Reincarnation Theory: A Viewpoint

[Kam1825]

Not sure if anyone has posted this before. Its a thought that has crossed my minds as to what happens with reincarnation. I found this piece by a swami. Bit scientific and hard words for me (i'm not that clever). Have a read and tell me what are your thoughts on this subject

Some thinkers believe that when a person dies, nothing remains. That death is the end of his personality, and that there is no trace of him thereafter. Others disagree with this view. They do not consider death as finality. They believe in the continuity of life. And that the present incarnation is only a link in the chain of one’s entire life. Yet others posit the existence of imaginary realms of heaven and hell where they believe humans go after their death. These beliefs are not based on rational analysis and derivation. Instead, you must collect relevant data, study them carefully and draw intelligent conclusions from them. Only then would you get a clearer idea of the phenomenon of birth and death.

When a person dies, his gross body perishes in that form. The material of the body merges with earth. Science declares that something cannot pass into nothing. So states the law of indestructibility of matter, the law of conservation of energy. The same law should apply to the subtle body that comprises his thoughts, feelings and desires, resulting from his mental and intellectual forces. His inner energy comprises subtle matter. The energy of the subtle body however cannot vanish at the time of death. In this world births and deaths are innumerable. The mental energies of all those persons cannot disappear or appear all of a sudden. That would be against the laws of science.

Life is a series of experiences. The progression of life is determined by desires. Desires drive you from one experience to another. In philosophic terms an experience is dead and another born, every moment. Thus your desires drive you through a continuous procession of birth and death. This procession will continue in perpetuity until the desires are eradicated from your personality. Desires are the cause and the experiences of life are the effect. At the moment of death a person is left with innumerable, unfulfilled desires. To prevent further manifestation, these desires have to be made extinct. The cause has to be removed to erase the effect. Once the desires are completely exhausted, the birth-death cycle ends. That is the state of self-realisation or God-realisation.

Different types of people are born with distinct tendencies, inclinations, desires. Every human being enters the world with his pattern of thought, feeling, desire. And people are born with a variety of desires. These variegated desires could not have emerged from nowhere. To accept that they have come out of nothing would again be as irrational as to presume that they disappear suddenly. Such presumptions would be violating the code of science. Hence the great thinkers of the past made a careful scrutiny of this world and found hordes of desires disappearing and appearing perennially. After a thorough analysis of this phenomenon they managed to somehow connect the unaccounted gain of desires of the born to the unaccounted loss of desires of the dead. They conducted what was a sort of audit of the accounts of life. They applied the law of causation which governs the entire universe at all times. They took the desires of the dead as the cause and linked them to the desires of the born as the effect. This observation is in accordance with the law of indestructibility of matter, the law of causation, the law of karma. This ingenious correlation of cause and effect projects the theory of reincarnation. It is only a scientific deduction from the available data, but cannot be proved experimentally. Hence, it is presented as a theory.

[kdsingh80]

this is a very good article.there are many cases of rebirth where science and scientific logic fails completely.one of the case of reincarnation

i found on the net is the following

http://www.tripurainfo.com/jati.htm

Life after death : Arup Chakraborty reincarnated as Arindam Banik ?

Ruchira Datta

Santir Bazar (South Tripura): 30th June

The question of life after death or transmigration of human soul always triggers heated debates . What compounds the issue is the conflicting positions taken by world's leading scriptures with Hinduism and its

allied faiths upholding the concept of transmigration of souls and a cycle of birth and death and the revelatory semitic faiths envisaging salvation or damnation-depending, of course , on one's depth of faith or lack of it during liftime-upon death. Given this, little Arindam Banik's (5) revelation of the details of his previous life and how he died from an accident is not supposed to be taken seriously by agnostics or rationalists. But his version is corroborated by ground realities and persons who knew him during his previous incarnation as driver Arup Chakraborty .

