WHAT IS REINCARNATION ?

Reincarnation is the process of birth, death, and rebirth. This means that our soul has more than one life in the material world and could very well mean millions of lives. Many have told me “Now, why on earth would you want reincarnation? Who would want to live all of those lives?” The answer is rather simple: I do not want reincarnation. Reincarnation is the process also known as transmigration of souls. Our physical bodies are not our true selves as much as we are inclined to believe. A person’s true self is the soul or atman. The physical body regardless of gender, shape, or form is simply a temporary housing unit for the soul. The soul is eternal but must use physical forms for spiritual growth. So why don’t we want to constantly be reborn? The reason is that there is so much suffering in the world and therefore the cycle of birth and death also known as samsara is something we want to free ourselves from.

Now let’s examine the science of reincarnation. What is convincing about this theory? A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada uses an analogy in The Journey of Self-Discovery, stating, “Suppose I change my clothes. In my boyhood I wore certain clothes, in my youth I wore different clothes. Now, in my old age, as a sannyasi [a renunciant], I am wearing different clothes. The clothes may change, but that does not mean that the owner of the clothes is dead and gone.” Since we cannot remember past lives, we tend to focus on the current life as if it was our only one. We want pleasure and happiness and constantly glorify the body through delicious food, pleasurable sex, and work hard to make sure that our bodies look good. But we are not this body! Suppose someone spends his whole life chasing after success and happiness. He goes to college, finds a great job, finds a million dollar home, marries, has kids, cruises around in a limousine, and then one day crosses the highway and gets run over by an eighteen-wheeler. What’s the point? The point is that people are so wrapped up in this material world that they do not understand that they are not this body and that their true souls will keep taking new bodies and the same process will continue over and over again. Sri Krsna explains in the Bhagavad-Gita in shloka 2.13, “As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth, and then to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” Such a person as described here would not waste his or her whole life trying to make the body happy. Instead, this person would work to realize his soul and his true existence in this world.

Last but not least, reincarnation can be demonstrated by a material science point of view. For example, chemistry tells us that our entire bodies are made up of nothing more than atoms and then we find out that those atoms behave as waves. In physics, we find out that energy and mass cannot be created or destroyed but can be converted to one another. So, how can this body be the true self and the permanent “you” if every nanosecond it changes? This body could be vaporized but the pieces would still be there but just in a different form. The body, mind, and intellect constantly change from baby to old man, but the inner person is still the same. If you analyze individuals without bias, you may be able to see an inner resemblance between them and yourself. This is simply a way of realizing that the person is the soul and not the body. You can even see it in animals. Every creature has this spark of life. Otherwise, why can man create pyramids, tall buildings, and missions to the moon, but cannot even create a single ant? How does the caterpillar suddenly become the butterfly? The soul is the same, but it simply takes another body.

These ideas make reincarnation very real from a philosophical, scientific, and spiritual point of view. Understanding this fact and taking what Lord Krsna in the Gita has to say about the cycle of birth and death, we should work toward understanding who we are so that we can attain Self-realization and thus God-realization, so that we can free our souls from this transmigration.

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