La Reincarnation It is a belief that many cultures have, which consists in the physical disappearance of a person, when all his essence, his soul, his energy dies, he is born in another body, and this process occurs several times, until he has reconciled his karmas , in this article we will talk about it.
What is Reincarnation?
La reincarnation It is the belief that people after they die, are born in another body keeping their soul or spirit, that is, they are born in another physical form after they die. This belief is popularly grouped and takes on many different terms:
- Metempsychosis comes from the Greek term arches which means after, successive and psyche which means spirit, soul.
- Transmigration which means to migrate through the soul.
- Reincarnation which means to incarnate again.
- Rebirth which means to be born again.
All these terms point out that the soul or spirit travels after death and appears in another body when it is born again, in order to continue learning all the lessons that life gives it; It also points to the existence of a parallel universe where the soul or spirit chooses to reincarnate, until achieving the elevation of the state of consciousness, which is achieved through lived experiences, which will encourage it to continue evolving. The same phenomenon of reincarnation, but without the belief in a soul or spirit, can be understood as:
- metensomatosis: comes from arches, which means after, successive and sumwhich comes from the body.
- Palingenesis or palingenesis: results from palin, which means again and genesis, which is understood as birth/beginning.
Almost all of humanity has this belief of reincarnation since ancient times, but those who use this theory the most are Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, African and tribal religions of America and Oceania also tend to have these same beliefs.
However, Judeo-Christian religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam consider that the belief that a person dies and lives again or appears with another body, with a totally more evolved personality, is a heresy, but beyond all these positions the belief of reincarnation continues to subsist.
Eastern religions and traditions
There are some religions that usually call it dharmic, these originated in Hinduism and assert that reincarnation exists, which is called the endless cycle or wheel of karma. They seek enough good deeds for there to be liberation or the end of the cycle.
In China and Japan, they also incorporate reincarnation into the traditional religions of their countries and venerate their ancestors, as Japan does through the Shinto, which notoriously influences its popular contemplation, its culture and the folklore of both countries.
Hinduism
In the mythology of religion brahmanicalThey are certain that when the death of the body occurs, the soul or spirit leaves the body that has already deteriorated and is dragged by the Yamaduta, who are the messengers who assist the God Lama, which is the one that judges the karma of absolutely all the souls that are in the universe.
Everything depended on good or bad actions, the soul reincarnates in a higher, intermediate or lower life. Including some states of existence, whether heavenly or hellish, and human life would be an intermediate state.
This continuous process is called Samsara or better known as wandering, and this terminology comes from the Sanskrit verb samsri, which means to flow together wander. On the other hand, when Eastern cultures refer to wandering, for them it is greed, provision of goods, they also say that it is killing time, that it is a life that has no meaning.
All souls make this journey, which include the gods called devaseven the insects. The meaning of the path of a soul that is within this universe is punctuated by its actions, its acts. Hinduism affirms that the state in which the soul is reborn is determined by those good or bad actions and they call this karma, depending on what they do in those previous reincarnations.
That is why the souls that have always done wrong will reincarnate in bodies that are inferior, such as animals, even insects, trees. You can also reincarnate in lower states of hellish experience or unhappy lives. This great weight that karma instills in us can be relieved a little by practicing yoga, because you can increase your consciousness, to very high levels, of course depending on the degree of yoga that you are practicing.
Also the practice of your good deeds, such as generosity, keeping calm and internal joy, and doing good even if we are treated badly. Deprive yourself of all the things that are going to hinder your growth of your soul, or that are even hindering communication with beings that are higher, so be grateful and generous.
This Hindu religious thought, along with the belief in transmigration emerges as a doctrine in their Indian religious texts, which they call Upanishad, which replaced the ancient philosophical texts called vedas, fact that occurred between 1500 7 600 years before Christ. And the UpanishadThey were written between 500 years before Christ and 1600 after Christ.
This is why the release of reincarnation in Hinduism or Samara It happens after managing to expiate or overcome the weight of karma, that is, all your actions, both good and bad of all your actions. This process will continue to occur until the individual soul or atman, get the evolution and get to reach the Brahma, who was the one who made the universe and the one who frees you from the misfortune of continuing to reincarnate.