It was a massive jolt for Arindam's father in may last year . A small-trader by profession, Santanu Banik (36), settled in Shantir Bazar area under south Tripura's Belonia subdivision, was waiting at the motor stand to take his ailing son for medical check-up in district hospital at Udaipur. When Santanu was preparing to board a jeep of the 'commander' brand made by Mahindra copmpany four yearold Arindam burst out in visible fear : 'Papa , do not baord this jeep , take a bus or Maruti vehicle '. Santanu was jolted by the utternances of the four yearold and his knowledge of motor vehicles but he made the up and down journey between Udaipur and Shantir Bazar by bus. Upon return home he lovingly asked his son why he had asked him to avoid a commander jeep and how he knew so much about other motor vehicles . 'He replied spontaneously that he knew everything because he was a driver of commander jeep earlier and had died in an accident at Paticherri area when his jeep had collided with a truck' said Santanu , adding that his son had also asserted that 'commander jeeps and trucks are accident-prone unlike bus or Maruti'.

Santanu was dumbfounded and started reflecting over the issue ;he had always noticed that his four yearold son was fond of small cars among toys and always uttered slangs used by drivers while playing with his toy cars . He persisted with his queries and Arindam disclosed that he used to live in a house at Debdaru village , five kms west of Santir Bazar, and there are two trees, a Siva temple and pond where he would take his bath and wash his commander jeep . 'He also said that two big and red coloured bulls would sleep beside his jeep parked below the two trees ' said Santanu . Arindam also rattled off names of all the places between Santir Bazar and Debdaru as well as between Santir Bazar and Agartala wehre motor vehicles stop while plying .

Having decided to verify whether his little son was actually speaking about his previous birth Santanu took him to Debdaru and was startled when Arindam showed the mud-walled hut where he would live , the pond , the 'Siva' temple , two tall trees and even the red bulls . 'I was amazed and a little bit scared when people of the area corroborated the version given by my son that a jeep would park near this house for several months in 1998 and then it met with an accident' said Santanu , adding that one person had died . But Kartik Sarkar, the house owner , sang a different tune : my brother-in-law Swapan Dey's jeep used to garage here for several months in 1998 and then there was an accident but nobody died .

However, the confirmation Santanu had been seeking was available in Sarasima village near Belonia subdivisional town which he visited . Swapan Dey, resident of Sarasima and the owner of the ill-fated vehicle , confirmed Arindam's version that his commander jeep had collided with a truck at Paticherri area in 1998 but denied any death . 'There were two persons on the jeep at that time including the driver but nobody died' said Swapan Dey. However, his sister Suniti Dey spoke separately with Santanu Banik last year and a team of media-persons only last week and spilled the beans : 'Ek jan manusher Kshati hoyechhila, kintu amra samle diyechhi' (one person was harmed but we managed to tackle the problem).

Nudged for a clearer reply Suniti said that the driver of the jeep had been a Bangladeshi youth called Arup Chakraborty who had died in the accident and was cremated without any information to the police . 'We would call him 'thakurbhai' as he was a Brahmin and later paid compensation to his mother who lived in a village just across the border' Suniti said , pointing to the border yards behind her residence , adding that the death had to be kept a secret because the driver was Bangladeshi and police might create complications.

Blissfully unaware of the stir he has triggered, little Arindam spends the better part of his day now in playing with his toy-vehicles . But his father Santanu Banik is a little worried over any possible psychological damage to his only son by queries on his previous birth and the manner in which he died . 'Baba, we have decided to go on pilgrimage to Kashi , Mathura and Hardwar to seek divine blessings for my grandson , we can not help that God has made him what he is' said Ms Ava Banik, Arindam's grandmother.

[dattaswami]

Not sure if anyone has posted this before. Its a thought that has crossed my miw intelligent conclusions from them. Only then would you get a clearer idea of the phenomenon of birth and death.

When a person dies, his gross body perishes in that form. The material of the body merges with earth. Science declares that something cannot pass into nothing. So states the law of

Life is a series of experiences. The progression of life is determined by desires. Desires drive you fromation. It is only a scientific deduction from the available data, but cannot be proved experimentally. Hence, it is presented as a theory.

