Reincarnation doctrine question

[Ashoka]

Vannakkam: After re-reading your post, this part really caught my eye. By convincing, I believe it implies an intellectual process, no? But so much of our religion isn't intellectual at all. Take bhakti, for instance, either at home, or at temples. If you go to a temple and 100 000 people are lined up for a chance of 3 seconds in front of a murthi, (darshan) its really pretty hard to explain intellectually. Cremation of the dead, bowing before God, giving to the poor, working for work's sake, genders sitting apart, various rituals of priests like havan, chanting of the names of God, japa with a particular mantram, modest dress, and so much more isn't intellectual at all. It's just a way of life practiced for hundreds of years. Do we need to be convinced that a river flows east instead of west?

Aum Namasivaya

Eastern Mind, thank you for your thoughtful reply. Bhakti has always been such a big part of my spiritual and religious life, and I am greatly encouraged by how big a part of Sanatana Dharm bhakti is. However, I also have an intellectual side which I have gotten in trouble before by not paying enough attention to. The existence of Jn�na yoga shows me that Sanatana Dharma values intellectual pursuits of religious goals as well.
As a former Catholic, I also know that I was told many things which I was advised to take on faith, and I went along with it until I couldn't anymore.

[Ashoka]

namaste Ashoka.

• Empiricial proofs of reincarnation do exist. Two sample links:

"I Have Lived Before: The True Story of the Reincarnation of Shanti Devi" by Sture Lonnerstrand
http://www.circlesoflight.com/past-l...anti-devi.html

Scientific Proof of Reincarnation: Dr.Ian Stevenson's Life Work
http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm

Thank you for these links. I am investigating further. I have ordered a copy of the book.

Aum Nama Sivaya.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam all: Here's a little attempt at viewing reincarnation from a humour perspective I wrote a few years back.

Aum Namasivaya

Silk

In an earlier incarnation, I was a silk trader. Not an actual silk trader, just a worthless slave working for one. No one believes me, but do I give an owl’s hoot about that? How do I know this, you say? Well, not that it matters to you. It shouldn’t. My past lives are mine and mine alone. None of your business, period. So then why am I writing this, you might ask? Well, some guy somewhere who I don’t know suggested I rant about silk. The mere word gets me all rattled up as if I have this key on my backside someone can wind as if I were a toy.
Whenever I see the stuff, I react. It is not an ordinary reaction like for cotton or denim, or even polyester. I mean, I REACT. I get full of vertigo, tense, and stupid. I sweat. I shake. Sometimes I vomit. Only that category of reaction that can be explained by a past life negative samskara.
The same reaction occurs around electricity and height. In yet a different life, just outside of Kolkata, I was electrocuted at the top of a power pole and fell to my death. The doctors were unable to determine whether it was the jolt or the street below that dealt the final blow. That one I remember all too well.
The reason for the silk reaction was no more subtle. The critical moment came somewhere in northern Turkey, on the caravan returning home to Istanbul. I, being far more mentally integrated than my master thought, realised that this silk trade stuff was a disgrace. I expressed pity for the worms. The master disagreed. He used the very stuff he was transporting to bind me, and then tossed me alive into one of Turkey’s freezing northern rivers.
Did I mention my fear of water yet?

[saidevo]

namaste AP.

If one isn't religious at all (atheist/agnostic), and lives a life filled witheither Good/bad deeds, does one still reincarnate?

Since a human soul is never atheistic/agnostic (although the person himself may not believe that he has a soul), all souls reincarnate (even souls of the people of Abrahamic religions), IMO, because karma and reincarnation is a universal law.

CW Leadbeater in his book 'Devachanic Plane' describes seven sub-planes of the heavens where disembodied souls living in their mental body (after death of their astral body) spend their post-mortem life. He states, for example, about the lowest and seventh sub-plane:

"A striking characteristic of this sub-plane for the last few centuries has been the very large number of Romans, Carthaginians and Englishmen to be found there this being due to the fact that among men of these nations the principal unselfish activity found its outlet through family affection ; while comparatively few Hindus and Buddhists are here, since in their case real religious feeling usually enters more immediately into their daily lives, and consequently takes them to a higher level."

I believe that the atmospheric varieties of physical life in different parts of the physical world exist in their corresponding forms in the higher planes of life too, in their sub-planes, to accommodate people of all religious and mental propensities. In this respect, I appreciate the paradigm suggested by Theosophy, specially where they are based on the truths expounded in Hindu and Bauddha dharma.

Here is a link to online books of Theosophy:
http://www.anandgholap.net/

[Maya3]

Thank you Eastern Mind and sanjaya for your thoughtful replies.
When I was a Catholic Christian, I believed many things simply because they were what was taught by the Church authorities. Now I believe that many of those things that I once believed are false and even harmful. I am therefore seeking to avoid taking anything on blind faith in the future.

Good, it's never good to just take things as face value. Look into it and see what you think.

1. Sometimes when I am considering the idea of reincarnation, I think maybe that the idea was invented because it is the only way to try to make sense of suffering that would otherwise seem undeserved. For example, a very young child is abused and/or killed. Why would God allow such suffering from such a young one who obviously could have done nothing to have deserved such pain? Well, the only way to have it make sense is to say that the child must have earned such suffering while in a past life.

Maybe, it's hard to tell. We cannot REALLY prove anything, at least not to other people. If we could we would be the most famous person in the world.

I don't think that God is involved in the way we think. I don't think he/she/it allows things to happen. Things happen because of karma, or cause and effect. For me God is energy and it's there all the time no matter what happens physically. But by tuning into the real Self (God within who is also everywhere else) then you can affect your physical world in a completely different way.

2. It seems to me that suffering in your present life in order to make amends for wrongs done by you in a past life only makes sense if you can remember your past life. Otherwise, it's as though I walked up to my son and grounded him. When he looks at me, confused, and asks me what he did to deserve the punishment, I then tell him that it is for something he did last year that he must have forgotten about.
And then the next day I tell him that he cannot have dessert after dinner because of something else he did wrong last year. He will likely say, "But I can't even remember what I did wrong - how can I know to avoid doing it again?" I can then reply that he should strive to do no wrong at all and that the punishments will continue until he reaches self-realization.
The punishment will not be effective because he can't even remember what he did wrong.


I hope not to sound disrespectful, I am only sharing my thoughts as I try to better understand.

This is a great question because I think a lot of people think like this, because they have been conditioned by the Abrahamic view of God as someone outside ourselves that watches us to see what we do.

It's not that you come back to earth because you need punishment for the bad thing you committed in your past life. It's just that if you did commit a lot of bad stuff, you are not fully Self Realized yet and you cannot join the Force until you understand that you ARE the Force. It is not that God/Force or whatever you call it wont let you in, its that you think you are someone you are not and don't see where you can go.

It's not that you are punished for things that you don't remember, it's that we people have a tendency to do the same mistake over and over again, even if we don't remember.
I get really angry and frustrated at small things for example. I always have no matter how I try not to, I always do. I don't want to but man do I make noise when I drop things on the floor and spill stuff when I just sat down etc etc.
You can call this Samsaras, impressions in my mind that I deal with.
If a person was a murderer and robber in a past life, he/she has a lot of Samsaras that gnawing at him/her and causing all kinds of irritations in this one.

Maya

[Ashoka]

Thanks very much for your input, Maya and everyone else. I bought and read "I Have Lived Before: The True Story of the Reincarnation of Shanti Devi" by Sture Lonnerstrand, and I have to say that it was helpful. It's a little awkwardly written (probably because it was translated into English), but it does a very good job of showing why it can be very harmful to remember past lives. Through this one girl's life, I have a better understanding of the purpose of forgetting our past incarnations.

[Lokavidu]

Hello

I also have question.

Can I choose what my next life body, face, parents?

because in this life I can choose to become a doctor or engineer, etc so maybe I also can choose my next life body.

then how to do it?

in this life to have a fat body or six pack, I must exercise and eat proper food.

so choosing the next life body is in the sense of race and great gene. (I think handsome face is majorly determined by the gene)

so is there any special method to choose the next body? like think of great body right before die?

many have given only general suggestion like, doing good deeds, be patience (because some associate patience with handsome face in the next life)

thank you

[shiv.somashekhar]

Hello

I also have question.

Can I choose what my next life body, face, parents?

because in this life I can choose to become a doctor or engineer, etc so maybe I also can choose my next life body.

then how to do it?

in this life to have a fat body or six pack, I must exercise and eat proper food.

so choosing the next life body is in the sense of race and great gene. (I think handsome face is majorly determined by the gene)

so is there any special method to choose the next body? like think of great body right before die?

many have given only general suggestion like, doing good deeds, be patience (because some associate patience with handsome face in the next life)

thank you

I have a question for you.

In your next life, if you come back with a handsome face as you wish, you will not remember your present life at that time and therefore it has no value. For instance, you may have something in this life because you wished for it in your past life. But since you do not remember this, the whole purpose of wishing and then getting what you wish is lost.

So, the question is, without the memory of the wish, how will the handsome fact in the next life aid you? For all practical purposes, him and you are two different people.

[Lokavidu]

ok..I want to choose to have handsome face next life and I also want to have ability to recall my memory from the past life which wanting the handsome face in the next life.

I have read several stories about children who can remember their past life, how to have this ability? Is there any method from the Vedas?

I can remember my wish yesterday, but I can not remember my wish when I was 7 years old, so maybe tomorrow (or even next life) I will remember my wish today or maybe.

I think the Vedas don't have ideas that memory is a property of the brain, so if the brain is cremated, the memory will survive even it is very difficult to recollect, like I try to recollect my 7 years old memory.

Is it true?

[goodlife]

^^ past life regression under hypnotism?

if u understand Hindi, watch on youtube a program on past life regression where people under hypnotism would recall their past lives.

"Raaz pichle janam ka"