Let’s have a look at the theory of rebirth and recreation. A seed is sown into the earth. We nourish and nurture it with water and sunlight. The space in which it grows and the breeze gently brush it with the proper nutrients. A sapling soon emerges and grows to be a plant.
The plant starts flowering and it Attracts bees, butterflies and other insects.
The process of pollination starts taking place. The plant, with time, grows to be a full-fledged fruit-laden tree. The flower becomes fruits, and the fruits drop off once ripe. The leaves and branches of the tree dry up and keep shedding seasonally.
The purpose of every living organism, including plants, is to create offspring for the next generation. The ways that plants recreate is by making seeds.
Man too, goes through a similar process of creation and recreation.
Through fertilization, the semen from man and the ovum, which is the egg from the woman embryo, forms. The embryo grows to be a foetus and develops into a baby with all limbs and organs in the mother’s womb. This takes about nine months, and the baby is born into this world.
The child grows to be an infant, toddler, youth, adult and finally goes through old age and dies. When the man dies, it is the body that is flesh, blood and bones that decays. The life essence, prana or spirit soul, leaves the body, travels to the astral plane and returns through a new baby a new body.
The gross or physical body of man is either cremated or buried according to the respective religions. But the subtle body or vital force or linga sharira which is nothing but the sense perceptions, mind, intellect, systematic functions of the body, and all actions of the past lives, leaves the body and traverses to the astral realm. It is like a complete diary.
Theory of Rebirth and Recreation
The soul enters the mother’s womb with all the bodily functions, with all faculties and emotions.
It exhibits the different emotions of grief, joy, anger and pain. These are the impressions that carry themselves from the previous life as a platform for the new onward journey.
The individual soul keeps taking new forms and bodies to enjoy the merits of the previous life and progress towards evolution. Just like how you climb each step to complete the flight of stairs and reach the top, the individual soul keeps going through different births till it merges with the supreme soul. All the incomplete pleasure and pain resulting from the virtuous and vicious actions of each life carries forward through samskaras in the new birth. The analogy of the seed and fruit which came first is always a debate. The soul, therefore, has no beginning or end and is immortal.
Man practices yoga asanas, pranayama, physical exercises and different routines for a healthy mind and body. The mind, which is the entity for ego or ahamkara, has to be dealt with independently. Through the reading of scriptures, having a teacher or through surrender, man can sail through life gracefully. An individual’s primary purpose is to wean himself away from the Maya of samsara towards God-realization.
Karma – The leveller
Karma is the leveller, and every cause has an effect. No one can escape the chakrika of birth and death or the fruits of every action in thought, word and deed. Every birth presents new situations. We keep meeting new people, we get new identities, unique circumstances for new learning and progress towards evolution.
There are many examples throughout the world of how infants and toddlers speak about their past lives. They are born very talented and skilled and can continue their skills from where they had left off in their previous lives. Musicians, mathematicians, environmentalists, orators, leaders, saints and sages. The internet is bereft with many stories.
Reincarnation in Lower Births – Theory of Rebirth and Recreation
Man is in a continuous learning process. Based on his past actions and deeds, the credit and debit balance of his actions in thought word and deed keeps shifting like a weighing balance. Some activities carry more weight than others. Love, compassion, kindness is more superior to anger, greed, jealousy or being spiteful. The karmic balance reflects the different births a man takes and also the various forms.
The soul chooses the womb and the body for rebirth. However, immaterial of all the actions, rebirth in the human form is always towards evolution. This evolutionary journey is to do with new learnings leaving the past behind, and moving towards clarity and wisdom.
Based on the past deeds, the soul may be reborn as animals like a pig, wolf, dog or fish to bring about a karmic adjustment. Essentially animals are instinctive and devoid of intelligence or thinking. The soul transits through animals or as grains but does not identify itself with them. The split soul theory is where the soul divides itself into three parts and incarnates itself in different forms.
Maya – What We Resist Persists
Suffering grief and pain and wrath are educative forces. Mans essential nature is peace and happiness. When a man traps himself in the web of Maya, deludes with material obsessions, he is in a state of suffering. He keeps tormenting himself with these incessant thoughts and leads a life of resistance instead of acceptance. What we resist persists!.
When a man goes through so much pain and suffering, he begins to question life and seek answers for liberation or freedom. Essentially he has to free himself from his mind ego or ahamkara.
Some are of a different school of thought and say that a human soul can’t be born in any other form other than a human being. They opine that with the sense perceptions, personality and individuality, The soul cannot be moulded into any other form. The human soul would not be able to adapt in the habitation of animals. The mould and matrix of a human soul can only be encrusted upon a human body.
When the sages say that a person will be born like a wolf or pig, they refer to the animal’s qualities as either voracious or ferocious.
Birth as a human is superior as a man can discern, decide and discriminate. Based on the previous birth’s karmic actions, when the good outweighs the bad, man is born in the astral plane as a deva, yaksha, Gandharva and the like. Persons with more cruel qualities are born as demons or asuras.
Universal Law – Theory of Rebirth and Recreation
According to the universal law, man gets attached to his respective forms as a human or ant or elephant. He desires to be born in the same forms. However, based on the law of karma, the soul can take rebirth in any gender or form to continue its progress to the next stage of evolution.
Man bereft of virtues and good qualities is considered to be beastly. When a man sinks in the ocean of samsara without faith and love for his fellow beings, he is vicious. Because of this, the soul gets born in different forms till the sense of discrimination becomes fine. This is possible through self-enquiry or guidance from a well-versed teacher.
A person through sadhana is no more fearless and welcomes death at any time. He gains knowledge about the soul and its journey and leads his life accordingly, as an ascetic.
The mind has to be free from attraction and repulsion and work towards the dissolution of ignorance and self-realization. Being present and utilizing the present life, one must learn to get free from the suffering of life.
Love, compassion, kindness and devotion are the keys to a peaceful life and liberation.
Development of a Child -Theory of Rebirth and Recreation
According to the scriptures, the soul mixes with vapour forms clouds and purs down as rain. When it falls to earth, it sprouts as seeds and remains as rice or grains.
The grains are then eaten by man and become the vital seed for the conception and formation of a child.
Through different stages and duration, the embryo slowly develops and becomes the foetus. In the cellular stage, the fertilized egg mixes with the blood in the mother’s womb. The egg slowly grows to an embryo, and then the flesh limbs organs are formed. It keeps increasing in size and form till about nine-month. The umbilical cord connected to the mother sustenance is provided to the foetus, swimming in the amniotic fluid in the mother’s womb.
The belief is that the child cries during birth because it is not happy to be reborn and remembers the suffering and death of their previous lives. It regrets that it had not taken the name of the lord. Namsmaranam can free man from the cycle of birth and death.