Only one Lord created this entire universe. He should have told the same knowledge everywhere in the world. The contradiction is only due to misunderstanding. In Hinduism also Sankara says that again human birth is almost impossible (Jantunaam Nara Janma Durlabhamidam). Sankara was the incarnation of Siva and so what He told is also authoritative. Even Gita says that the soul comes back to this world but does not say that the soul gets again the human birth (Ksheene Punye Martyalokam Visanti). In the second chapter, Gita speaks about rebirth but not about the human rebirth. Islam and Christianity say that the human birth is given only as a single chance. After this the final judgement is given. The soul either goes to the Lord or goes to the hell permanently. In Gita also there are two ways for the soul. Either the soul goes to the Lord and does not return back or the soul returns back to the world (Abrahma Bhuvanath, Yat Gatva). According to Gita, if the soul does not go to the Lord (Brahmaloka), it returns back after enjoying the fruits of incomplete spiritual effort. Therefore in this human birth, if the spiritual effort is completed, the soul goes to the Brahmaloka permanently.

If the spiritual effort is incomplete the soul may go up to any world below Brahmaloka, it will return back to this earth after enjoying the fruits of its incomplete spiritual effort. The soul may go up to the sixth world, it cannot go to the Brahmaloka, which is the seventh world by doing the remaining spiritual effort in the sixth world. The reason is once the soul leaves this earth all the upper worlds are only Bhogalokas i.e., the worlds in which the soul can enjoy the fruits, but cannot do any work (Karma). Therefore the soul has to return back to the earth. The soul will not get again another chance of human birth because once it is failed it can never succeed. Therefore the soul comes to the earth and falls into the cycle of animals and birds only. When the soul is trapped in this cycle of animal births, it is treated as a permanent hell.

If the soul goes to Brahmaloka it always accompanies the Lord either in Brahmaloka or may come back to the earth along with the Lord who takes the human incarnation. In such case the soul is born as a divine servant of the Lord. Such soul will not take rebirth in the cycle of animals. Thus for the divine soul also there is no such rebirth. In this way Hinduism, Islam and Christianity are correlated as one concept preached by the one Lord. Christians and Muslims are putting up sincere spiritual effort because there is a threat that this human life is the only chance. There is no reexamination according to these religions. This human birth is the only one examination and the soul either passes or fails and will not be allowed for any reexamination. But in Hinduism such threat is not there.

People have taken a lenient view on the spiritual life because they think that the human rebirths are possible and so they can put up the spiritual effort slowly in the future human births. The Lord cannot say different theories to different people. The rule must be same for all the human beings of the world. Therefore whatever the Lord told in Christianity and Islam also told the same in Hinduism. Hindus misunderstood the concept. Therefore what ever may be the religion, every human being should think “Now or Neverâ€.

The human rebirth is only for Yoga Bhrashta i.e., the soul, which has reached Brahmaloka and fell due to some slip. Such a soul is suspended from Brahmaloka and comes down to the earth and takes rebirth as a human being only. You have passed the P.G. Degree and obtained the post of the lecturer. But you were suspended for a month due to some mistake. You will be re-appointed.

Similarly the Yoga Bhrashta will be born as a human being for some time and will come back to Brahmaloka. The case of incomplete spiritual effort is different from Yoga Bhrashta. The incomplete spiritual person is like a B.A. Degree holder who never achieved the lecturer post. You cannot argue that you can be appointed as a seventy five percent lecturer since you reached seventy five percent of the total educational period (from school to P.G.Degree is hundred percent) by getting a B.A. Degree.

Thus there is no partial achievement by partial spiritual effort. The grace of the Lord is either hundred percent or zero. If it is hundred percent you are reaching Brahmaloka. If it is Zero percent you are falling back to the earth in the cycle of animals and birds. There is no third way in between these two. When this truth is revealed, only one in thousands will try to put the real spiritual effort as said in Gita (Manushyaanaam Sahasreshu). By this Hindus will become alert in spiritual effort like Christians and Muslims.