As explained above, this could be relieved by practicing yoga, and if this happened after death, one leaves the material universe and unifies with the divine light, that is, the brightness that comes from the Brahman, together with the belief of that individual soul or atman. If you are enjoying this article, you may be interested in: gods of buddhism
Jainism
El jainism it is a religion that came after Hinduism and emerged at the same time as Buddhism. In this religion, the souls accumulate the fruits of their good or bad actions through everything they do in their past lives.
Even if the Jain accumulates, a lot of karma or good karma, it is possible that his soul reincarnates in a semi-divine entity, however, the practitioners of this belief, what they want is an absolute liberation.
Sikhism
In this monotheistic religion, reincarnation is a belief that is included with Hinduism. The Sikhs they have the belief that the soul must pass from one body to another to evolve and this happens when the soul is purified after performing good deeds, and thanks to this, the soul reincarnates forever.
Which means that if people do good deeds like a gurmoja, you will get salvation with God. So you have to recite the your name, that is, the name of God to follow that path of gurmat.
Budismo
Buddhism emerged from Hinduism and spread throughout the Eastern countries, and made many reforms of its point of view until a new religion was established.
His vision of reincarnation is different, because he affirms and denies it at the same time. What he denies is that entity that can reincarnate, that is, that neither soul, mind, nor spirit can reincarnate. And he affirms by saying that a person appears according to the actions that he or she does, that is, reincarnation would be closer to rebirth than to transmigration.
Buddhists have a strong belief that through nirvana, the cessation of rebirth can be achieved. Now, within Buddhism there is also the Tibetan tradition, which very often uses reincarnation, but the Zen tradition largely ignores it.
In the Tibetan tradition it teaches that you must go through the bardo, which is a transition state followed by death and this has a time of 49 days, which is written in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
“Buddhism can be differentiated from Christianity and other Western religions, as they have not thought of the notion of an immortal soul or rebirth. In the Milinda-pañja, the king asks many questions, and the sage who teaches the king makes a statement as to whether there really is a prolongation between the individuals and the I am you and you are me, so for him there is no such thing. transmigration. To understand this, one would have to know the subject of time and eternity.
El Milinda-panja demonstrates the paradox with the analog of one torch lighting another:
"Neither the candle nor the candle have alike, and yet one owes its existence to the other."
That is why Buddhism raises nirvana to stop the wheel of births and even death. And the school Mahayana points out that these cycles culminate after all living beings achieve enlightenment. So reincarnation would be the change in the course of the same life, that is to say, that the I evolve.
Just as the child dies to make way for the adolescent, with other fears and desires, therefore reincarnation is the change of appearances, of identities, of truths and a change of personality. And all these things you get in the same life.
So there is no reincarnation after physical death, but in the course of the same life one dies a little and is also reborn. In this way you live in the present, without depending on time or the external.
Shinto
El Shinto it was identified as a religion after Buddhism arrived in Japan, that is why their beliefs were influenced by them, so they merged and that is why there is a mixture of shamanism and animism.
They already had the knowledge of reincarnation and that in a certain way, these spirits or souls are related to living beings. Still the Shinto He has no idea how salvation works, which is why the Japanese often turn to Buddhism for guidance on this topic. This religion of the country of Japan, transforms part of its mythical elements which it calls karma, which are usually the ones who reincarnate with multiple missions.
Taoism
For the Taoists, the Tao is a higher principle that permeates the entire universe and that is why its nature is eternal, perpetual. That is why reincarnation exists because everything that has life flows through the Tao. The Taoist was not interested in exterminating this theory of reincarnation, rather he continues the path of the Tao, which ends when you become one with it, thus achieving immortality.
Religions and western traditions
When we hear the word “reincarnation”, we regularly associate it with ideas that originate from the Eastern world, with its specific mysticism dating back many years. Yet the West is no stranger to these beliefs.
classical greek philosophy
In this story Diogenes Laertius is described, in which Pythagoras recognizes a friend who died, but was reincarnated in the body of a dog that had beaten him:
“Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of souls, and thought when meat decomposed as something detestable, expressing that the souls of all living beings later jumped from death to other living beings. And in it he stated that the memories of him when he was in Troy in the times of Euphorbus, son of Panthus, that Menelaus was the one who murdered him. »
Plato was the first exponent of reincarnation in the Hellenes, which has been reviewed in the work of Phaedrus, makes the description of how the soul of a human, according to the truth he has discovered, will be born in one type of body or another. This is because souls must go in search of perfection. On The Republic explains how a fabulous warrior Er he dies in battle, but returns after ten days, where he comes to appreciate the souls of all men, waiting to be reborn again.
