A wise man once said that nothing really dies.
It just comes back in a new form. Then he died.
So, next time you see a lowly salamander, think twice before you step on it; it might be you.
Stand by for ‘Reincarnation’.
When a person dies, it is only his physical body that dies, he and his mind do not die with the body.
The mind of the dying person goes with him, and for a little while after death he retains all his memory of his previous life.
It is like what happens with our dreams. After you wake up from sleep you remember your dreams for a little while.
Slowly the memory of dreams begins to fade and by noontime it fades away completely. And by the evening you cannot say even a word about them.
You dream in your sleep, yet on waking you can clearly recall fragments of your dreams, particularly the latter part of your last dream.
You can remember the dreams fully or partly that visit you in your half-asleep and half-waking state.
But even this memory does not last long; as hours pass it disappears.
In the same way a man’s bodiless soul remembers its previous life, its friends and relatives for a little while after his death.
And this memory is rather painful, because he can not relate with them anymore.
We do a few things soon after someone meets his death, so that he is relieved of the memories of his past associations and attachments.
It is not good to carry them, because they are very painful. Hindus cremate the bodies of their relatives after their death; they try not to delay if it is avoidable.
Cremation destroys all identity and attachment of the dead with their bodies, because they remember their past only through the medium of their dead bodies.
The dead body serves as a bridge between the released soul and his past life.
A person who dies with Awareness, who remains fully conscious and aware at the time of his death, does not die really; he knows he is deathless.
He is not dying, he is leaving his old body like we discard old clothes.
And a person who attains to such a state of deep Awareness is rare; he is free of all attachments and psychological memories. He has neither friends nor foes; he is free of all cravings and desires.
He is a class by himself; dying with Awareness he will be born with awareness, unencumbered by his past.
Just as one remembers his past for a while after death, so he does after his new birth too.
A newborn child carries with him for a brief time the memories of his previous life as a spirit. But by and by this memory fades away and by the time he learns speaking it is completely lost.
It is rare that a child remembers his past life even after he is articulate and able to communicate with others.
He is called a freak of nature. He must have been a man of rare memory in his past existence.
It is only through logic that philosophical evidence in support of reincarnation can be built. But logic suffers from an inherent weakness.
It can be used as powerfully both for and against a proposition. If one wants to describe logic rightly, logic is like a lawyer or a prostitute who goes with anyone who pays the fee.
There are those who have proved logically and philosophically that reincarnation is a fact, and there are also those who have disproved and blasted this theory with the help or the same weapons of logic and philosophy.