Rebirth Continued

As mentioned earlier, after death of the physical body, the astral and causal bodies reside in a plane of the astral realm commensurate with one’s karmas. Those who have been really evil on earth get to reside in the very low realms where their experience is horrible and they are aware of the reason why they are there. If they do not realize or become aware of their mistakes or sins committed they continue to suffer in that realm for ages or centuries. Some of these souls, however, may have a desire to improve. If the desire to improve spiritually is genuine they may get a chance of another birth on earth but they will be born as animals, like beasts of burden with their memories of the lower realm intact ( it is believed)to enable them to bear the hardships of the rebirth. It is also believed that spiritual evolution is much faster when born on earth. This cycle may go on.
It is very unlikely that anyone from a very low astral realm will be born as a human since one has to be in a certain realm (something like a middle level or higher one) to get a chance of being reborn as human.
Those in the middle or higher realms, who genuinely want to evolve spiritually, based on their free will and karmas, wish to take a rebirth as a human being, need to first choose their mother. It is said that at the time of the union of the sperm and ovum, a flash of light appears which attracts a soul based on karmic characteristics of the parents. If the karmas of the soul trying to incarnate and the parents is harmonious, the soul takes birth as the baby of the parents so selected. The soul chooses the parents based on the type of experience it wishes to have and needs to evolve spiritually. This, therefore, means that we actually choose our time and place of birth. It is important to remember that the bottom line is spiritual progression in every birth. One wonders, then, why is it that a baby is born with certain birth defects and dies soon after birth. It is believed that the baby does so for certain reasons.It often does so to instill a sense of love, affection, and compassion in the parents. One has seen so very often that often when this happens the parents, having become so attached to the baby who has left them, start helping other children, open organizations for them, donate for orphanages etc. This way the little child has helped in the spiritual progress of the parents!
It is believed that small children upto the age of two to three years remember their previous births. It is also said that while in the mother’s womb, the soul can still decide whether to carry on with its birth or not (their subconscious mind is quite active). If for some reason, the soul in the womb decides that perhaps the mother is not quite right, it may decide to go back to the astral world, and the baby may then be still born!
Sometimes, the soul purposely decides to be born to a mother who is not a good person or of loose character, but still decides to be born to her, the reason is that the soul wants to bring about an improvement in the mother, to take her up spiritually.
It is, therefore, quite clear that one is not born randomly but there is always a specific purpose for one being born in a particular family. Most of the time, the reborn progresses spiritually, gaining from parents and other souls being born at the same time around( I had earlier mentioned that very often people are born in clusters, ie those one has known in earlier births are born again around the same time and come in contact, without one’s knowledge). All this is based on karmas of the concerned souls.


I would also like to point out that sometimes, the reborn, does not actually follow the chosen path, due to bad company, negative influences and negative people who somehow manage to get the worst out of them. This happens when they allow themselves to be ruled by their conscious minds and do not follow the guidance of their subconscious minds.(The subconscious is both a guard as well as a guide to us) When they die, they go back to much lower realms this time and their possibility of being reborn as humans becomes remote!
At this point I need to digress a little. All of us have chakras or energy centres in our heads and spines, which are actually energy transformers. They are acted upon by the electromagnetic energy of the various stars, and based on our karmic characteristics, our life unfolds. This means that it is not the stars which decide how our lives are going to be but actually our karmas. The stars alone do not have the power to do anything! Our karmas, therefore, decide everything.
Births can be compared to a step ladder of progress, the human birth is the topmost step, the next step can take us towards divine union. This will, however, happen only if we have evolved spiritually to a level which merits this union. Human birth, is, therefore essential for this to happen. All other births cannot take us to ‘Yoga” or union. Those who get repeated chances of being born as humans are being given multiple opportunities by God Almighty to go back to their Creator by the proper methods of spiritual progress based on the teachings of their God Realized Guru!

