Reincarnation – How we got this body

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Haribol.

So tonight this will be a continuation of what we last spoke about. The title is, I was given, Reincarnation – How we got this body.

Last time we did an introduction to the Bhagavad-gita, and we learned that the Bhagavad-gita is a conversation between Lord Sri Krishna and Arjuna. Arjuna was a warrior prince; and the conversation takes place on a battlefield, and two great armies were drawn up ready for a monumental battle. And Arjuna had asked that he be taken in a chariot down between the two opposing armies, and driving through them looking both sides he became utterly overwhelmed, seeing that there were many blood relatives here who were now facing off against each other, along with their myriad of supporters. And he was overwhelmed, and thought this—the outcome of this battle could only be evil and unhappiness and much destruction. And overcome with sadness, he had said that he was not going to fight.

And we learned that the most foundational precept that is taught in Bhagavad-gita was then presented to him: the reality that this material body is not us, it is a very temporary place where we are residing, that we are eternal spiritual beings. This body is not our home, we will only be in it for a very short period of time in reality. So that being foundational—as part of what was presented during that conversation was the subject of the transmigration of the soul, or reincarnation, as it is sometimes called. So we’ll discuss it tonight, because—for a couple of reasons.

One is, a lot of people have heard of it, and there may be many misunderstandings around the subject. But what’s important is, it really hammers home the reality of us being eternal spiritual beings, and only very temporarily residing within the body. What we will come to understand, this is like the ultimate in recycling.

One of the things we discussed was how the body is constantly undergoing change. Many people will look at a photo album of when, they say, when I was younger; and they don’t really grasp that that body in the picture that they’re looking at is completely different than the body that they are currently occupying. Actually, within five years every single atom of your body has been replaced. It’s not just that it grows and maybe changes shape a little bit, every single atom of material energy that makes up the body is constantly being replaced, constantly, even the brain. And your bones, you think, “Oh, they’re so hard and resilient, and they’ll be around for a while.” Well, maybe in the overall form, but the actual matter making up those things are constantly changing.

And of course, it raises this extraordinary realization that we can have: Well, if my body is constantly changing, how come I’m not changing, the one who is experiencing the body and experiencing the constant change, that that person remains constant? It’s not like you become another person every five years. You are the same person. You are the one experiencing the constant change.

I remember hearing an explanation one time of—within Christianity there are some that have a concept or an idea that, in the final times, the body that you had prior to death will be resurrected, and you get to go to some spiritual dimension, or heaven, along with that body. But if we look at it scientifically, it’s sort of like, how is that even a possibility, when the body that I have on is constantly shedding the material elements, which mingle with the earth, in the air, and are absorbed by other living beings and go to make up other bodies? And so somebody had done a study, that there is a distinct possibility that within your body somewhere there is even one tiny particle of the body of Shakespeare. That’s kind of—this is the ultimate recycling, this constant changing and the flux that takes place with the—over the time.

So it’s sort of like, wow, these are like staggering ideas if we look at them really clearly in relation to our life.

When people talk of reincarnation, sometimes people ask, Well, can I become an animal? Could I become a dog?” And of course, the answer is both yes and no. Yes and no, meaning that you are always an eternal spiritual being. The body that you are currently wearing is not you, but we are absorbed in these identities. If I have a male body on or a female body, I say, “I am female,” or “I am male.” If I’m of a particular ethnic extraction, or if I’m very tall, or very short, or fat, or thin, these are the things that I take on, “This is me,” “I am this,” “I am…” And of course, none of that is true, not even a tiny bit, not even a little bit.

And so when somebody asks, “Oh, so you mean I can become a dog?” Well, you actually don’t become a dog. You are still an eternal spiritual being. But yes, you can reside within the body of any one of an almost unlimited number of varieties of body. Anywhere where you see life, you are, at least to some degree, perceiving the presence of a spiritual being.

Different types of bodies are considered very gross or very subtle. The human form of life is very, considered very special, because the nature of the soul itself becomes a little bit more visible and apparent, unlike in lower life forms, you can barely see anybody’s home there, like a tree. Nobody normally thinks of, there’s somebody there in that particular body, but this is the reality that is presented to us in the Vedic understanding. And to be aware of this and to be thoughtful of this can become a great impetus for us to seek some real answers to the major problems of life.

