~ Life as it is...~

Today was a different day, having gone through the rigmarole of life, varied thoughts came to my mind – visiting hospitals and seeing the miserly of mankind brings forth certain revolting questions to your conscious mind.

Everyone at some time in life wonders what happens after death. Throughout history, some of the most thoughtful minds have advocated that life does not end with the death of our body but continues on via a process known as reincarnation. In the Western world, followers of the Orphic religion in ancient Greece were the first known exponents of reincarnation. They were succeeded by Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and a host of other philosophers. 

The Vedic literature of India advocates that the “Soul”, or “Atma”, gives life to the body. Life does not arise from a particular combination of material elements as some modern scientists theorize. At the time of death, we leave one body and enter a new one. That is what we call reincarnation. 

The concept is not as alien as it might seem. We can observe that we change from one body to another throughout our lifetime. Our body at birth is completely different from our adult body. Yet throughout these changes, the conscious self remains the same. Similarly, the conscious self remains the same at death and transfers from one body to the next in the cycle of reincarnation. 

Recent studies by Dr Ian Stevenson have proved beyond doubt that cases of reincarnation have happened throughout the world. The conceptualized theory spoken by the Lord has been materialized in the physical world, it is us who have to have an stern single minded faith in him and his maya! 

Our present body is the result of a long series of actions and reactions in previous lives. The law that governs this is known as karma: every action has a reaction. Our previous actions have produced our present body, and our current actions will determine our next body.

Only in the human form can we free ourselves from the endless cycle of reincarnation, of birth and death, by re-establishing our eternal, loving relationship with Lord Krishna. As Krishna states in Bhagavad Gita 8.16, “From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one attains to My abode. never takes birth again.” 

So when you find someone as articulate as your next door uncle who is currently hospitalized waiting his turn to be reincarnated, the unfathomable faith in the truth of afterlife and getting born again rises to no self-doubt – he is firm advocate of this theology and lived by it.