Reincarnation

Mortal body dies but the immortal soul reincarnates…

What is reincarnation?

Reincarnation is defined as philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence (soul) of a living begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Reincarnation is also sometimes referred to as rebirth and transmigration.

To believe in reincarnation, one must first believe in the existence of soul. The soul gets reincarnated not once but many times. Each time the soul reincarnates, it gets evolved. It accumulates the positive and negative aspects from each life.

In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, reincarnation is governed by Karma. Karma is defined as action, which can be good or bad that the living does during lifetime as mortal on earth. It is believed that one’s subsequent birth depends on one’s karma from the previous lifetime. Karma is attached to the soul hence during reincarnation, Karma accompanies the soul. The ultimate goal of life is to be released from the cycle of Karma or the liberation of soul.

The liberation of soul is often mentioned as Moksha or Nirvana. The soul is said to attain liberation when the soul realises the ultimate truth and gets separated from its Karma. In order to find out what Karma is attached to the soul; one must remember their past lives. If reincarnation do exist, can one remember their past lives?

Past Life Regression is used by modern psychologists to deal with current problem through the memory of our past life. This method uses hypnosis to recover memories of past lives. Despite the soul gets reincarnated, the soul memory (Karma) gets stored in the unconscious. This memory is carried forward in the next life which subconsciously determines one’s state of mind, desire, preference and behavior. Have you ever liked someone or some thing without any valid reason? Believe it or not, it might actually be related to the soul memory stored in your unconscious mind!

Past Life Regression is not a modern technique. This was mentioned by scholars in scriptures like Upanishad and Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. In Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali, Patanjali has briefed in detail about Past Life Regression. He mentioned the process as “Prati Prasav”. “Prati” means again and ‘Prasav” means taking birth. It literally means “Reverse birthing”. According to him, the soul is burdened by the accumulation of Karma from the past life and by identifying the root cause one can be healed. However, research conducted in modern day proofs that the success of this process highly depends on the belief of the person (subject) in reincarnation.

Do remembering past lives and our Karma will benefit us ?

Some spiritual experts like Sadhguru firmly says that acquiring folds of memory of our past life is not going to help us to solve our current problems as you may end up remembering more than your mind could possibly take. These memories are stored in the unconscious for a reason. By letting them to resurface as conscious, we will be indulging ourselves in a bigger mess !

To conclude, I truly believe that the soul matter (immortal) do exist without the body (mortal) and it gets reincarnated at certain period of time to fulfill a specific reason depending on it’s Karma. However it’s not wise for us to remember the Karma of our past life. A secret should always remain a secret and be buried forever.

By Menaga Rajagopal