REINCARNATION

(As explained by Swami Sivananda)

"Just as man discards worn out old clothes and wears new one, the soul discards worn out body and wears new one" Bhagvad Gita, Ch2.vers22

The idea that the soul (of any living being with a consciousness) reincarnates is intricately linked to karma. The cycle of death and rebirth, governed by karma, is referred to as samskara.Hinduism teaches that the soul goes on repeatedly being passed from body to body through the physical cycle of death and birth.The jiva is made up of the subtle body, the subtle mind and a little bit of discretionary intelligence called buddhi. The ego is made up of the gross physical body, the surface consciousness consisting of innumerable desires and impulses. Since the Jiva and the ego have no idea of Truth or reality, they suffers from ignorance and illusion. They succumbs to illusion and suffer from the delusion of the outer mind. They behave selfishly as if they are different from the rest of creation and end up with suffering, indulging in acts of self perpetuation. At the end of each life, the physical body and the gross mind return to the elements of the earth. But the Jiva and the soul survive death. Depending upon the nature of their past deeds, and the number of subtle bodies it has developed, the Jiva either ascends to the heaven or descends into the hell. Hiding the indwelling spirit in its core, the Jiva stays in these worlds till it exhausts the fruits of its good or bad actions. Having learned some new lessons, it then returns to the earth again to take another birth. Thus the Jiva undergoes innumerable births and deaths. It becomes bound to the mortal life and the laws of nature.

After many births, every person eventually becomes dissatisfied with the limited happiness that worldly pleasures can bring. At this point, a person begins to seek higher forms of happiness, which can be attained only through spiritual experience. When, after much spiritual practice (sadhana), a person finally realizes his or her own divine nature-i.e., realizes that the true "self" is the immortal soul rather than the body or the ego-all desires for the pleasures of the world will vanish, since they will seem insipid compared to spiritual ananda. When all desire has vanished, the person will not be reborn anymore.

When the cycle of rebirth thus comes to an end, a person is said to have attained moksha, or salvation from samsara. While all schools of thought agree that moksha implies the cessation of worldly desires and freedom from the cycle of birth and death, the exact definition of salvation depends on individual beliefs. For example, followers of the Advaita Vedantaschool (often associated with jnana yoga) believe that they will spend eternity absorbed in the perfect peace and happiness that comes with the realization that all existence is One (Brahman), and that the immortal soul is part of that existence. The followers of full or partial Dvaita schools ("dualistic" schools, such as bhakti yoga), on the other hand, perform their worship with the goal of spending eternity in a loka, (spiritual world or heaven), in the blessed company of the Supreme being (i.e. Krishna or Vishnu for the Vaishnavas and Shiva for the dualistic schools of Shaivism). The principal Hindu Gods are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and their consorts Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati. While there is hardly any text describing reincarnation of Brahma and Saraswati, the rest of the Gods are known to have reincarnated in various forms under different circumstances. Lord Vishnu is known for His ten reincarnations, namely Dashavatars.

Reincarnation in Modern world

Since the Oprah Winfrey Show featured Brian Weiss, MD, a Past Life Regression expert, on her show on Tuesday, May 13, 2008, many people are abuzz wondering if a past life regression is a hoax or real. Cosmopolitan magazine reported in 1997 that 79% of people believe in reincarnation, while only 45% believe one can experience a past life.

Dr. Weiss began his career as a psychiatrist and was well published and well respected by the time he was 35. In 1979, he became chairman of the psychiatry department at the prestigious Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami and was regarded as an expert in his field. His work with a patient named, "Catherine," who suffered from panic attacks, phobias, fears and nightmares changed his life forever when during a hypnosis session she began talking about being a boy in Ukraine in the 1700s. Weiss did not believe this story-chalking it up to fantasy, until one day she told him about his own family. He says while Catherine was hypnotized she told him she was with his father, who died two years earlier, and that his daughter was named after his father. "This was all true," Dr. Weiss says. "My father's Hebrew name was Avram. He died two years before ... [and] did not have an obituary. There is no place to look this up. And my daughter was named after him." Subsequently, Weiss wrote his first book, "Many Lives Many Masters".

Probably the best known, if not most respected, collection of scientific data that appears to provide scientific proof that reincarnation is real, is the life's work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. Instead of relying on hypnosis to verify that an individual has had a previous life, he instead chose to collect thousands of cases of children who spontaneously (without hypnosis) remember a past life. Dr. Stevenson has devoted the last forty years to the scientific documentation of past life memories of children from all over the world. He has over 3000 cases in his files. Many people, including skeptics and scholars, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation.

Dr. Stevenson's credentials are impeccable. He is a medical doctor and had many scholarly papers to his credit before he began paranormal research. He is the former head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and now is Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia.