Reincarnation

“ Reincarnation, as I have said, is the physical form in which groups of accumulated causes (Karma) of reaction manifest themselves in Nature. Reincarnation means rebirth. Rebirth means, to be born again in flesh after death. In order, therefore, to know what is rebirth, we must know what is death. To know what is death, we must know what is life.
Let us see what life really is. Human life is conscious mentality encased in flesh. To be briefer, human life may be summed up in one word—consciousness. Life of lower animals is negative consciousness, while human life is positive consciousness. ”

“ This view, it may be remarked, is not necessarily incompatible with the conception of reincarnation, on which theory the final resurrection or transmutation of the body would terminate the series of successive lives and deaths, thus bringing the individual out of the circle of generation, which is the circle of Karma. ”

“ If, on the contrary, we admit the plurality of human existences and reincarnation—that is, the passage of [Pg 143] the same soul through several bodies—all this is made wonderfully clear. Our presence on such or such a part of the earth is no longer the effect of a caprice of Fate, or the result of chance; it is merely a station in the long journey that we make through the world. ”

“ Reincarnation teaches that the soul enters this life, not as a fresh creation, but after a long course of previous existences on this earth and elsewhere, in which it acquired its present inhering peculiarities, and that it is on the way to future transformations which the soul is now shaping. ”

“ And there is this great alleviation, that even while suffering the effects of the sins of our past lives, the effect changes into a new cause, according to our attitude towards it. For by a courageous, patient fortitude in the bearing of our just punishment, we can “rise on the stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things.”
It is objected also, that reincarnation will separate us forever from those we loved in life. Nothing is further from the truth. Like every phenomenon in Nature, reincarnation proceeds under the law of cause and effect. ”

“ Whatever answers are given regarding death, you are not satisfied with them, and so you must invent theories about reincarnation. What is it that will reincarnate? Even while you are alive, what is there? ”

“ Although it would seem that the survival of [40] individual consciousness after death, whether it be attested by a possible spiritual reincarnation, or whether by the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection, cannot be regarded as assured by any evidence satisfying the requirements of scientific criticism, yet we are not therefore justified in assuming that confirmation of the reality of these spiritual apprehensions of human immortality will be for ever withheld from the human understanding. ”

“ The soul, in the causal body, drinks of the river of Life, and from its sleep-giving draught forms the sheaths of the new incarnation, the new bodies that altogether blot out the memory of the past; it is, in very truth, a new-born babe who appears on earth. ”

“ Plato says: "Soul is older than body. Souls are continually born over again into this life." The idea of Reincarnation was spread widely in Greece and Italy by Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Virgil and Ovid. ”

“ Reincarnation denies the idea that the soul has come into existence all of a sudden or has been created for the first time, but it holds that it has been existing from the beginningless past, and will exist all through eternity. The individual soul enjoys or suffers according to the acts it performs. All enjoyment and suffering are but the reactions of our actions. Actions are the causes and the reactions are the results. Our present life is the result of our past actions, and our future will be the result of the present. ”

“ So, as we have said, there is a great variety of shades of belief in the Western world regarding Reincarnation today, and the student will have no difficulty in finding just the shade of opinion best suited to his taste, temperament and training or experience. Vary as they do in detail, and theory, there is still the same fundamental and basic truth of the One Source—the One Life—and Reincarnation, reaching ever toward perfection and divinity. It seems impossible to disguise the doctrine so as to change its basic qualities—it will always show its original shape. ”

“ So far as Reincarnation is concerned, if it be taken as an axiom that the soul really exists, that is sufficient as a beginning for the argument in favor of the doctrine, and the proof or disproof of any special theory regarding the nature of the soul is outside of the main question, so we shall not consider it here. It is possible to think of the soul as a reincarnating entity, whether it be a monad, duad, triad, or septenary being. ”

“ What does reincarnation demand of us? Only that we should by a series of human lives, attain to the condition of celestial beings, worthy to be called the sons and daughters of The Most High. Some through love, obedience and self denial—which last is the highest form of soul culture—will reach this end sooner than others, but I believe all will eventually do so ”

“ Then only does man know that Reincarnation is true, and takes place on earth until this latter passes into a slate of obscuration, [79] or, at all events, until the development of the soul enables it to utilise for its evolution some environment on the planet, other than the physical one. ”

“ By "Reincarnation" we mean the repeated incarnation, or embodiment in flesh, of the soul or immaterial part of man's nature. The term "Metempsychosis" is frequently employed in the same sense, the definition of the latter term being: "The passage of the soul, as an immortal essence, at the death of the body, into another living body." The term "Transmigration of Souls" is sometimes employed, the term being used in the sense of "passing from one body into another." ”

“ Reincarnation under karmic law, until the fruit of every experience has been gathered, every blunder rectified, every fault eradicated, until compassion has been made perfect, strength unbreakable, tenderness complete, self-abnegation the law of life, renunciation for others the natural and joyous impulse of the whole nature. ”

“ Reincarnation really explains, as it claims to explain, neither the exceptional individual nor the apparently unmerited sufferings of the individual, and it has beside inescapable difficulties of its own. It has to parallel the course of human existence with a range of supernal existence for which there is absolutely no proof ”

“ Therefore we can say that no other theory than that of Reincarnation can explain satisfactorily the causes which produce geniuses and prodigies in this world.
Those who accept the truth of Reincarnation do not blame their parents for their poor talents, or for not possessing extraordinary powers, but they remain content with their own lot, knowing that they have made themselves as they are to-day by their own thoughts and deeds in their previous incarnations. ”

