Reincarnation, Reincarnation

The idea was also entertained by some ancient Greek philosophers. Many modern Neopagan also believe in reincarnation as do some New Age movements, along with followers of Spiritism, practitioners of certain African traditions, and students of esoteric philosophies such as Kabbalah, and Gnostic and Esoteric Christianity. The Buddhist concept of Rebirth although often referred to as reincarnation differs significantly from the Hindu-based traditions and New Age movements in that there is no unchanging "soul" (or eternal self) to reincarnate.

Buddhism and Jainism are continuations of this tradition, and the early Upanishadic movement was influenced by it. Reincarnation was adopted from this religious culture by Brahmin orthodoxy, and Brahmins first wrote down scriptures containing these ideas in the early Upanishads. This confirms that the doctrine of transmigration is non-aryan and was accepted by non-vedics like Ajivikism, Jainism and Buddhism. The Indo-aryans have borrowed the theory of re-birth after coming in contact with the aboriginal inhabitants of India. Certainly Jainism and non-vedics [1] accepted the doctrine of rebirth as supreme postulate or article of faith. Masih, page 37.

These concepts were certainly circulating amongst sramanas, and Jainism and Buddhism developed specific and sophisticated ideas about the process of transmigration. It is very possible that the karmas and reincarnation entered the mainstream brahaminical thought from the sramana or the renouncer traditions. Page 86.

This concept was consistent with the common notion of a sequence of related lives stretching over a very long time, but was constrained by two core Buddhist concepts: anatt, that there is no irreducible tman or "self" tying these lives together; and anicca, that all compounded things are subject to dissolution, including all the components of the human person and personality. At the death of one personality, a new one comes into being, much as the flame of a dying candle can serve to light the flame of another. Tucker, 2005, p.216 PTS: Miln 71-72; 82-83; 84 (Pali Canon) Since, according to Buddhism, there is no permanent and unchanging self (identity) there can be no transmigration in the strict sense. Buddhism teaches that what is reborn is not the person but that one moment gives rise to another and that this momentum continues, even after death. It is a more subtle concept than the usual notion of reincarnation, reflecting the Buddhist concept of personality existing (even within one's lifetime) without a "Self". Instead of a fixed entity, what is reborn is an "evolving consciousness" (M.1.256) or "stream of consciousness" (D.3.105), whose quality has been conditioned by karma. Bruce Matthews in Ronald Wesley Neufeldt, editor, Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments.

The Bhagavad Gita states that: Worn-out garments are shed by the body; Worn-out bodies are shed by the dweller within the body. New bodies are donned by the dweller, like garments. ( Verse 2:22 ) Bhagavad Gita II.22, ISBN 1-56619-670-1 The idea that the soul (of any living being with a consciousness) reincarnates is intricately linked to karma, another concept first recorded in the Upanishads. Karma (literally: action) is the sum of one's actions and the force that determines one's next reincarnation. The cycle of death and rebirth, governed by karma, is referred to as samsara.

When all desire has vanished, the person will not be reborn anymore. Rinehart, Robin, ed., Contemporary Hinduism 19-21 (2004) ISBN 1-57607-905-8 When the cycle of rebirth thus comes to an end, a person is said to have attained moksha, or salvation from samsara. Karel Werner, A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism 110 (Curzon Press 1994) ISBN 0-7007-0279-2 While all schools of thought agree that moksha implies the cessation of worldly desires and freedom from the cycle of birth and death, the exact definition of salvation depends on individual beliefs. For example, followers of the Advaita Vedanta school (often associated with jnana yoga) believe that they will spend eternity absorbed in the perfect peace and happiness that comes with the realization that all existence is One (Brahman), and that the immortal soul is part of that existence. The followers of full or partial Dvaita schools ("dualistic" schools, such as bhakti yoga), on the other hand, perform their worship with the goal of spending eternity in a loka, (spiritual world or heaven), in the blessed company of the Supreme being (i.e Krishna or Vishnu for the Vaishnavas and Shiva for the dualistic schools of Shaivism). Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Translation by Swami Nikhilananda (8th Ed. 1992) ISBN 0-911206-01-9 The principal Hindu Gods are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and their consorts Brahmani, Lakshmi and Parvati. While there is hardly any text describing reincarnation of Brahma and Brahmani, the rest of the Gods are known to have reincarnated in various forms under different circumstances.Lord Vishnu is known for his ten reincarnations, namely Dashavataras.

Basic to Traditional Christianity is the doctrine that humans can never achieve the perfection God requires and the only salvation is total and complete forgiveness accomplished through the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross wherein he took the sins of mankind. There seems to be evidence however that some of the earliest Christian sects such as the Sethians and followers of the Gnostic Church of Valentinus believed in reincarnation, and they were persecuted by the Romans for this. Much of this is documented in R.E. Slater's book Paradise Reconsidered.

