What is Reincarnation? Who reincarnates? Why reincarnate?

Question

A lot has been said about reincarnation, hence the questions Iam asking, I want to know.

Answer 1

We are all entitled to our opinion, which is called 'Free Will'.
Reincarnation is the opportunity given to the soul allowing it to live a series of lives. It permits the life experience to grow on other previous life-experiences.
There is no death, there is a series of lifespans, changing one-by-one, until ultimately we find release from this cycle of rebirth.
For example, a murderer will not achieve nirvana without first of all discovering release from all the pain and distress s/he caused.
For every good action you commit, you undo about ten negative or bad actions.
You can get my free magazine which will give more information by logging onto;
www.lordofthetarot.com

Answer 2

It's a belief that when you die, you return to the earth as someone else; in other words, an after-life. I don't know if there are any specifics on reincarnation, as far as who has the distinction, although there was a woman who claimed to have had a past life. Her name was Bridey Murphy. As to why anyone would reincarnate, the answer is obvious: So you could live again as someone else, and start out with a clean slate. Only trouble is, there is no certainty that reincarnation is even possible, and even if it were, you'd probably make the same stupid mistakes you made the first time around.

Answer 3

Reincarnation is a componant part of Vedic knowledge, the only way to understand it, is to understand your real identity as an eternal spirit soul, rather then the material body. Vedic understanding must be learned in its entirity to gain knowledge of the science of reincarnation and release from the cycle of the repetition of birth and death.

With this in mind, there is no question that reincarnation is a reality, we, as individual spirit souls are reincarnating within these very bodies, the material body is composed of gross molecules and atomic particles,that are constantly changing, every seven years each cell is completely replaced, so the body we had seven years ago is different to the body we have now, this is reincarnation, even within this life.

At the end of this life when the gross material body is no longer operational, being simply a temporary biological machine, then the subtle material mind replays the events of one's life, those events in one's life that are most prominant propel the spirit soul, the real self, to the next destination, the basis for this to happen is by the activities that we perform and the desires that are most prominant, man proposes and God disposes.

If we live a spiritual life, with activities and desires to please the Supreme, then the original spiritual body is revived and we can return home, back to Godhead, however if the desires are more worldly then we will attain another material body perfectly suited to the mentality that we have developed whilst being in the human form of life, therefore the knowledge of the science of reincarnation is of paramount importance to understand.

The early Christian church also taught reincarnation, up untill the 6th century A.D., in 553 A D when the Roman empire started to collapse, the emperor Justinian at the 5th Ecumenical council at Constantinople removed and altered the teachings of Jesus to gain more social control over the uneducated masses, by establishing the "scare tactic" of a singular life, as anyone who opposed these types of alterations was considered a heretic, it is not difficult to understand how these gross misconceptions came to be accepted.

Fortunately we are now able to discuss real knowledge openly, without fear of an inquisition, aside from a shrinking group of "text book" fundamentalists, the science of reincarnation is being accepted unopposed by many intelligent people.

To discuss further:-Sriman Sankarshan Das Adhikari ([e-mail])

Answer 4

Reincarnation is the belief that a person's soul or spirit or life-force or whatever never dies but is reborn again and again and again in the physical world. Most religions (Hinduism, for example) that follow this belief also belief that a person has some lesson to learn from life or must reach an "enlightenment" before the cycle is finished and their soul joins god/ reaches the highest plain of existence. They believe that everyone & everything living has a soul that reincarnates, and that a person could come back as an animal or an animal could come back as plant and so on.

Answer 5

Everybody is reincarnated, no matter who or what they have done (good or bad). Every person has a soul, and one soul as 22 reincarnations this whole time period is called an incarnation. After this the soul is destroyed and no knowledge of the person physically exsists on this world. A new soul is created.
Reincarnation is usually coupled with the idea of karma, good and bad deeds like are on a record and your actions affect this. People are reincarnated to evolve their spirits spiritually, its to learn from the mistakes from the last lifes. Every time a person dies there is a time period between the death and being re born this is when souls who have recently died join together to see how their souls are progressing in their evovling and where they are on the journey. A plan is set for what is to be achieved in the next life. The spiritual guides of that person are present and therefore no what to do in the next life to point the person in the right direction.

Answer 6

Reincarnation is explained in details in Bhagavad Gita.
Its basis is that "we are eternal Spirit Soul Different from the body" .
Soul has accepted this body because it has a particular need. Similarly after this body the soul accept another body, depending upon the condition at the time of Death. The next body may be in Heaven or Hell or even on this same planet.

