Question: My friends reject the concept of reincarnation. Is rebirth a fact or just a myth?
Answer by Swami Mukundananda: The soul is eternal – it existed even before birth and will continue to exist even after death. There is, in fact, no birth or death for the soul. ‘Death’ is merely the act of discarding its old dysfunctional body. And what is called ‘birth’ is the soul receiving a new body to continue its journey. This principle of the soul changing bodies is called ‘reincarnation’.
The Bhagavad Gita explains reincarnation beautifully as:
vāsānsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛihṇāti naro ’parāṇi
tathā śharīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇānya nyāni sanyāti navāni dehī (2.22)
‘As a person sheds worn-out garments and wears new ones, likewise, at the time of death, the soul casts off its worn-out body and enters a new one.’
The Nyāya Darshan also gives strong evidence for rebirth. It states that a one-month-old baby, without any visible reason, experiences the emotions of happiness, sadness, and fear:
jātasya harṣhabhayaśhoka sampratipatteḥ (3.1.18)
Sometimes, the infant smiles without a cause. At other times, it cries or becomes fearful, again without reason. These emotions arise because of past life memories that are still not fully erased.
Without accepting reincarnation, it is impossible to explain the disparity that exists among human beings. For example, how can one explain why someone is born blind? If we say it was the will of God, the question arises: Why did the all-merciful God do injustice to a particular soul? If we say it was the result of karma, the question will arise regarding when these karmas were performed by a newborn. Since this baby was just born, it obviously means that its actions cannot be of this lifetime; it is evident the actions had to be of prior lives. The principle of reincarnation offers the only reasonable answer to the disparity of births.
The concept of reincarnation is not unique to Vedic scriptures. It is accepted in most Eastern philosophies. It is an inherent part of Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. In Buddhism, we see that Lord Buddha made frequent references to his past lives.
In ancient classical Western religious and philosophic circles, famous thinkers, such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Socrates accepted reincarnation to be true, and their views were also reflected in Orphism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Manichaeism, and Gnosticism.
Within the mainstream Abrahamic faiths as well, many mystics of the three major religions supported reincarnation. Josephus, the great ancient Jewish historian, used language in his writings that ascribes belief in some form of reincarnation among the Pharisees and Essenes of his day. The Jewish Kabbalah prescribes to the idea of reincarnation as gilgul neshamot, or the ‘rolling of the soul’.
Many of the early Christians believed in the concept of reincarnation. Jesus indirectly proclaimed this doctrine when he told his disciples that John the Baptist was Elijah the Prophet reincarnated (Matthew 11:13-14). Solomon’s ‘Book of Wisdom’ says: ‘To be born in a sound body with sound limbs is a reward of the virtues of past lives.’1
The great Sufi mystic Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi declared2:
I died as stone, and rose again as plant;
I died as plant and became an animal;
I died as animal and was born a man
…
Yet once more shall I die as man,
To soar with angels blessed above.
Thus, most of the major religions have direct or indirect references to the concept of reincarnation.
References:
1Dass, Ram, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita, Harmony, New York, 2007, Kindle ebook.
2Ibid.
“Questions You Always Wanted to Ask” book by Swami Mukundananda. Available on https://swamimukundananda.org/books/ and Amazon
Swami Mukundananda is a world-renowned Spiritual teacher and a best-selling author who earned his degrees from the prestigious IIT Delhi and IIM Kolkata. He worked with a multinational firm for a short period before renouncing his promising career to enter Monkhood at the age of 23. For four decades he has been sharing his vast knowledge through his books and discourses. His lectures on social media platforms are followed by millions. Swamiji has been invited to speak at various Fortune 500 companies like Google, Oracle, Yahoo, Amazon and for the youth, Swamiji has conducted programs at prestigious universities like Princeton, Stanford, Kellogg, MIT, and Duke.