“ But it is noteworthy that although the Christian idea of immortality is dissociated from that of the survival of the individual in the race, as well as independent of the belief in the transmigration and reincarnation of spirit in ways other than by the transmission of personality from parents to their children, it is by no means antagonistic to, but rather comprehensive of, all these ideas of the continuity of being. ”

“ Others object to reincarnation because they assert it is unjust for us to suffer in this life, for acts done in past ones and forgotten. But does the forgetting of any sinful act, absolve us from its consequences? ”

“ Still, though the eye of the god-man alone can penetrate this wonderful mechanism and study it in all its astonishing details, the savant whose mind is unprejudiced can judge of the concealed mechanism by examining its outer manifestations, and it is on this ground we now place ourselves with the object of setting forth another series of proofs of reincarnation. ”

“ They know that death is nothing but a mere change from one body into another. Therefore, if any one does not succeed in conquering the lower nature by the higher, he will try again in his next incarnation, after starting from the point which he reached in his past life. He will not begin again from the very beginning, but from the last stage at which he arrived. Thus we see that Reincarnation is the logical sequence of evolution. It completes and makes perfect that theory and explains the cause of the moral and spiritual nature of man. ”

“ And as we have just suggested that in a more intimate state of being we may become distinctly aware of having relation to several bodies simultaneously, so the world-old doctrine of reincarnation in its general form has long suggested that our most intimate selves are related to a great number of bodies in succession to each other in Time. The higher or inner Individual—of agelong and æonian life—is reincarnated (it is said) thousands of times ”

“ They generally maintain that the individual soul is inseparable from the body or the brain or nervous system; consequently what we call soul or the conscious entity or the thinker is produced along with the birth of the organism or brain, lasts as long as the body lasts and dies when the organism is dissolved into its elements. But those, on the other hand, who accept the theory of Reincarnation admit the existence of soul as a conscious entity which is independent of the physical organism, that it continues to live after death and that it existed before the birth of the body. ”

“ And so the Reincarnationists claim that this demand upon them for proof of the existence of the soul is not a fair one, because such discussion belongs to the more general field of thought; that they are justified in starting with the idea that the soul does exist, as an axiomic truth; and that their real task is to establish, not that the soul exists, but that it reincarnates after the death of the body. ”

“ Moreover, the doctrine of Reincarnation is founded on the law of cause and effect. It teaches that the cause is not outside of the effect, but lies in the effect. The cause is the potential or unmanifested state of the effect, and effect is the actual or manifested cause. There is one current of infinite force or power constantly flowing in the ocean of reality of the universe, and appearing in the innumerable forms of waves. ”

“ Some Reincarnationists claim that as the soul passes from the body all the events of that particular life pass rapidly before its mind, in review, before the waters of Lethe, or oblivion, causes forgetfulness. ”

“ A large number of the Christian Reincarnationists, if I may call them by that name, hold that Heaven is a place or state of Eternal Progression, rather than a fixed state or place—that there is no standing still in Heaven or Earth—that "In my Father's House are Many Mansions." ”

“ I wonder what the next instalment of the yarn will bring. Do the gods, think you, punish failure as men do?
"But I wander. (My speculations to the landlady regarding reincarnation have resulted in her frantic appeal to the doctor, with a bottle of something, in consequence, by my side. That's the scientific way of solving the problem of immortality.) ”

“ The doctrine of Reincarnation alone can explain satisfactorily and rationally the diversities among children and the reason of the many instances of uncommon powers and genius displayed in childhood. The theory of heredity has up to this time failed to give any good reason for them. ”

“ Now, it is true that in this the theory is not complete and perfect unless you recognise the fundamental truth of Reincarnation. No otherwise can you trace the unfolding of the divine Spirit in man, save by giving him time and environment by which these successive stages may be accomplished. ”

“ They understand the meaning of the saying "what thou sowest thou must reap," and always endeavor to mould their future by better thoughts and better deeds. They explain all the inequalities and diversities of life and character by the law of "Karma," which governs the process of Reincarnation as well as the gradual evolution of the germs of life from lower to higher stages of existence. ”

“ In Central Africa, slaves who are hunchbacked or maimed forestall the hour of death by voluntary self-immolation, in the hope of being reborn in the bodies of men who will be free and perfectly formed.
To sum up: all tradition, whether popular, philosophical, or religious, is instinct with the teaching of Rebirth. [282]
Objection. Reincarnation and Forgetfulness of the Past.
Sceptics are ever bringing forward against reincarnation the absence of all memory of past lives, convinced that there can be no answer to this argument. ”

“ This is about all that we can cite in favour of the doctrine of reincarnation. It is not enough to weigh down the scales. But all the other suppositions, theories or religions, excepting spiritualism, which for the rest is perfectly consistent with successive existences, have less solid foundations and are even, to be truthful, devoid of any. ”

“ Reincarnation is the periodic "dip" of an immortal individual into materiality for the working out of karma, after an interval, long or short, spent under other conditions of existence. These alternations constitute the broader and deeper diapason of human life, of which the change from waking to sleeping represents the lesser, and the momentary awareness and unawareness of the sense mechanism to stimulation, the least. ”

“ As a matter of fact, advanced occultists, and other Reincarnationists, claim that nothing is really forgotten, but that every event is stored away in some of the recesses of the mind, below the level of consciousness--which [Pg 200] idea agrees with that of modern psychologists. And Reincarnationists claim that when man unfolds sufficiently on some higher plane, he will have a full recollection of his past experiences in all of his incarnations. ”