When Arjuna began to complain that he did not want to be responsible for the death of these other kings and princes that he was going to be fighting against, and one of the things that he was told immediately—and I’ll just say that this principle is a very elevated spiritual principle, and it has its application, but it should not be misunderstood—So, in one verse in the Bhagavad-gita Krishna states,

“Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.” [Bhagavad-gītā 2.12]

This is like a pretty significant statement. And it is so comforting to anybody that is facing death to have the appreciation that I never die, I cannot die. It’s not even a possibility. But I can leave. When I leave the body, the body will die. The body now, it just falls over, doesn’t respond to anything, becomes actually really unpleasant. I could have been feeling great affection for someone and embracing them, but as soon as they leave the body, the body becomes unpleasant. We want to distance ourself. It even becomes unclean.

Have you ever handled a dead body, particularly somebody you don’t know? It’s quite shocking to have to pick up and move and transport a body. And if somebody tried to hand you a sandwich after you did that, you feel like “Ahh… can I wash first?” You wouldn’t feel like you could even take something and put it in your mouth. And it’s—you have that kind of a reaction for a reason. There is an observation, but everything is not really clicking.

So this first principle: We are eternal. We never die. We will always continue to exist.

And then in another verse in the next verse it states:

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death, and a sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” [Bhagavad-gītā 2.13]

So this is already an observation of what I talked about, the science of the reality that your body is constantly in flux and changing, but here, making it so that people can relate, it’s stating that if you just look at a single person’s lifetime, particularly if they’re already in old age, there was a time when they had a baby body, and then they had a young child’s body,then they had a teenager’s body, then they had a—they reached maturity as an adult, and then they existed in that state for some time, the body became middle-aged, then it began to decline, advanced in age, and finally in very, very old age. All of these bodies are changing material energy, but there is only one spiritual being that is experiencing all of this change. And so the statement is that:

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death, and a sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” [Bhagavad-gītā 2.13]

And then I’ll read the next verse that I have here,

“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” [Bhagavad-gītā 2.22]

Something that’s always quite startling to consider, there is nothing probably more extraordinary and wonderful than seeing a birth, and you have a tiny little person—I mean, this like, fresh, new, and someone looks at it, and the heart melts, and it’s just like, “Oh, it’s so, it’s so nice.” And we don’t know, that 9 or 10 months before that, that same person had another body, an old, perhaps quite sick [models a hacking cough], no teeth, something that you wouldn’t want to be cuddling and holding. You might even go like “Yaaah, do I have to?” [mimes revulsion] But when there’s that change of body, suddenly certain natural Instincts kick in.

But what we have been encouraged to do is not lose the plot, to be able to appreciate how the living being, after this body becomes old and useless, or because of some accident or great sickness it’s no longer habitable, the living being moves on and takes another body. And that’s just like, all of a sudden, it’s sort of like, oh wow!

And so you see in this world—let’s just talk about human beings, how many different racial identities exist on the planet? How many different economic circumstances are there? Some people are born with great beauty or handsomeness, others are born very unattractive. Some of them have in great health and strength, others might be born as invalids and have some disfiguring terrible disease or something. When we begin to consider all of the different circumstances in which the living beings can occupy a new body, it’s sort of like, whoa, this is like a serious wakeup call if we consider this.

Our tendency is not to think about things like that. We just become lost in the, whatever thoughts we have about who we are, and we’re totally absorbed in the current body that we have and things that that body and other people that the body is connected to, and circumstances, and my possessions, and my different situations; I’m just constantly absorbed in that without appreciating this much bigger and more significant picture.

One of my spiritual teachers, he said, the absurdity of things—and using this last verse I read where it says:

“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” [Bhagavad-gītā 2.22]

We have this tendency of—I’m currently wearing a beigey sort of shirt, and somebody else has got a red shirt and a white shirt, and somebody’s got a blue shirt, and if we begin to relate to people as being the shirt, and if the shirt didn’t look very nice, then we don’t like it, but if it’s all new and looks attractive then it’s like, “Oooh! Look,” we related simply on that very superficial basis, it would be a very sad world. And it is a very sad world. It’s the world of selfies. That’s not you. That’s a picture of a body. You may be occupying it, you may lay claim to it, but in reality it’s not even yours, you will be forced to leave it behind. And if the body looks attractive, then I’m all perky and happy and excited. When the body starts aging then I’m just like in this constant anxiety and struggle to try and keep it looking okay and everything, because I place the idea of self-worth, lovableness, etc, on what the body looks like. And that is a sad, sad world, very sad world, a world devoid of any actual spiritual perspective.

