Reincarnation

Do you believe in reincarnation?

If so, why? On what basis do you belive?

 

I definately believe in it.

First of all the thought of everyone going into heaven is dodgy, i coudnt imagine staying there for ever and ever and ever and ever even if it is paradise. And thinking that when you die you just end is a scary thought for me so that probably influences my opinion.
Then theres the fact that you cant destroy energy, only change it into annother form, so i think our souls are like an energy that has to be turned into something else(or move onto annother life)
In my opinion, ghosts are souls that have not let go of their previous life yet (bit of the unfinished business thing) and are not ready or aware that they can move onto their next one so thir energy just floats arround for a bit.
Then if you think, as your body decomposes it gives life to lots of other organisms, or if your cremated the carbon given off is breathed in by other living things, dont know what that has to do with reincarnation but it means that you go on after youre dead.

Anyway thats just my idea of what happens after you die, id also like to be able to choose what id be next but think that gets chosen for you by cosmic and karmic influences.

 

ahhh....double post...sorry there....

 

Before the ideas of reincarnation even entered my mind...the whole heaven/hell thing seamed odd...I don't think I ever though to fear God.....so the idea that God was loving and the idea of hell never quite matched up for me...for the longest time, while staying with the Judeo/Christian traditions...I thought that perhaps hell was where you go to learn from your mistakes and when you figured it out...then you went to heaven...and I don't know...after thinking that for so long...when the idea of reincarnation (what it really is...not what most in the Western world interpret it to be...) came to me...it just kind of made sense.....plus the fact that it was taught in original Christianity...it just kind of makes it make even more sense to me...I think it got changed somewhere along the way as a scare tactic....and that really saddens me....

 

when i was a young boy, while all the other kids were riding around on bicycles, i was wanting to attach my wagon to the back of their bicycle and have them pull me around

i as well refused to eat meat and took an early interest in yoga, hinduism and meditation

when i was older and learned of my father being a member of viceroy montbatten's flight crew in india, i asked him if he recieved a blessing from a holy man for me to be his son as clearly i wasn't of the western hemisphere

he said the only blessings he ever recieved were from the prostitutes and so i have come to understand my being an avatar of the blessings of the prostitutes of india

 

i'm not quite sure where you stand now on prabhupada's teachings as you were into them quite a bit at one time but he teached this idea of hell... its actually mentioned in the 5th canto, srimad bhagavatam which more liberal thinkers including bhaktivinode thakura, one of prabhupada's predessessor gurus has categorized as allegorical thought, ie, we create our own heaven and hells

 

I'm very familiar with the 5th Canto...describes various hells and those eligible for them in detail. Prabhupada's point was that bad earthly behavior can land you in hell but it isn't eternal, like in Christianity. You do your time, come back to earth in an appropriate body, and pick up where you left off, hopefully having learned something.

Regarding reincarnation in general:

I was scratching my head over stuff like Adam and Eve, original sin, the 6-day creation vs. 100 million yr. old dinosaurs, and eternal hell or heaven when I was a 7 yr. old kid in Christian school. I just blanked it all out until I got into college and took Eastern civ courses and started reading books by Yogananda, Ram Dass, various Gita versions...of which I liked Prabhupada's the most...and attended lectures by several Indian spiritual teachers or their followers.

 

but prabhupada's point was that there was still a place where folks went to get punished which is a fallacy and quite an idiotic idea cuz if we can't remember being in hell in a previous lifetime, what's the point in sending folks there to get punished? it kinda paints a depraved picture of deity similar to that we have in the west who likes to punish people for no apparent good reason

sorry but i go with the poetic interpretations of s.b.

 

I'd have to guess that we remember it on a subconscious level. Also, it is accelerated purification for a large amount of sin or bad karma that would otherwise take many earthly lifetimes to atone for. The hells described in Bhagawatam aren't punishment for no good reason, as Christian hell would nearly always be...In Christianity, an eternity in hell is the price of mere unbelief.

 

Molly it isnt punishment, it is cause and effect. You see the instant we start saying good and bad, right and wrong, there is a problem, because these are subjective. Karma is better off in terms of action and reaction. You recieve according to what you do. If you were a source of pain and agony to others, you suffer the same. Simple enough. If you gave joy, you recieve joy.

As for believing in reincarnation, it seems to explain why I could chant the vedas when I was 3 years old. It seems to explain how intuitively I understood vedantic concepts without being taught. And plus, it just makes solid good sense.

 

Agree...very well stated, this is the basic principle. Also taught as a fundamental spiritual tenet by Jesus Christ, but seems to be long out of fashion in Christianity.

 

So - reading through all the replies it seems that a belief in reincarnation is based on either the un-acceptability of trad. christian notions of heaven and hell (Nicole - I'm not at all convinced that original christianity taught reincarnation - it is almost certain though that Christ taught forgiveness of sins - in Hindu terms that would mean changing the karma).

Otherwise it is based on scripture.
In my mind, the idea that one will reincarnate to suffer/enjoy the results of previous karma seems very much akin to the christian idea of a place for the good and another for the bad. Bad karma leading to a difficult incarnation - or even where one's life will be snuffed out before one has grown to any kind of maturity - child victims of natural disasters etc.
So I think on that level the general thinking is the same - God/karma/the universe will either reward or punish you for your deeds here. The big difference is that heaven and hell are said to be eternal, whilst a human incarnation is only for a time.

One problem with this type of view is that it's easy to construct a strong argument that all this was created mainly for purposes of social control. If you can convince people that they will be punished for bad or immoral acts in a future existence, it is easier to instill in them a set of behaviours in line with the requirements of worldy power.
It can also lead one to concieve of God in a fearful way - as a merciless being who is stuck on a kind of tit-for-tat vengence trip.
If I were God, I wouldn't put a child into a situation where it can be injured and left in agony for days before merciful death occurs, no matter what the being had done previously. It may suit the lowest type of human thinking, which always wants cruel vengence, to believe such things, but it would put God on a lower moral level than many ordinary human hearted people.

Well and good. But what if we want to know, rather than just believe? Why should one accept one set of scripures with their assertions over and above another?

A whole other set of considerations arises here. It could be said that some have remembered past lives for example. But that is not inconravertible evidence, because it can be accounted for in other ways - a kind of Jungian collective unconscious for instance could account for all such experiences - they may even be cellular memories, encoded in some way in the physical structure of the body/brain. In some cases they may be purely imaginary.

I'm not saying reincarnation is real or unreal. I'm just trying to point out that there are other levels of argument and interpretation around the topic, and hopefully, stimulate some debate.

 

so even if we do remember it, psychology has clearly demonstrated that punishment is the poorest of measures to effect positive change in an individual and so if a god was so desiring our evolution beyond our tendency to act akarmically, his/her creating a place call hell to do so would be self-defeating to the desired result

hell as in heaven, is what we create... in truth, there is only heaven and we have to make an effort to have hell

 

cheers... that's what i believe... can i get you a beer? am not sure what lead you to think i thought otherwise

 

Interesting that Jesus forgave the very men who were nailing him to a tree - they were dispensing pain and death - so did they have to suffer as a result, even though Jesus forgave them?
I'm not trying to push Christianity here - I'm sure there are numerous examples of similar acts of compassion in Hinduism and other paths, as well as such acts carried out un-noticed by many people on a daily basis.

If someone harms you, but you forgive them, and ask God to forgive them, will they still suffer the results of the karma - or, has a kind of higher karma then intervened?

 

"one of the bosse's hangers on
sometimes comes to call
at times you least expect
trying to bully you
strong arm you
inspire you with fear-
it has the opposite effect."

Bob Dylan 'Floater' (on 'Love & Theft).

 

Ummm....I'm not really into them now...but I actually got the idea from Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil...I don't even know if I ever remembered hearing that from any of Prabhupada's teachings...

 

I'm pretty sure it was...and that it was changed when the emperor Constantine made Christianity a big to do...that it was lost in the mix...I'm almost sure that it was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls...I could be wrong...I'm just pretty sure that that was what I had found a few times...

 

That's an interesting point...I don't think its all black and white...you know....I'm sure there are some grey areas...as is most everything...

 

my own idea of forgiveness is the forgiving is more for our benefit and not those of whom we forgive... letting go of our anger so that our vision of god may not be clouded

life is forgiving... for giving love, beauty, food, clothing, comfort to those we share community and the planet with