Rebirth and Our Spiritual Evolution

                                                          *Dr. Saumitra Mohan

            Birth and death have been perennial subjects of human interest with varying perspectives and expostulations in different religions. Many of them believe the next birth to be linked to our actions in extant life. However, there still remain many issues relating to birth and death which continue to remain abstruse and beyond human ken. Hinduism, of all the faiths, has the most hoary and elaborate discourse on the same.

            Many of us have often wondered, if a ‘soul’ is eternal and immortal, then how the human population is growing. There are various explanations for the same. The number of souls maybe constant, but according to some, the explanation for increasing human population lies in depleting biotic and genetic diversity. So, if crass animal instincts and brute nature are perceived among humans, the rationalization may lie in declining population of other creatures.

            We generally presume our earth to be the only inhabited planet, but there could be myriad other planets, celestial bodies and dimensions buzzing with life in this vast cosmos. Souls from those planets or dimensions could also be transmigrating to our planet, thereby adding to our number. Many mystics have explicated the multiplication of a soul through the simile of a perennially ‘burning fire’ whereby you can light countless candles or lamps from the one already blazing.

            Rebirth in Hinduism is a reigning and running theme through all its scriptures and sects as in many other religions. That rebirth is a fact, has long been proven through objectively recorded research and empirical studies as available in public domain in the form of various books, documentaries and movies. YouTube and cyber world are replete with stories and proofs from across the globe which testify to the rebirth phenomenon.

            So, every animate and inanimate object which comes into this world, being forms of energy, has to undergo the continual process of creation and destruction, changing its form in the ongoing play of Divine Drama called ‘Maya’. An organic entity usually gets destroyed faster than the inorganic objects. That being so, why are we so frantically running after the putative values that we ourselves create? Notwithstanding being aware of the ephemerality of our life, we voluntarily remain sucked in the acquisitive rat race beyond our needs, only to lose an opportunity to invest prudently in our spiritual evolution.

            Like Captain Kirk in ‘Star Trek: The Beginning’, “We should no longer work for the material acquisitions. We ought to now be engaged in bettering the human race”. It’s high time that we, as a species, should start working on improving our capacities, consciousness and soul because it is this which goes with us into the next life. Our behavioural traits, our evolved psyche and our learnings as inscribed in our eternal consciousness (sometime referred as ‘Akashik Records’), all travel to the next life.

            The different rebirth stories, as recounted by the re-born individuals, however, disprove the concept of ‘Heaven and Hell’ as we have known them. All religions have used the conception of ‘Heaven and Hell’ as an instrument to threaten and frighten the lesser mortals into submission and subordination. Many souls, whatever their Karmas, are known to have been born immediately after their death or have remembered being in their ‘causal’ or ‘astral’ bodies for a while before choosing to be reborn. Mostly, humans are born as humans only as none of the rebirth stories has pointed to an intervening animal birth though the same could not be ruled out a la Bodhisattva tales. No divine intermediation towards their rebirth has been narrated by these people though mythologies say otherwise.

            The idea of heaven and hell, actually, appears related more to the level of spiritual evolution which gives pain or pleasure to a being, either in this or next life or in the interregnum. The rebirth choice of an individual seems correlated to the spiritual progression of the individual concerned. Depending on the level of spiritual evolution, it is the individual who is supposed to choose his/her rebirth destination. The unfulfilled desires (Vasanas) and the carried-forward evolved predilections predispose or attract the soul to a particular family for learning the lessons it wants to learn for further advancement of its consciousness.

The dominant cerebral and psychic patterns could actually be traced to the past experiences of a particular soul. The same could be understood through the differential behavioural and cognitive mellowness of the children born of same parents in similar circumstances. Still, some children display particularised qualities and geniuses, different from their siblings. The ‘déjà vu’ feeling we have for certain things or persons, the natural feelings of likes and dislikes, are all said to be a carryover from the past lives. Dr. Brian Weiss, a past-life regression therapist, has treated and cured many of his patients by linking present ailments to one of the previous births.

            Many mystics and researchers have pointed to the ability of many evolved souls to communicate telepathically or teleport themselves to distant locations in a jiffy. Our mind is said to be very powerful and we still have not been able to utilise a substantial part thereof. As we, through constant meditational practices and control, become capable of exploring and harnessing its unfathomable potential (remember the movie ‘Matrix’), we shall soon be able to get to the higher domains of human and cosmic evolution.

            The unfulfilled desires, hatred, sorrow, pain, pleasure, envy, greed, compassion and other such deportment and demeanour of an individual determine the heaven or hell-like experience of the individual at any stage. So, at the end of the day, it is an individual who actually chooses her heaven or hell. More than actual travails and tribulations, as depicted in Hindu scripture ‘Garuda Purana’, the ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ are essentially experienced in our minds by dint of our own Karmas. ‘The Gita’ says that we should be dispassionately attending to our assigned duties without being attached to the fruits thereof. Only then can we elevate our souls to eventually merge with the Almighty.

            Mind you, the Kauravas, despite being on the wrong side of the Divine Drama, made it to the heaven while all the Pandavas except Yudhisthira ended up in hell, the explanation being that the former died while doing their duties while the Pandavas suffered in purgatory because of their different personal foibles. We should understand our part in the Divine Drama and play our role diligently and honestly with the sole purpose of our spiritual progression.

             In our affection and attachment with the mundane aspects of human life, we continue to behave like ordinary creatures, still fighting for survival. We should actually be striving to add more and more uplifting qualities to our eternal consciousness by utilising the multiple birth opportunities. The vastness of the cosmos indicates that there is enough for everyone and that those with evolved consciousness need to go beyond the ordinary and mundane to explore the unknown terrains of their consciousness and celestial multiverses. The faster we evolve spiritually, the better for us all.

            When spiritually we all belong to the same Supreme Consciousness, we need not perceive our existence separate from other living beings including humans. It is this differentiation of ‘me’ versus ‘they’ that create all the chaos and tension in our day-to-day life. We can’t remain happy if million others of our ilks remain miserable. Through corporate, cooperative and harmonious coexistence, we can all evolve together and faster for better evolution of the human race and our cosmos.