It is explained in Bhagavad Gita (2.22)
"As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones."
This explains why soul reincarnates. The symptom of soul is life.
and when this body is useless, soul takes up another body.

Ofcourse this reincarnation is painful. Vedic Scriptures advice us to come out of this cycle of Reincarnation and get a permanent existence in Kingdom of God. This will end all our suffering. This is called Liberation.

Reincarnation and Karma is very closely linked.
You can read nice books on this science at
http://www.krishna.com/main.php?id=33
Here "Beyond Birth and Death" is good one.

There is also a very good Book "Comming Back" published by ISKCON. I could not find it online, but its easily available if you purchase book on internet.

Answer 7

Do not listen the the bible bashers who make dogmatic statements.
Lord Jesus believed in reincarnation.
In the 6th century, in the year 553 A. D., the 2nd Council of Constantinople officially declared reincarnation a heresy and the doctrine of reincarnation was officially banished by the Christian Church.[1]

Q) What is Reincarnation?
A) All religions believe in the concept of the soul.

It (the self) is not born, and It does not die; nor is it ever that this One having been nonexistent becomes existent again. This One is birth-less, eternal, undecaying, ancient; It is not killed when the body is killed.
-Gita Ch.2 Verse 20 [1]

Thus when the soul takes to a new body, it is said to have reincarnated.

Q) Who Reincarnates?
A) We all do, everything with a soul does.

Q) Why Reincarnate?
A) For humans, the reincarnation principle is tied up with personal responsibility for actions. The laws of Karma (action) result in punishment/reward in the next birth. We all start as the lowest form of life and gradually work our way up to human form.

The concept that puts Hinduism apart from other religions is that of 'Avatars' or incarnations of God.

The 1st incarnation was Matsya (Fish). This corresponds to early life forms that lived only in water.
The 2nd was Kurma (Tortoise) This lived in the water but could come on land. It also had 4 limbs
The 3rd was Varah (Boar). This was one of the earliest land animals.
The 4th was Narasimha (Half-man-half-lion). This was the early man who was still wild as the lion.
The 5th was Vamana (Dwarf). This was the early man who was better than the beast.
The 6th was Parsuram (Man with axe). This was the early man able to use a simple tool.
The 7th was Rama (Man with bow and arrows). This was the hunter gatherer man.
The 8th was Balaram (Man with a plough). Now man had learnt to grow crops to feed his family.
The 9th was Krishna (Modern Man) With the increase in the population wars ensued and Krishna guided the righteous to victory.
The 10th will be Kali (The bionic-robotic-man, yet to evolve). This is the final incarnation.

Does this not sound like Darwin's Theory of Evolution?

Lord Jesus believed in reincarnation too.
In the 6th century, in the year 553 A. D., the 2nd Council of Constantinople officially declared reincarnation a heresy and the doctrine of reincarnation was officially banished by the Christian Church.[2]

Answer 8

Reincarnation is the rebirth of the human ego and individual personality into another body-supposedly everyone can reincarnate if they choose and if they feel they can best work through their karma on the material plane. The material plane is where human expression blossoms to its fullest potential because of free will so this is the place where spirits can best explore their creativity, compassion and moral virtues which is why they choose to incarnate rather than spend an eternity seeking growth in the spirit realm.

Answer 9

Depends on the religion/tradition. I'm sure you know what it is. As for who does it, according to hinduism, there is no deciding committee or god, it just happens, like birth. Same with buddhism. Not sure about native american religions or others.

Why? So you can get another shot and get it right. Some people seem to be born with "old souls" or wiser than their peers and people had to have some way to explain that, hence reincarnation.

Answer 10

You reincarnate once you die. in case you have been undesirable contained in the previous existence you're reincarnated as some thing crappy. in case you have been good you maight get to be a human back, hopefukky you had a good number of robust karma so which you might have a good initiate i.e. everyday physique chuffed family and strong residing difficulty.a thank you to stay away from reincrnation is outwardly erase all undesirable karma and definitely dsire to end the cycle of death ,beginning ,rebirth and so on.i think of the instructions of the Buddha and the Dalai Lama provides you with a miles better understanding.or in line with risk you shpuld attempt to pass to heaven, by potential of the two accepting Christ into your coronary heart or devoting your self to a pair faith and doing what they say.