is not an exclusively Hindu or Buddhist concept, but it is part of the history of human origin. It is proof of the mindstream's capacity to retain knowledge of physical and mental activities. It is related to the theory of interdependent origination and to the law of cause and effect." The Dalai Lama "By means of thought, touch, sight and passions and by the abundance of food and drink there are birth and development of the (embodied) self. According to his deeds, the embodied self assumes successively various forms in various conditions" Shvetashvatara Upanishad "I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence." Socrates "Believing as I do in the theory of rebirth, I live in the hope that, if not in this birth, in some other birth, I shall be able to hug all humanity in friendly embrace." Mohandas K. Gandhi "For any soul to be clothed with any body is as absurd as to say that the art of carpentry could embody itself in a musician's flutes; each art must use its tools, each soul its body." Aristotle "The spirit soul, the living entity, has no death, for he is eternal and inexhaustible. Being free from material contamination, he can go anywhere in the material or spiritual worlds. He is fully aware and completely different from the material body, but because of being misled by misuse of his slight independence, he is obliged to accept subtle and gross bodies created by the material energy and thus be subjected to so-called material happiness and distress. Therefore, no one should lament for the passing of the spirit soul from the body." Srimad-Bhagavatam �When I discovered reincarnation . . . time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. . . . I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.� Henry Ford "God generates beings, and sends them back over and over again, till they return to Him." The Koran �The basis on which Buddhist[s] accept the concept of rebirth is principally the continuity of consciousness . . . If you trace our present mind or consciousness back, then you will find that you are tracing the origin of the continuity of mind into an infinite dimension; it is, as you will see, beginningless. Therefore there must be successive rebirths that allow that continuum of mind to be there.� The Dalai Lama "Souls are poured from one into another of different kinds of bodies of the world." Jesus Christ in Gnostic Gospels: Pistis Sophia "The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal." Ralph Waldo Emerson "The soul returns to earth in a body similar to its last one and has similar talents and inclinations" Plato "My life often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and no end. I had the feeling that I was an historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me." Carl Jung �Tomorrow or the next life�which comes first, we never know.� Tibetan saying �As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change. As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.� Sri Krishna "It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection." Voltaire "Whenever I am born in every life to come, may I meet again my Guardian Angel of this life! Speaking and understanding the moment I am born, may I� remember my former lives!" The Tibetan Book of the Dead �I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was twenty-six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilize the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered reincarnation . . . time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. . . . I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.� Henry Ford �Verily verily I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life and cometh not into judgement but hath passed out of death into life� Jesus Christ "I did not begin when I was born, nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing, through incalculable myriads of millenniums. All my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me. Oh, incalculable times again shall I be born." Jack London "Reincarnation contains a most comforting explanation of reality by means of which Indian thought surmounts difficulties which baffle the thinkers of Europe." Albert Schweitzer "To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they may come to Me." Sri Krishna "I look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning." Benjamin Franklin "I know I am deathless. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time." Walt Whitman "And Allah hath caused you to spring forth from the Earth like a plant; Hereafter will He turn you back into it again, and bring you forth anew." The Koran "Ignorant ones, due to their own attachment toward wealth and enjoyment, get deluded and blinded� Such foolish ones come under my Rod again and again by revolving in the birth-death cycle� For the Self does not die when the body dies. Concealed in the heart of all beings lies the 'atma', the Spirit, the Self; smaller than the smallest atom, greatest that the greatest spaces." Katha Upanishad ��"For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain." Sri Krishna "I have been born more times than anybody except Krishna." Mark Twain "Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot.� Sri Krishna There are many perspectives on reincarnation, from physic, mythological, after-life-experiences to biblical, made-up, cultural and so on. Here-within, the Vedic understanding is expressed. More than one third of the world's population, over 1.5 billion people, accept reincarnation as an irrevocable fact of life. There are a total of 8,400,000 species of bodies that the soul may occupy and an unlimited number of planets and universes to occupy us. Time is immensely expansive, the quality of life goes from higher to lower grades of piousness in four consecutive sections called yugas (periods of time). Now is the lowest, kaliyug - a little known cycle of time, with only 25% piousness and 75% of selfishness in the world. Thankfully liberation is easiest to attain in the kaliyug as well as other definitive practices like sadhana and yog to secure a fortunate birth in future reincarnations. What will happen after death? In reality the body has no permanent connection with the spiritual qualities of the soul (atma), being eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss (sat-cit-ananda). It is ancient and unborn being an original constituent of God. The soul is actually covered on many levels. Physical matter or what we refer to as the body is the lowest level, our senses being higher. Ascending in level with the mind and the discriminating factor of intelligence that are also subtle coverings of the soul. The subtle bodies are where all of the thoughts, desires, and experiences we have accumulated in unlimited past reincarnations are stored. This physical body is unique to this life, whereas our subtle bodies continue with and carry the soul to its next destination at the time of death as the physical body decays. These bodies are of the temporary quality of matter, full of ignorance and full of suffering. Therefore due to our association with matter from time immemorial, we have become illusioned of our true identity. Steady the mind on the eternal-spirit soul knowing yourself to be transcendental to the body, mind and intelligence; as only when liberation comes is the subtle body finally cast off. According to our consciousness