Why is Reincarnation Necessary?
If you do not remember your previous life then how will you learn more in the next if you have to start all over again?
For those who believe in it, re-incarnation is a means to continually improve the way you live your life. Its necessary because you need to continually strive towards enlightenment and the majority of people cannot reach enlightenment in one lifetime. Supposedly Shakiyamuni Buddha did it in one lifetime, if you believe the stories. But without reincarnation, one would never reach perfection because they would never have the chance to fix what they got wrong in the last lifetime.
Well, according to some philosophers, we do remember aspects of our past lives via our subconscience.
One theory posits that some of our unexplainable fears are as a result of reincarnation. For example, someone who is afraid of water, without experiencing a traumatizing childhood experience, may have attained that fear in a past life, where drowning may have been the cause of their death, or a near-death experience.
Furthermore, we go through life and meet people who we instantly connect with, and those who we get a negative "vibe" from, so to speak. These are said to be as a result of past encounters with these people. It is possible that your mother could have been your brother in a past life, or a best friend could have been a lover.
In these ways, it has been claimed that we do remember our past lives. Our subconscience and instincts are supposed to lead us to the right direction, in order to connect with the right people, and maybe even make ammends with those we have an aversion to.
This is what I have gathered from my readings on the topic. I, however, am not certain to what extent I believe in it..
Hopefully I shed some light on the topic
I don't believe that a discussion of reincarnation would be complete without mention of the Soul. It is the Soul that is evolving, and the Soul that learns ultimately learns the life experiences of the incarnation and determines what lessons need to be learned in the next incarnation. If some life experiences need to be re-learned or reinforced, then they will be introduced by the birth conditions and early life situations.
This is not to say that all lessons are to be learned at that point, but the early life can set up the framework for lessons to be learned later on in the life. On the other hand, things learned in a younger age may alter the person's being and environment enough to change their direction and what experiences they will take out of that life.
What about the scientific approach to Reincarnation,
QUOTE |
The most detailed collections of personal reports in favor of reincarnation have been published by Dr. Ian Stevenson in works such as Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, which documents thousands of detailed cases where claims of injuries received in past lives sometimes correlate with birthmarks or birth defects. Stevenson has spent over 40 years devoted to the study of children who have spoken about concepts seemingly unknown to them. In each case, Dr. Stevenson methodically documents the child's statements. Then he identifies the deceased person the child allegedly identifies with, and verifies the facts of the deceased person's life that match the child's memory. He also matches birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records such as autopsy photographs. Stevenson believes that his strict methods rule out all possible "normal" explanations for the child's memories. However, it should be noted that a significant majority of Dr. Stevenson's reported cases of reincarnation originate in Eastern societies, where dominant religions often permit the concept of reincarnation. In India - where this phenomenon is common - if a child from a poor family claims to be the reincarnated person from a rich family, this can lead to the child to be adopted by that family, a motive that has led to children making fraudulent reincarnation claims.[3] As Stevenson himself said about the 2500 cases of children, who appeared to remember past lives, which he and his associates investigated: "My conclusion so far is that reincarnation is not the only explanation for these cases, but that it is the best explanation we have for the stronger cases, by which I mean those in which a child makes a considerable number (say 20 or 30) of correct statements about another person who lives in a family that lives quite remote from his own and with which his family has had no prior contacts. When we talk about remoteness, we don't necessarily just mean physical distance. We know that two families can live only 10 kilometers apart and yet they can be very remote because they belong to different economic and social classes." See the whole interview. There are many people who have investigated reincarnation and come to the conclusion that it is a legitimate phenomenon, such as Peter Ramster - a psychotherapist, Diandra, Dr Brian Weiss and others, but their work is generally ignored by the scientific community. |
My thought on reincarnation, scientifically:
If the soul is some form of matter, then it can neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore, when you pass on, the matter that makes up your soul is simply dispersed. Now, the matter can be broken down into it's basic units and then reconstituted, of course. But if the soul exists as something other than a figment of the mind, then it seems that souls do continue on existing after the bodies they inhabit pass on.
If the soul exists as a form of matter, it also would seem to say that the soul cannot "go" anywhere after we die, since it could not simply cease to exist. So necessarily it would have to remain here, somewhere, in some fashion.
That's all assuming that the soul is bound by the laws of physics. I'm still undecided on that, myself.
This has also been a puzzle for me but I notice some people instinctively are one way or the other even if not thought to be that way, maybe it is their previous life rubbing off on their present life.
For reincarnation to make sense there would have to be an order outside of this world that judges you after each death and then allows you to go back again in another body. It seems like a lengthy lesson.