Celts
In order to understand the thought of this European culture, it is necessary to highlight what is underlined by Alexander Polyhistor in the first century before Christ, who commented the following:
"The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among the Gauls, instructing that the souls of men are immortal, and that after a certain number of years they re-enter another body."
Roman general and politician Julius Caesar, recognized that the priests of Gaul, Britain and Ireland, assume transmigration as one of their main methods:
"They strive above all to convince the immortality of souls and their transfer from one body to another, whose affirmation they qualify as an enormous incentive for courage, placing the fear of death separately."
Judaism
Judaism, as well as Christianity, do not admit this doctrine officially and despite the fact that it is outlined within the cabal. At Zohar the following can be read:
“All souls are subject to translation, and men who do not know the way of the Lord, let them be consecrated; they do not know that they are brought before a court, when they enter this world as when they leave it. They are ignorant of the many occult rehearsals and rehearsals they have to go through.”
Christianity
Christianity unanimously opposes reincarnation, because they think that this is a doctrine that contradicts the Bible, but they still believe in the resurrection.
But some Christian currents, such as the spiritualists, believe in reincarnation, and in fact have accepted it. They also have the conviction that this doctrine can be verified in the sacred writings of the Bible, including in the primitive Christian tradition.
ancient christianity
Most of Gnosticism, not all, accepted this doctrine of reincarnation, because it was a very broad belief within the cultural text at that time. In fact, there were fathers of the church who came to discuss the subject in their articles, rejecting outright, among them is Irenaeus of Lyon, where he delved into the subject in eight chapters of his writing «About the soul”, its origins, highlighting the ambiguity of what it shaped, where an acceptance can be perceived, but at the same time a rejection of it.
Hermeticism
Fundamentally, the doctrine of the soul in hermeticism thinks that the soul is the container where all the errors of men are poured and when they enter the body they are diluted, which can be elevated or punished depending on disrespect and even attachment to the passions corporal.
That is why the souls must cross all the elements to be able to purify themselves little by little, reincarnating until they get the choir of the gods, since this is the award of those who are pious and with God, they are those who serve others. But people who do not do this will live in sacrilege, will not be able to return to heaven, and will have to undergo reincarnation in various bodies. If you are enjoying this article, you may be interested in: mantra to meditate
reincarnation research
The writer Ian Stevenson He asserted that after investigating several children, they remembered a past life. This writer studied 2500 cases for 40 years, so he managed to publish twelve books including Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, translated into Spanish as Twenty cases that suggest reincarnation y Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. Stevenson systematically substantiates all the statements of each of the children and then managed to obtain the identity of that person who died, with the data that he had provided.
When verifying all the data of the life of the person who died, they agreed with the memories that had been provided by the child. Another detail that he obtained in his inquiries were birth marks and defects, which were consistent with the wounds and scars of the deceased person, which were duly certified by his clinical history, he also found photographs of the autopsies, which are reviewed in his book Reincarnation and Biology.
Stevenson He devoted himself to obtaining evidence that they could not refute, giving due explanations in his reports, eliminating each one that was normal in order to demonstrate each of the children's memories, but the vast majority of his reincarnation cases that this writer reviewed originated in Eastern societies, where this concept predominates within their culture.
When criticism arose, he published a book on different cases in the West. Where he includes other writers and researchers on the subject, where he reviews Jim B Tucker, Brian Weiss y Raymond Moody.
But there were also some skeptics like Paul edwards, who analyzed some of these stories, which he called anecdotal, and it was here that the skeptics affirmed that the evidence of reincarnation originated from selective thinking and false memories, which sometimes arise from beliefs and fears, for that reason cannot be accepted as empirical evidence.
Carl Sagan refers to the cases of the investigations of Stevensonin his book the world and its demons (The Demon Haunted World), which he puts as an example of empirical data, which he placed carefully collected, however, cataloged as stingy, this explanation of reincarnation in these stories.
One challenge to these claims of reincarnation is that the vast majority of people have no memory of their past lives and that there is no mechanism that allows the personality to survive death after having traveled to another body and Stevenson as a researcher, acknowledge those limitations.