at the time of death the soul transmigrates to a suitable body. At the time of death, the state of being you remember is that which you will acquire. What enters the mind at this time is not just a matter of momentary thought. Our mind will naturally focus on how we have lived our life and what we have done throughout our entire life as we leave our body. As life is flashed before our mind's eye, one particular event will be very attractive to us, and we will focus on that. At that time, being situated in a specific quality of consciousness, we will be given our next body, either a lower or higher species of life. If our mind focuses on an activity that is very ignorant, we will receive a suitable body among the lower species of life - as a plant, a fish, a tree, or an animal. With a demonic consciousness one may fall to a hellish planet such as Patala-lok, only to return when such bad karma is spent. Those focused on a passionate mode of activity, a human body follows. Access to higher planets, like satya-lok where pleasure and happiness is experienced many times greater then on earth, is granted when the mind is held within the mode of goodness. Although it is not possible to suddenly make our consciousness pure if we have spent our entire life engaging in improper activity. This is how it is arranged, to be obligated to a certain womb of your choice, depending on the karma, actions and consciousness of your past lives. What will be our consciousness at that moment? We are not the body, but because we possess this body, we have identified with the external covering and have become attached to it. If one is attached to the body due to identifying the body as the self, death is the most difficult occurrence. The soul is forced out of the body despite attempts to remain within it, a very painful separation. With identification on the body, bodily imperfections will limit you. If you identify on the level of the mind, the bodies� limitations will not affect you, but the mental limitations will. But if one's identification is on the level of the pure spirit soul situated beyond matter, there are no limitations. This is the state of liberation from material existence while still living within the body. For the self-realized devotee who knows the body is a temporary abode, and as such, has no attachment to it. The situation is completely different, death is as simple as opening a door and walking through it, and the soul transmigrates with ease just like an everyday event. We are all in ignorance of the spiritual self, due to false identification of the body and it�s relation to the soul. Fear of death may come by not knowing what we will be or where we will go in the afterlife. It is a fear of knowing one's real self. In this regard, the mind is the root cause of fear and suffering. It projects its own level of reality on self-perception and out onto the world. If you are afraid, be surrendered and know that fate or God will put you where you will best learn whatever you need to learn. Each life is meant for us to learn more about ourselves, and about who we are. Death is not simply a matter of getting old or sick and then dying. Natural death will happen when you have finished doing what you were meant to do in this life. Here is a nice analogy given in The Upanishads: �The body is like a chariot. The senses are like five horses which pull the chariot. The reins, which control the horses, are like the mind. The driver who holds the reins is like the intelligence. And the passenger who instructs the driver is the spirit soul (the actual self). If the driver (the intelligence) holds the reins (the mind) tightly and controls the five horses (the senses), then it is possible to attain one's proper destination. But if the driver (the intelligence) lets go of the reins (the mind) then each of the five horses (the senses) will run off in a different direction pulling the reins (the mind) with them, causing the chariot to be broken into many pieces.� How do we procure a fortunate birth? Due to reactions of our activities in previous lives (karma), we either enjoy or suffer in various circumstances in the present life, while our present activities create reactions for future lives. According to one�s karma, at birth the physical and mental bodies are constructed and the newly shaped person experiences the fruits of "his" actions from previous lives. As one experiences these results (suffering and enjoying) we burn up our good and bad reactions. As such, in the next life, we will no longer have to suffer these same difficulties. While committing good karma to have a fortunate birth or attain celestial abodes, the quality of consciousness is most important. The fortune of this good karma is like winning an award you do not want. Yes, a good birth will come, but one is still bound by the vicious cycle of samsara (birth and death) and suffering is there, birth, old-age, death etc. Using intelligence properly, one must learn to rely not on the mechanisms of the body and mind, but on the inherent knowledge of the soul, spiritual intelligence. As for those who are able to fix their mind on the Lord at the time of death return to His supreme abode, becoming free from the cycle of reincarnation. The Dalai Lama expresses this point beautifully: �From a Buddhist point of view, the actual experience of death is very important. Although how or where we will be reborn is generally dependent on karmic forces, our state of mind at the time of death can influence the quality of our next rebirth. So at the moment of death, in spite of the great variety of karmas we have accumulated, if we make a special effort to generate a virtuous state of mind, we may strengthen and activate a virtuous karma, and so bring about a happy rebirth. � The spiritual progress one accumulates toward realizing the spirit-soul identity is recorded by karma, or rather by a minimal quantity of karmic debt. Consciousness in pure love of God with true devotion is beyond karma, this sadhana or spiritual practice leads one directly to liberation, freedom from samsara. By the mercy of the Lord we are given forgetfulness at the time of birth so that the attachments of our previous life are buried deep within our consciousness. The most recent past lives have a stronger influence, shape who we are, our material body and consciousness as we experience our karma. Human life is precious, it takes many many births in various animal bodies to attain, and it is intended for God-realization. One who desires and only looks to satisfy the mind and senses draws the consciousness toward sense gratification and being reincarnated as an animal. Though activities such as self inquiry (who am I?), helping others without selfish motives, yog, meditation and devotional service will gradually purify the heart and lead one to being reincarnated in a body with a natural disposition toward religious life. The path back to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. I hope this has answered your questions. Please feel free to write for comment or clarification. Learn about Krishna in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. Recommended reading: Second Chance, Beyond Birth and Death, Coming Back � The Science of Reincarnation and Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, all by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. |