REBIRTH - A MYTH OR REALITY

(Continued from yesterday)

The belief of rebirth is not confined to any region or any country. People from different parts of the world hold this belief. It is filtered through generations. When people die their bodies get decomposed but their souls take birth in other bodies.  This is the fundamental concept of reincarnation. It is said that human subconscious always keep some faint memories of previous life. It is believed that only some people get this memory of the past life.

In India we have a religious back up for reincarnation. In Jainism, the soul and matter are considered eternal, uncreated and perpetual. There is a constant interplay between these, resulting in bewildering cosmic manifestations in material, psychic and emotional spheres around us. This led to the theories of transmigration and rebirth. The life after death therefore moves on to another form of life based on the merits and demerits it accumulated in its current life. The path to becoming a supreme soul is practice nonviolence and be truthful. Discovering the past can manifest a clearer life flow in here and now. In ancient Hindu mythology, the Upanishads mention past life regression, but the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali discuss the concept in greater detail. Written during the 2nd century BC, the Hindu scholar Patanjali discussed the idea of soul becoming burdened with an accumulation of impressions as part of the Karma from previous lives. Patanjali called the process of past life regression 'prati-prasav'(reverse birthing) and saw it as addressing current problems through memories of past life.

Hinduism teaches that after biological death, soul begins a new life in a new body that may be human, animal or spiritual depending on the moral quality of the previous life's actions. Based on the type of action one does, he chooses his subsequent birth. According to the Hindu sage Adi Shankaracharya, the world, as we ordinarily understand it, is like dream; fleeting and illusory. To be trapped in samsara (the cycle of birth and death) is a result of ignorance of the true nature of our existence. A person desires to be born because he or she wants to enjoy a body, which can never bring deep, lasting happiness or peace (ananda). After many births every person becomes dissatisfied and begins to seek higher forms of happiness through spiritual experience.

Christianity, though do not vouch for reincarnation, confirms it. Exodus 34:7 says: " ... yet, before him, none can claim innocence in his own right, and when he punishes, the son must make amends for the father's guilt, to the third and to the fourth generation." God being justice Himself, cannot ask the son and grandsons to suffer for the guilt of the father. Here when it is said so, the one who commits the errors and those who are sufferers for it are the same. In other words, the son and grandson are the same spirit of the father, rather they are the rebirths of the father.

(Concluded)

KV George

kvgeorgein@gmail.com