Rebirth

One has always wondered whether rebirth does actually take place.To me it is a reality,though many doubt that it does,specially in the West.There have been many anecdotal evidences to prove it and lots of books have also been written on this subject.As far as I am concerned I know it to be true from personal experience.
Why does it occur?According to our mythology,when the human soul is about to leave the human body at the time of death,whatever form it wishes to take,it comes back again in that form.The human birth is supposed to be the highest form of creation in which God has bestowed upon us “free will”whereby we have choices to experience virtually whatever we wish to. Therefore the soul,in order to experience a particular type of life,reincarnates in that particular body to experience what it wishes to and evolves further(we are always evolving).This is of course,based on one’s karmas.
By the time one gets a physical birth,one has forgotten that one is a part and parcel of the Almighty,to which one should strive to return.If the soul wishes to experience God it gets born in situations or circumstances where it comes in contact with people who sort of act as “catalysts” to help it evolve further towards God.It is quite likely that at this juncture it meets a Being who teaches and shows the soul the path to God.This Being could well be a Guru/Prophet/Master,whatever one wishes to address him by(like Gautam Budha/Guru Nanak/Sant Kabir/Jesus Christ/Prophet Mohammed or a modern day guru who has actually traversed the path to Self Realisation).If,however,the soul has wished to experience something else,it takes the form of a of a human being with different charectaristics or traits and experiences something entirely different,but always keeps evolving.Sooner or later,(though it may take many births),it will heed the message being constantly communicated to it through intuition/instinct/sixth sense etc to follow the path of Truth,which the soul ultimately starts to seek.
The reality is that many of us are aware of our earlier births and perhaps feel excited about it and start seeing or meeting many of our friends/relatives/well wishers/enemies of an earlier birth and try to reestablish the same connection but one should remember that now the same person who may have been a brother/sister/friend or whatever had that specific role to play as THAT person in THAT particular birth but in the present incarnation the role may not be the same as before!Therefore one should not get too excited about it.The reality possibly is that this is just to pay back our karmic debt to each other and we assume different forms to do so.To give you an example.You find that your boss is overbearing and singles you out for “special” treatment.Perhaps you may not even be aware that this is happening to you only to balance out the way you treated him in an earlier birth, where perhaps you were bossing over him!Similarly,you suddenly find that you are stranded somewhere in dire need of help with no one in sight and you think you are” finished” but miraculously someone appears from nowhere and bails you out.Again a karmic debt is being paid.
The fact that most of the time we do not remember anything about our previous births is actually a blessing.You can imagine what would happen if you started recognizing all your earlier relatives/friends/enemies/well wishers/associates/bosses/subordinates etc and tried to maintain contact with all of them.You could have all types of feelings….. of love/hate/stress/fear with which it would be impossible to cope.In addition present relationships could also get affected.
Learning or knowing about your past life/lives can very well be a part and parcel of your spiritual growth and is often a by product of progress on your path to God Realisation,but here also,Gurus try to dissuade you from trying to unravel earlier mysteries for the simple reason that solving them or remembering your past serves no useful purpose at all as each birth and each relationship has a different purpose than the earlier one and could very well complicate your present life.
Often,some Psychiatrists can get a patient to remember his/her past life but here the purpose is often therapeutic as very often past mishaps could be causes of fear/phobias and a trained psychiatrist could help the patient get over the phobia by making him/her aware of the reason for it.
It is very common for reincarnation to take place in “clusters”,which means that many people you may have known in an earlier birth,may be born again around the time you are and may actually be ‘around you “!There is so much truth in the saying that “The world is a stage”!It actually is as we are all playing our role life after life,in one birth one could be a father, while in the next one might be born as the son to the person one fathered earlier!

If one were to realize this one would take a lot of things in one’s stride.This is one of the reasons why God Realised souls discourage you from saying bad or foul things about anyone(of course,the main reason is that since our Atma is actually a part of the Parmatma,when one says something bad about anyone, one is actually maligning God).
Very often one wonders why one takes a strong liking to someone one meets for the first time and gets a feeling that one has met that person before!But despite one’s best attempts neither can figure out when and where.It is quite likely that one has met someone one knew earlier in a past life.For no apparent rhyme or reason this relationship grows.Again,one must remember that though there is so much of familiarity the purpose of the present meeting may be entirely different from the one in the previous birth.
By the same token,one may come across some one to whom one takes an instant dislike even though one has never met that person before.This again might be a case where paths may have been crossed earlier in an earlier birth.As so often happens,such a person one seems to keep meeting over and over again,one may get irritated,angry or upset but this might just be a situation where both are actually meeting to balance things out.As you progress on the true path you realise that the purpose of such meetings is to reach a state of the highest good for both the concerned parties and you understand that your duty is to even things out,therefore,act in a manner whereby confrontation is avoided and an action done whereby reconciliation can take place and if posible real forgiveness and love.One,however,may fail once,twice or many times(meaning thereby that one has not acted in the manner commensurate with the highest good of both) but such events will continue to take place till the issue is resolved for the good of both(by such repeated events,one is being given a chance to correct oneself)!

Sooner or later one evolves to a stage when one starts “seeking the truth” and with the help of a God Realised soul starts traversing the path towards God and becomes One with Him.Once that happens this cycle of birth and death is broken and one does not come back again as one becomes a part of Him.It does,however,happen that a few chosen few(like Budha/Guru Nanak/Jesus Christ/Kabir/Prophet Mohammed) take birth to guide people and help them towards the path to God.