Reincarnation

Ive read some views on reincarnation already, I'm just wondering what you guys all think about it but also how you think it will work..Not scientifically work but why we are reincarnated in one certain creature, not necessarily how that type of creature is chosen but why that particular single creature is chosen..

Personally, I have a really weird view and I'm trying to work everything out in my head, I believe we have a soul but perhaps its attached materially to us..so if I die Id like to think that wherever my remains go, I go too...I can see myself ending up as a pavement or something! Any animals or people it touches get a part of me, and that's how we're all made up, from things past..But I don't know. Just wondering your own views on reincarnation, I know mine's whacked!

 

Your energies get released at the moment of death and anything just about to be born takes from you what it needs. Thats how id like to think of it.

 

Re-incarnation, like any religous symbol, is metaphorical. The idea is to help people realize that their identity is not physical, but spiritual in nature.

 

Our bodies are made of two parts, the gross body, which is our physical body and the subtle body, which is our mind/intellect/memory. When the gross body dies, the subtle body leaves it and enters another gross body. The next gross body depends upon
a) our accumulated karma
b) our vasanas (desires)

Not only which species we are born as, but which place, which family we are born to is decided by these factors. An explanation of how/why is very difficult since we never know a person's full karma and vasanas accumulated over thousands of millions of lives. It is, however, explained that once we have a human birth we rarely return to animal birth unless we work up some majorly evil karma. Eventually the end of this evolution over births from stone to plant to animal to human ends in a merger with divinity, enlightenment or moksha or nirvana, call it what you like.

There is a very beautiful poem by Jelaluddin Rumi on this very subject that I would like to share:

I have again and again grown like grass;
I have experienced seven hundred and seventy moulds.
I died from minerality and became vegetable;
And from vegetativeness I died and became animal.
I died from animality and became man.
Then why fear disappearance through death?
Next time I shall die
Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels:
After that soaring higher than angels -
What you cannot imagine. I shall be that.

 

Why is an animal considered downward progression? I would prefer to be an animal [other than a human], I doubt I am completely alone. --Aside from believing that humans are for some reason higher in the progression of the soul... but aren't we presupposing an awful lot already?


How did you come about this knowledge of this dualist actuality, Bhaskar?

 

That's something to think about Bhaskar..I like that idea. (And its funny cause our physical body is the gross one but that's just my immaturity)

 

First of all it is not dualistic at all. It does not contradict any advaitic (non-dualistic) tenets of Hinduism. Second of all it is the teaching of Bhagawad Geeta, of the vedas and upanishads.

Animals, while they are wonderful, they are not intellectually as developed as humans. Plants are intellectually less developed than animals. Rocks are less developed than plants. Diamonds may be absolutely wonderfully beautiful, but they cannot write poetry. Animals, while being quite intelligent, are still very limited intellectually. For example: the bee hive is a marvel of engineering. How the bees share tasks in building and running it is a marvel of management and division of labor. But the bees have been doing it the same way for millions of years, they have not improved nor adapted their methods. Even when humans use them and take away their honey, they have no method to counteract this. They have no choice but to do it the way they have always been doing it.

Animals are wonderful, I love them. I have always had multiple pets, I know they are veyr very affectionate, they can bond and understand when you talk to them, etc. But they do not have the intellectual potential that humans do.

 

I used to believe that when you reincarnate you shed your old bodies and get a new one. I don't think of in terms of that now.

I think of it more in terms of that you become part of the universe and that you are reborn through out creation.

Blessings

Sebbi

 

reincarnation, transmigration...


i have always liked that rumi poem...

& buddhism allows for no abiding, eternal "self" (atman), but the skhandas (sanskr. "bundles") which determine who we are in this lifetime do have a tendency to regroup into similar conifigurations (as influenced by karma)





but, like de man done said:

i never believed in reincarnation in any of my previous lives, and i see no reson to start believing in this one...

heh...

 

Your belief at its core is dualistic. You believe you have both a physical and metaphysical existence, no? How did you come but this definition of existence?

Indeed many other animals are intelligent, however, you are assuming that being relatively more intellgent and the possession of the unique mental facutlies of humans is desirable.

Why is it desirable?

I think for you to answer that question you would need to rely a particular meaning or a goal of life. That is, maybe a progression of understanding, and that progression is facilitated by increased awareness and ability to percieve and understand.

I realize I am going off on a tangent that may not be applicable, but: approximately how many lives would be necessary? You must first define what you are attempting to accomplish. Emotional and spiritual balance? Experience in general [then to what end]? The amount of emotions themselves is finite and I would guess that you could experience them all within a single life time or at most two. That is emotion by itself, because if you add experience to this emotion it would be limitless because experience is limitless. You would be reincarnated infinitely.

Whether you assume you have no choice in the matter or it is your conscious desire to reach some sort of predefined standard, to 'experience' would be an indefinite goal and could not be a standard of the same meaning.

I myself would much rather prefer being a cat. Especially one of afluent owners. No worries, no despair. My knowledge of feline brain function is limited, but I assume basic emtions of fear [and resulting sadness] and pleasure [and resulting happiness] would be present. As a conscious human being I can say that I am willing to accept relatively limited mental abilities and possibly limited joy if I was oblivious to an alternative. I think the life a cat would be a much more desirable life, a life completely in aesthetic perception without subsequent boredom.

 

Bhaskar...