Concept of birth, death, rebirth, and reincarnation
When a sudden bereavement occurs in a family, everybody ponders about the meaningless existence and the futility of not only material pursuits but also spiritual quests. Material pursuits tend to become obsolete and irrelevant with changes in time and circumstances. Spiritual quests remain incomprehensible and eternally shrouded in mystery. The world has witnessed the rise and fall of many religions, their gods and goddesses, claimants boasting of unverifiable filial bonds with the Almighty, and many others staking claim to be the sole plenipotentiary of the Almighty. Death has struck them also, in baffling ways, as it strikes at ordinary people.
Death has been visualized as a passage into an oasis of luxury, ostentatiousness, and sexual profligacy, called Heaven, or into an alternative space called Hell which is bereft of any kind of luxury. Entry into Heaven is regulated strictly, with admissions reserved only for those who have led pious and disciplined living on Earth. Imagine, spiritually disciplined on Earth and profligate in Heaven! This conditionality being unattractive, humans have since time immemorial, been trying to decipher the meaning of death, while simultaneously trying to defeat death by prolonging life.
Sir Francis Bacon’s famous observation “Men fear death, as children fear to go into the darkness”, sums up succinctly, man’s efforts to thwart death. No fascinating promises about the opulence of Heaven, the presence of God, forgiveness, and eternal peace, appear to convince man, who is striving with all his intelligence, resources, and reasoning to break the conundrum of death.
Across the Globe, scientists are working relentlessly to discover or invent the elixir of life. They have identified “Telomeres”, the specific DNA–protein structures found at both ends of each chromosome, that protect the genome from nucleolytic degradation, unnecessary recombination, repair, and interchromosomal fusion. As a normal cellular process, a small portion of telomeric DNA is lost with each cell division. When telomere length reaches a critical limit, the cell undergoes senescence and/ or apoptosis. Telomere length may therefore serve as a biological clock to determine the lifespan of a cell and an organism.
Other scientists are meanwhile experimenting on ‘Cryonics’ which is the practice of preserving human or animal bodies at very low temperatures (usually at −196 °C or −320.8 °F), with the hope of restoring them to life in the future. Cryopreservation for the possibility of future resuscitation is an exciting possibility, that humans look forward to. Till then, there is no other option but to flock to expensive hospitals, consume powerful medicines, undergo painful medical procedures, and invasive surgeries, and remain closeted in ICUs (Intensive Care Units), hoping to defy death and prolong their stay on the earth, if possible indefinitely. Even the most devout are unwilling to believe any holy Scriptures when it comes to death. They will consume any medicine, seek the best medical practitioners, and perform all kinds of religious rituals, just to prevent death.
To meet the growing demand for doctors, who can help evade death, and prolong life, India itself has seen a phenomenal 82% rise in medical colleges from 387 before 2014 to 704 in 2023, an increase of 110% in MBBS seats from 51,348 before 2014 to 1,07,948 in 2023, 117% increase in PG seats from 31,185 before 2014 to 67,802 in 2023. Whether it is a bacteria or virus, preventing the extended stay, of humans on Planet Earth, all out efforts are underway, to block the movement to Heaven. It is good to read about Heaven, speak about the glories of Heaven, and simply fantasize about Heaven, but nobody is willing to go there!
Imagine, for those who are believed to go to Heaven, there is a period of mourning, mourners wear a black dresses, national flags are flown at half-mast, all entertainment is eschewed, there is wailing and crying, going to Heaven, appears to be not acceptable and is deemed to be an irretrievable loss.
Seeing the deep love of humanity for earthly existence, rather than heavenly existence, many oriental religions came up with the concept of rebirth and reincarnation. In order to accept reincarnation, we need to accept the existence of past and future lives. Sentient beings come to this present life from their previous lives and take rebirth again after death. This kind of continuous rebirth is accepted by all the ancient Indian spiritual traditions and schools of philosophy, except the Charvakas, who were a materialist movement. But, whether right or wrong, rebirth is a fascinating idea and gives an eternal hope, that those who departed forever, have returned in another form somewhere on this Planet.
The concept of rebirth has always been a core belief in the Buddhist tradition. On the night of the Buddha’s awakening, two of the three knowledge leading to his release from suffering focused on the topic of rebirth. The first showed his own many previous lives; the second, depicts the general pattern of beings dying and being reborn throughout the cosmos, and the deep connection between rebirth and karma, or action.
Simply stated, the Buddhist view is that all living entities have experienced thousands of rebirths in every possible realm that can be imagined. Not just as humans but also as animals, even insects, in higher realms and lower realms.
We should remember that if we met ourselves in our last lifetime, we wouldn’t recognize or know ourselves at all, for it’s not ‘me’ that gets reborn. If we could see ourselves in the next lifetime, who would that be? That ‘I’ would be a completely different being. But that being is also thinking in terms of ‘I’. This is due to the steady stream of consciousness, continuously, going forward, which, as long as humans believe in an “I”, it will be forever endless, like mathematical numbers.
Jagadguru Shri. Adi Shankaracharya the prominent philosopher and theologian propounded Advaita Vedanta, one of the six main schools of Hindu philosophy, wherein, the concept of rebirth or reincarnation is an integral part of the belief system. The common man is a bundle of unfulfilled ambitions, desires, and needs. One lifetime is just not sufficient to fructify the innumerable desires and wants. Some may call such limitless desires as greed and avarice, but now modern science opines that such thoughts are tangible things, and even attainable. Sometimes fulfillment of desires may extend to several lifetimes, not necessarily as humans but as any other living entity. Hence the importance of regulating desires and wants, for, unfulfilled desires cause grief and sorrow. The famous verse 21 in Bhaja Govindam, states:
“पुनरपि जननं पुनरपि मरणं,पुनरपि जननी जठरे शयनम्।
इह संसारे बहुदुस्तारे,कृपयाऽपारे पाहि मुरारे ॥२१॥
punarapi jananam punarapi maranam punarapi janani jathare sayanam,
iha samsare bahudusare krpaya’pare pahi murare“
‘Samsara’, is nothing but an endless repeating process of birth and death. Why does this cycle go on? It is because what the individual is desiring, seeking, and pursuing, cannot be fulfilled in the journey of one lifetime. Naturally, then, when a person dies, there are innumerable unfulfilled desires in the mind, and another birth becomes inevitable to attain what was desired, sought, and pursued. If, again, the desires are not fulfilled, the journey is not concluded in that embodiment, then again there is a need to acquire yet another new embodiment. This is the reason Hinduism expounds on the reason for repeated births and deaths. It is because a man is born incomplete and he dies incomplete as well. The journey goes on till total fulfillment is gained, which may extend beyond many lifetimes, different life forms, environments, civilizations, and situations.
In the holy Bhagavad Gita chapter 2, Lord Krishna expounds that the soul changes its body just like we change our clothes. The universe is made up of only two elements, Matter and Energy (vasthu and shakthi).
The laws of physics state that Matter can be created and destroyed, while Energy cannot be created or destroyed but can be transferred from matter to matter.
The human spirit or Atma is the Energy.
When the physical body (matter) dies, the energy/ atma leaves the body/ matter and enters another matter/body, this transfer of energy from one matter to another matter is what is commonly understood as Rebirth. So would it not be more appropriate to rename burial grounds and crematoriums as Rebirthdrome, like Aerodrome and Cosmodrome? In newspapers, the column ‘Obituary’ should be renamed as “Rebirth Column”, with a tagline “See you in another lifetime”. Somewhere in the distant future, human lives, of one generation, may intersect once again, to fulfill unrequited love, or carry out revenge, or conquer goals. Is it not what Karma is all about?
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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