Reincarnation: Fact or Fiction?

Is there irrefutable proof of reincarnation? The ancient Vedas turn our ideas about life before and after death upside down. It turns out that all the world’s religions speak about reincarnation, but not everyone understands this information correctly. Do you want to go on getting lost in questions about the mortality of the body and the eternity of the soul? Let’s instead work out together what reincarnation really is.

The word “reincarnation” appeared in the English language roughly 150 years ago. That was precisely when the teachings of the Vedas began to spread from India to the West.

Many people blindly reject the fact of reincarnation without even trying to understand, however slightly, what the claims about its reality or unreality are based on. They think reincarnation is something peculiar to Eastern religions. But the concept of reincarnation is fundamental to all religious systems.

Reincarnation in the world’s religions

Reincarnation is connected with the concept of “the eternity of the soul.” Think about it: all the religious systems of the world acknowledge the existence of an eternal soul. And this is not just a theory. Awareness of the soul’s eternity is the experience of many people, gained in different ages and on different continents, regardless of which religion they belonged to. Some have their own experience of contact with the immortal soul and perceive this fact as something quite real. Others trust someone else’s experience and accept the eternity of their existence on faith. But these are details. The main thing is that people of different religions believe in life after death.

The body is temporary. The soul living in the body is eternal. It does not die when the body dies. The soul goes on living. That is the very essence of reincarnation. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and followers of many other religions all believe in the life of the soul after the death of the body. According to statistics, religious people are the majority on our planet. This means that billions of people believe in reincarnation. They simply use other words for it, such as the afterlife or life after death. Thus the principles of reincarnation are present in every teaching that speaks of the eternity of the soul.

Questions and answers about reincarnation

Someone may object: “I accept that the soul lives on after the death of the body. But I do not accept reincarnation. Reincarnation means being embodied again specifically in this world.” If you accept that the soul is eternal and lives on after the body dies, then answer these questions:

• What is the soul?
• What does the soul look like?
• How does the soul live in its body?
• If the soul lived in this body, does it go on living without a body after death, or does it receive a new body?
• Did the eternal soul exist before the birth of the body? After all, the eternal is that which has neither beginning nor end. How, then, can the eternal (the soul) have a beginning (birth)?
• If the soul’s life begins with birth in this world, why is one person born healthy and rich, and another poor and sick?
• Does the concept of eternal hell seem fair? Does a soul that stumbled in this life and gave itself up to sin really have no chance to change its situation, so that it will “burn in hell” forever?

The answers to all these questions are set out quite definitely in the Bhagavad-gita and other Vedic scriptures. They say that the soul can be born again on this planet, can go to heaven or to hell, and then return to Earth again. Everything depends on its actions (karma). Everyone has freedom of choice: to be a sinner or a righteous person. If a soul stumbles, it will indeed have to serve its punishment on the lower planets (the Russian word for hell, ad, comes from the Sanskrit ada, which means “below”). But at the same time, every soul has the chance to make one more attempt to set itself right. And then another. And another… Having served its punishment in hell, the soul can once again be born in a human body.

Where is the whole truth about reincarnation described?

A question arises: “Does that mean the religions that do not accept the possibility of being born again on our planet are false?” Religion is the science that teaches us to love God. If a religion teaches something else, it is not religion.

Some people have a powerful mind and a strong sense of logic, and so they need deep philosophical analysis. They want to know all the details of the science of the soul and the body. It is precisely for such people that systems of knowledge like sankhya-yoga (analytical religion) exist.

Sankhya-yoga is one of the Vedic teachings, intended for overly inquisitive minds, for logicians. In brief, the essence of this teaching is contained in the second chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, up to the thirty-ninth verse, where it is said: eṣā te ’bhihitā sāṅkhye, “Thus far I have described this knowledge to you through analytical study.”

Analytical religion (sankhya-yoga) explains how the soul can receive new bodies. Some people find this interesting, and it brings them closer to the goal of all religions—love of God. But this does not mean that only those who follow the path of sankhya can reach this goal. Any sincere person can reach the goal of all religions—love of God. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (9.32):

māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya
ye ’pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ
striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās
te ’pi yānti parāṁ gatim

O son of Pṛthā, those who take shelter in Me, though they be of lower birth – women, vaiśyas [merchants] and śūdras [workers] – can attain the supreme destination.

Therefore some sacred scriptures examine the question of reincarnation in great detail, while others do not attach much importance to it. The Vedas, for example, pay special attention to the phenomenon of the transmigration of the soul.

Scientific evidence for reincarnation

When we study this question, we find facts from real life that prove reincarnation exists. The scientist Ian Pretyman Stevenson devoted himself to the study of paranormal phenomena. He was head of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and later became the Carlson Professor of Psychiatry there. A professor—that sounds serious. In 1960 this scientist published a paper titled “The Evidence for Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations.”

Stevenson specialized in cases of children’s memories of a past life, because children’s minds, as a rule, do not yet have a firm psychological barrier, and children respond better than adults to techniques that open up a person’s past life to them. By 1987, Stevenson’s archives held about 3,000 such cases, and a little over half of them are considered proven: in these cases the child’s memories of a past life received quite substantial confirmation.

Why, then, don’t all people remember their past lives? Ancient scriptures such as the Mahabharata and the Puranas say that cases of remembering one’s past lives are fairly rare. Try to recall what you were doing at this same time exactly a week ago, down to the minute. Where were you? What were you thinking or talking about? Could you do it? That is how this world is arranged—over time, everything is forgotten. And there is a meaning in this too, but that is another topic.

So what is reincarnation?

Reincarnation, then, is a law of the universe. Scientists confirm this. All religions without exception touch on this concept when they speak of the eternity of the soul and the transience of the body. Some scriptures speak of reincarnation in detail, others without details. That does not matter. In this respect none are better or worse. There is simply more information in some and less in others. The teaching on reincarnation is not the main goal of religion. That is why some religions ignore it. And so all contradictions dissolve.

Om Tat Sat