Tertullian He also makes an objection to reincarnation and this is due to the inconsistency with the gradual growth of the population. This reasoning has been challenged today, because there is a compatibility between the growth of the human population with this hypothesis of reincarnation. In Argentina, many groups also arose that were called past life research workshops, where in 2017 they made some publications of their work.
western popular culture
In the course of the XNUMXth century, Western cultures have been very flexible on this subject, probably because of the great diversity of their tastes and beliefs.
On the other hand, the situation that some Europeans and Americans were experiencing, due to the economic chaos that was taking place at that time, plus the political problems were proportionally affecting their thoughts and ideas regarding life and in this way, many questions arose about suffering and its existence.
It was very conducive to the American and European nobility to prevent some religious thoughts that were emerging at that time, especially the young people who were being influenced by this religious current and because of this, a consensus was sought.
In this way, reincarnation turned around and the explanation of all social injustices began to open up, which were the result of a single scientific explanation and was what we know as karma.
Both the United Kingdom and the United States had many Eastern sects that placed great emphasis on neutralizing politics and above all giving an explanation of all the disastrous facts of social and personal life, looking for a truth that had to be found in oneself, in order to transcend to a better life.
In this way reincarnation also arises among the aborigines of the United States, where their beliefs are that each man travels along the red path or the black path and when we die a long journey is made, which ends in a first path that is to leave to be born and die in order to retire in the center of all things.
That is why people who have lived a life full of hatred, perversity, selfishness have to pay in some way, since they have to be reborn so that they pay for everything they once did in their past life.
modern thinkers
There are many modern thinkers who do not agree with reincarnation, among them is Rene Guenon and in his book "The Spiritualist Mistake", points out that this doctrine is Western and that it has nothing to do with Eastern doctrines such as metamorphosis or the passage of souls:
"Reincarnation is a thought referring to Kardecist spiritualism that has been accepted by other neo-spiritualist establishments."
In France, one of the main spiritualists, as was Pierart y Anatole Barthe, who have said that spiritualism has made reincarnation a belief. Which was taken for the first time, by Theosophism and then Papusian occultism followed in its footsteps and continued its rise by other schools.
Some people think that this representation is a modern chimera that comes from western cultures, others see it as a social conception, for some French socialists who lived in the middle of the XNUMXth century, this idea represented an explanation of the inequality of social conditions. While the spiritualists maintain their position and have wanted to spread the explanation to all people who have intellectual and physical inequalities. And the Hindu orientalist Ananda Coomaraswamy states in his book «The Vedanta» and the western tradition:
“I am not saying that a belief in reincarnation has never been held in India. I say that such a belief can only have resulted from a popular misunderstanding of the symbolic language of the texts; and that the belief of modern scholars and Theosophists is the result of an equally simplistic and uninformed interpretation of the texts.”
The mixed being falls apart in the cosmos; there is nothing that can be perpetuated as an awareness of being. The elements of the psychophysical form break down and pass on to others as an inheritance. That is, a process that has been occurring throughout life, and that this Hindu practice is also propagated, as is the case of the rebirth of the father towards a son.
This is how he lives with his children and grandchildren, direct and indirect. This Indian doctrine on reincarnation is the same as the Greek doctrine that calls it metasomatosis, this is a Christian doctrine that arose earlier when Adam existed, from here originates that transmission of psychophysical characters and that others call our inheritance by original sin, that in metaphysics they put our inheritance by ignorance, and that the philosopher describes as the congenital capacity to know in terms of subject and object.
Reincarnation is a stream that means individual souls return to other bodies here in this world. This is not an Indian dogmatic doctrine, it is simply a popular belief. Or as he says Dr BC Law:
"Needless to say, the practitioner rejects the notion of an ego passing from one embodiment to another."
Nine Physical Evidences of Reincarnation
Apart from reincarnation, some religions have mentioned some cases where it can be shown that the soul can indeed pass from one body to another new body.
The following are some stories that may need scientific investigation, but despite this, it could raise some doubts even for the most skeptical.
Cravings
In some places in Asia, after a person dies, relatives mark him on a place on his body, usually with soot, so that his soul reincarnates again in the same family. This culture has the belief that this mark when a baby is born becomes a birthmark
The Journal of Scientific Exploration has made mention of many cases of babies who were born with spots that are very similar to the marks they left on a deceased relative, among these findings is the case of the Burmese baby, who called his grandmother as her late husband used to call her, from a very characteristic shape.
Baby born with gunshots
Ian Stevenson, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, focused on the study of some defects that children had when they were born and that had no apparent cause.