In Matthew 11:10-14 and 17:10-13 , John 1:21 ,the Jews ask John the Baptist if he is Elijah and John replies clearly that he is not, implying that Jesus' reference was meant in a figurative sense (which is what most Christians accept). It should be noted that Elijah never actually "died," but was "raptured" in a chariot of fire. Furthermore, the prophetic texts stated that God would send Elijah back to Earth, as a harbinger of Jesus Christ. As cousins they were born respectively to barren Elizabeth and Zacharias; Jesus, firstborn of Mary and Joseph, was the first to rise from the dead visibly demonstrating his power over death. , There are various contemporary attempts to entwine Christianity and reincarnation. Geddes Macgregor, wrote a book called Reincarnation in Christianity: A New Vision of Rebirth in Christian Thought , Rudolf Steiner wrote Christianity as Mystical Fact and Tommaso Palamidessi wrote Memory of Past Lives and Its Technique which contains several methods which are supposed to help in obtaining memories from previous lives. Tommaso Palamidessi, Memory of Past Lives and Its Technique , ed Archeosofica, 1977 Several groups which consider themselves to be Christian and support reincarnation include the Christian Community,the Liberal Catholic Church, Unity Church, The Christian Spiritualist Movement, the Rosicrucian Fellowship and Lectorium Rosicrucianum. The Medieval sect known variously as the Cathars or Albigensians who flourished in the Languedoc believed in Reincarnation, seeing each soul as a fallen angel born again and again into the world of Matter created by Lucibel (Lucifer). Only through a Gnostic 'Rebirth' in the Holy Spirit through Christ could the soul escape this process of successive existences and return to God.

Saadia Gaon in Emunoth ve-Deoth Section vi The idea of reincarnation, called gilgul , became popular in folk belief, and is found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews. Among a few kabbalists, it was posited that some human souls could end up being reincarnated into non-human bodies. These ideas were found in a number of Kabbalistic works from the 1200s, and also among many mystics in the late 1500s. Martin Buber's early collection of stories of the Baal Shem Tov's life includes several that refer to people reincarnating in successive lives. Martin Buber, "Legende des Baalschem" in Die Chassidischen Bcher , Hellerau 1928, especially Die niedergestiegene Seele Among well known (generally non-kabbalist or anti-kabbalist) Rabbis who rejected the idea of reincarnation are Saadia Gaon, David Kimhi, Hasdai Crescas, Yedayah Bedershi (early 14th century), Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud, the Rosh and Leon de Modena.

Indeed there is an entire volume of work called Sha'ar Ha'Gilgulim Sha'ar Ha'Gilgulim, The Gate of Reincarnations , Chaim Vital ( The Gate of Reincarnations ) [3] , based on the work of Rabbi Isaac Luria (and compiled by his disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital). It describes the deep, complex laws of reincarnation. One concept that arises from Sha'ar Ha'gilgulim is the idea that gilgul is paralleled physically by pregnancy.

In the now heavily Christian Polar North (now mainly parts of Greenland and Nunavut), the concept of reincarnation is enshrined in the Inuit language. The survival of the concept of reincarnation applies across these nations in varying degrees of integrity, as these countries are now sandwiched between Native and European traditions.

It is not the conventional or traditional concept of reincarnation, Mr. Clark termed it "Generic Subjective Continuity". The paper was published in the Humanist and republished in "The Experience of Philosophy". His argument states that "nothingness" is never an experienced actuality for conscious beings, and therefore subjective experience does not cease at death, as the common secular conception holds, but relocates into other conscious beings, where no supernatural entity literally transmigrates from one being to another. Another philosopher and author, Wayne Stewart, also created an argument directly parallel to Mr. Clark's entitled: "Metaphysics by Default" in 1999.

It has taken reincarnation, as well as karma and spiritual evolution, as one of its cardinal tenets; it is, according to a recent theosophical writer, "the master-key to modern problems," including heredity.

Reincarnation is the vast rhythmic process by which the soul in man unfolds its spiritual powers in the world of form and gets to know itself.

This spiritual entity moves forward on a vast pilgrimage, every lifetime bringing it closer to complete self-knowledge and self-expression.According to Theosophy, then, that which reincarnates is the part of man which belongs to the formless non-material and timeless worlds. It is neither the physical body and all of its characteristics, nor the emotional nature, with all its personal likes and dislikes, nor the mental nature, with its accumulated knowledge and its habits of thinking, that will reincarnate. That which is above all these aspects is that which reincarnates. However, when the formless essence of a human being begins its process of reincarnation, it attracts the old mental, emotional, and energetic karmic patterns to form the new personality. Thus the soul with the added powers developed during its previous lives and the post-mortem process of assimilation, deals with the old hindrances or shortcomings it was not able to work out in its previous lifetimes.

Scientologists believe that the human individual is actually an immortal thetan, or spiritual entity, that has fallen into a degraded state as a result of past-life experiences. Scientology auditing is intended to free the person of these past-life traumas and recover past-life memory, leading to a higher state of spiritual awareness. This idea is echoed in their highest fraternal religious order, the Sea Organization, whose motto is "Revenimus" or "We Come Back", and whose members sign a "billion-year contract" as a sign of commitment to that ideal. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, does not use the word "reincarnation" to describe its beliefs, noting that: "The common definition of reincarnation has been altered from its original meaning. The word has come to mean 'to be born again in different life forms' whereas its actual definition is 'to be born again into the flesh of another body.' Scientology ascribes to this latter, original definition of reincarnation." Does Scientology believe in reincarnation or past lives.

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