Question: Is there any proof for reincarnation?
Answer: Before we can understand the proof for reincarnation, we need to
understand how reincarnation takes place. The Bhagavad-gita explains that
our current existence is three-dimensional: physical (related with the gross
material body that we can see and touch), mental (related with the subtle
material body centered on the mind) and spiritual (related with the soul).
At the time of death, the soul, along with the subtle body, goes to the next
gross body, leaving this gross body behind. As the same subtle body carries
on to the next life, aspects related to the subtle body - skills, fears,
memories - are carried on from this life to the next.
Whether these aspects - skills, fears, memories - will be remembered in the
next life or not will depend on, among other factors, the extent of
impressions that have been created in the mind by the activities related to
them. Here are examples of phenomenon that persuasively point to
reincarnation:
1. Precocious children who have abilities far greater than their age are a
medical mystery. How does a child of five solve complex calculus problems
that graduate level students struggle with? Because he has cultivated maths
skills in his previous life.
2. Many people with mental problems - especially phobias - that are
incurable by normal psychotherapy have been cured by Dr Brian Weiss of the
Sinai Medical Research Center, USA. He traces, through hypnotically-induced
past life regression, that these phobias originate in a traumatic
previous-life death caused by the very object toward which one has phobia in
this life. For example, he found that several patients having hydrophobia
had died due to drowning in a previous life. When the patients realize that
the traumatic event is already over, then their phobia disappears or at
least decreases dramatically. Those who don't consider reincarnation real
have no explanation for the real healing that has taken place.
3. Numerous cases of past-life memories are documented by rigorous
resarchers like Dr Ian Stevenson in his books, especially Where
Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. The quality of his research was
acknowledged in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association,
which stated that he had "painstakingly and unemotionally collected a
detailed series of cases in which the evidence for reincarnation is
difficult to understand on any other grounds..He has placed on record a
large amount of data that cannot be ignored."
No wonder prominent author Collin Watson, "The sheer volume of evidence for
survival after death is so immense, that to ignore it is like standing at
the foot of Mt. Everest and insisting that you cannot see the mountain."
The author is associate-editor for ISKCON's global magazine, Back to Godhead
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