One of the cases reported was that of a Turkish boy, who apparently had traces or traces of the life of a man who had been killed with a shotgun, with a shot to the right region of his skull. The boy was born with the ear on that side very deformed and the face on his right side was far behind, these defects are registered one in 6.000 children and one in 3.500 children individually.
Patient who 'killed' his son and 'married' him
Brian Weiss, a Miami psychiatrist, wrote in his book a case of a patient who called Diane, which they subjected to hypnosis and it was agreed that he was a young North American colonist at the time of the conflict that arose with the indigenous people. He narrated that she was hiding with her baby from the stalking of the indigenous, so she inadvertently drowned her son, trying to silence the crying so that they would not be discovered.
Many months passed after hypnosis was performed on Diane, who worked as a nurse in that hospital and fell in love with a patient she attended and had the same crescent-shaped mark that her baby had in the past life. The doctor White he states that he is aware of many people who suffer from asthma and that they have some memories of them drowning in their past lives. If you are enjoying this article, you may be interested in: The man and the nature
Reincarnated and with the same writing
Taranjit Singh is a Hindu boy, when he was two years old he used to say that his original name was Satnam singhIn addition, he had been born in a town that was a few kilometers from his house. On the other hand, he narrated that he was a student who was in the ninth grade, and that he died due to a traffic accident, and at the time of his death he had 30 rupees in his wallet, and his books were stained with his blood.
when his father Ranjit He listened to all these fantastic stories, he investigated whether there was indeed a young man by the name of Satnam Singh in that town, during the investigation they told him that everything was true, even the young man died because he was run over by a motorcycle.
Ranjit went in search of the family, who confirmed all the details that his son taranjit he mentioned, effectively recognizing Satnam in a family photo. So the boy was brought before a forensic handwriting expert named Vikram Raj Chauhan which made a comparison of the notes of the deceased young man's notebook with those of a child and there were many similarities in them.
born speaking swedish
Professor Stevenson conducted studies on a 37-year-old American woman who, after undergoing parapsychological regression, began to speak Swedish.
In this regression, the woman stated that she was a Swedish citizen and that her name was Jensen Jacoby. His lexicon had around 100 words, and experts confirmed that his accent was a mix between Swedish and Norwegian. When they interviewed her relatives, they ruled out the possibility that she had learned a Scandinavian language.
memories of monasteries
A Californian psychiatrist named Adrian Finkelstein recounts in his book, the story of a boy named robin hull, who spoke with his mother a language they did not know. So an Asian language teacher identifies it as a language that is used in the northern region of Tibet.
Robin, who is a preschool child, narrated that he studied many years ago in a monastery and there he learned that language. That is why the professor traveled to Tibet, where he located the monastery that Robin described in his story. Which was in the Kunlun mountain range.
Burns of a Japanese soldier
Ian Stevenson conducted another investigation on a girl named Burmese, Ma Win Tar, who was born in 1962 and when he was three years old he identified himself as a Japanese soldier who was captured by the Burmese, tied to a tree and burned alive.
This girl had congenital defects in both of her hands, her middle and ring fingers of her right hand were glued, that is, joined to the rest of her hand, she was also missing several of her fingers and her wrists had marks very similar to a burnt rope .
scars of his brother
There are references that kevin christenson, died of cancer in 1979. The fracture of one of his legs caused metastasis and chemotherapy was done through a cut in his neck, he had a tumor that caused his left eye to pop out a little and also a nodule in his right ear.
After twelve years, his mother had divorced and remarried and had a baby named Patrick, who looked a lot like his deceased brother, the most amazing thing is that he had a sign very similar to the cut they made to Kevin.
He also had a nodule in the same place as his brother and to be even more surprised, Patrick he had a problem with his left eye, that is, he was diagnosed with corneal leukoma. And when the boy started to walk he was limping, even though there was no reason for him to walk that way.
Like father like grandson
In 1992, they shot John McConnell. And his daughter Doreen had a son she named William, when the little boy was five years old, he was diagnosed with pulmonary atrophy, which is a congenital malformation of the pulmonary valve that stops the blood from passing through the lungs to be oxygenated.
The boy recovered after several surgeries and treatment. Everything the boy had was similar to what his grandfather had after the shots he received in the back that punctured his left lung where the pulmonary artery from his heart ran.
And one day before going to school William he told his mother: "When you were a child and I was your father, you behaved badly from time to time, but I never hit you."
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