Reincarnation Essay, Research Paper

Reincarnation has been the talk for thousands of years. The gospels say when the

Christian Master (Jesus) asked "Whom say the people that I am?," One

answered "Jesus was John the Baptist returned." It was well known by

then John the Baptist had been decapitated long before. Others said "He was

regarded as the reincarnation either of Elias or of Jerimias." They both

had been dead for centuries. This indicates how popular the subject was then,

also among the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Irish, and Indians on the American

continents, in a time when religion did not concede of the belief in

reincarnation. Jesus never denied the truth of reincarnation (Cooper intro.

v-vi). In the past, it has been a very controversial issue and will continue to

be widely debated. However, reincarnation is the key to our very existence and

the truth to life. "Reincarnation is the means by which hosts of evolving

lives, of all degrees of development, are brought into association with evolving

physical forms of all degrees of complexity"(Cooper 14). The basic belief

is that the soul cannot be reincarnated into the body of an animal. Humans are

not reborn directly after they die either(Cooper 20-21). According to Irving S.

Cooper, in past lives we have been painfully suffering because we were

passionate, willful, and at times cruel. But after many centuries we began to

stop wrong-doing. We have grown through contact with the people around us, the

regulation of the law, and through the pressure of physical being its

self(Cooper 16). There are many objections and "logical arguments" to

the question of reincarnation. One of the objections being: progress can be

achieved by humans without having to return to this planet(Cooper 48-51). Some

of the logical arguments are: one life on earth is useless in millions of cases,

it makes the achievement of perfection attainable(Cooper 59-78). There is

however more direct information that favors the belief in reincarnation. Because

we cannot remember our past lives, there is no way of knowing if we in fact

lived them. However, the first three or four years of our present life have been

entirely blocked out of our memory. We know we must have been alive and

conscious then because we are alive and conscience today. We do not have any

personal proof of the situation as far as memory goes. All details have also

been forgotten. Not only in those three to four years but more recently as well,

such as earlier today. The brain lets us forget a great amount of detail. For

example: "we are careful not to put our fingers into boiling water."

Why? Not because we have made the mistake recently but because many years ago

before we can remember, we suffered painfully when we threw our fingers into the

boiling water. It had to have caused such a horrid pain because of our present

caution(Cooper 80-83). There are many proofs to reincarnation. Instinct can

logically explained by reincarnation. A new born chick, just hatched from the

egg, runs for its safety when it sees the shadow of a hawk grace across the

ground. The experience from past lifetimes lets the baby chick escape from

danger instinctively(Cooper 85). It is said that when a child takes to a certain

interest, like music, it is supposedly a sign that in a past life, they were

musicians. This is also true when a child grasps certain instruction quickly.

Maternal instinct is often times found in girls and sometimes in boys. A child

playing with dolls is most likely recalling memories of an actual maternal

experience from a past life(Cooper 85). Reincarnation can also be used to

explain many otherwise unexplainable things, such as the following: * Ability/

Talent Each person has a certain talent that they have an exceptional ability

for naturally. Usually this is a talent that has tied over from many lives. In

order to keep a talent in working order, it must be facilitated. If we don?t

use it in one life and let our opportunities slip by, then in the next life we

are impaired by physical inability though still have the yearning for the

talent(Cooper 88). * "Vice or Virtue" The voice of conscience is

really the memory of past decisions concerning right and wrong. A crude person

has little conscience because his past experience has been so little. Criminal

parents can not stop virtue from being revealed in a child neither good parents

keep bad from sneaking into their children(Cooper 89). * Genius Genius is not

caused by heredity or the influence of parents either. Genius results when a

soul of wide experience along a certain line- math, music, painting, etc.- is

brought into incarnation in a physical body of extreme sensitiveness(Cooper

89-90). * Masculine Women/ Feminine Men Masculine women and feminine men

basically occurs when a soul has lived as a male or female for many lives and is

suddenly switched into the opposite sex(Cooper 90-91). * Unaccountable Fears

"Half-memories" from a previous life when we suffered from a

terrifying event such as drowning(fear of water) or being burned(fear of

fire)(Cooper 91). * Sudden Friendships When people touch or see each other for

the first time yet they intuitively have a strong bond that neither disappears

nor improves, have a mutual trust, are quick to sympathize and are readily

understanding, and includes loving sacrifice, are the results of many life times

of friendship. Two people who have loved one another in the past cannot be kept

apart. They are brought together over the centuries and the relationship becomes

more and more beautiful(Cooper 91-92). * The Feeling of Familiarity of Having

Known a Place Before All too often , there is someone who receives an eerie

feeling that they are strangely at home in a foreign city and while walking, can

instinctively know what is around the next corner(Cooper 92). * The Detailed

Memory of Past Lives There have been many cases where a person is placed under

hypnotic regression and has been able to go back to past lives and explain about

how they lived in that life and who they were. This procedure has been known to

be very consistent and truthful accounts. There is one minor problem with

reincarnation. Human souls are said to be running out. In the twenty-first

century, there will be more people alive than have ever lived before. When that

time comes, souls from the animal kingdom will have to be upgraded such as we

were thousands of years ago. But for the moment, "new pupils" are not

entering the "World-School" (Cooper 56). In conclusion, "our

greatest joy should be in learning how to make others healthier, happier, and

wiser here on earth, and that our greatest privilege is to take part in

hastening the spiritual unfolding of our incarnated brothers"(Cooper 52).

Reincarnation, by explaining the otherwise unexplainable, is the key to our

existence and the truth to life.

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Publishing House, 1972. Cranston, Sylvia, and Carey Williams. Reincarnation: A

New Horizon in Science, Religion, and Society. New York: Julian Press, 1984.

Eadie, Betty J. Embraced by the Light. New York: Bantam Books, 1994. Reily,

Betty. A Veil Too Thin: Reincarnation Out of Control. Malibu & Scottsdale:

Valley of the Sun Publishing, 1984.