So, here the body is likened to simply being a garment.

So then the question is, how do we get this particular body? What was the big driver, what is it that makes it so we acquire certain bodies? That information is given in a verse in the Bhagavad-gita, from the eighth chapter:

“Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.” [Bhagavad-gītā 8.6]

That’s an extraordinary idea, whatever is occupying my mind, whatever is drawing my heart, whatever is attracting me at the time of death, that will determine where I’m going. What do you think? You guys, did you know about this? This is like, this is really important.

So a spiritual practice was really a practice by which a person can arrive at that moment of death and be utterly absorbed in transcendental or spiritual thought. That is why they practiced different types of spiritual practices; and most practices and paths all presented this understanding. So people were careful. What I do with my life, the things I build attachment to, what I see as being my purpose all has huge bearing on what will happen when I leave this body.

Just from an ordinary worldly perspective, if somebody lived a life where they were aware that I’m only going to be in this body for a short period of time, the way in which they would probably relate to others and deal with others, and how—the choices that they would make about what’s important, would all be actually different and quite wonderful. And people would actually be a lot happier, a lot less mean and bad to each other, because there would be an understanding of this bigger picture, rather than just being utterly lost in this current experience, and just being pulled constantly by emotions, and whatever emotion arises in my mind then I’m going to follow it, I’m going to go there, I’m going to act on that, rather than the idea of “No no, no, no, no. We’re not following that. That’s not good. That’s not going to produce a good outcome for me or for anyone else.” I need to choose a path of kindness, of being caring and charitable and loving, because this state of being, when I leave this body determines what is going to happen, where things are going.

It was understood in Vedic teaching, the reason that you received—and it’s sort of alluded to here—the reason that someone gets a particular type of body, there will be two things influencing that. One is called karma or karma phalam, the fruit of my actions; and the other one is the nature of my desires and attachments. And how that plays out, it’s like one—okay, I’ll just read another verse here from later on in the Bhagavad-gita:

“The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas.” [Bhagavad-gītā 15.8]

So the fundamental idea is that, whatever desires and things I build up in my life, that will carry me to my next destination. And it’s further explained in another great text called the Bhagavat Purana, and they give this pretty astonishing example:

“The caterpillar transports itself from one leaf to another by capturing one leaf before giving up the other…” [Bhāgavata Purāṇa 4.29.76-77]

Right? You see caterpillars, when they’re going to move, they go like that [mimicking caterpillar movements], and they reach out, and they grab, and once they’ve grabbed, the one that they’re still hanging on to here, now they release it, and pull their body over. So first they grab the next leaf that they’re going to move to before giving up the other one.

“…Similarly, according to his previous work, the living entity must capture another body before giving up the one that he has. This is because the mind is the reservoir of all kinds of desires.” [Bhāgavata Purāṇa 4.29.76-77]

 And then I’ll just read one more verse from the Bhagavad-gita 15th chapter:

“The living entity, thus taking another gross body, obtains a certain type of ear, tongue, and nose and sense of touch, which are grouped about the mind. He thus enjoys a particular set of sense objects.” [Bhagavad-gītā 15.9]

So what has been referenced here, if we cultivate animal tendencies and animal desires in this lifetime, that will be our destination. If one is so utterly irresponsible, and they live, for instance, a life where they are constantly intoxicated, their destination will be very low species like trees and plants. The same living being is there, but it’s just like, here you go, [mimes a tree] for the next 200 years. That’s what they’re explaining, that’s what they’re saying.

So the nature of our choices in this life, and the nature of the desires that we cultivate, will determine where we’re going.

I saw this really funny cartoon once, and it didn’t have anything to do with reincarnation, but I think it really applies. In the cartoon it was a couple; and in the first cartoon like 20 years of age kind of thing, and the guy’s all out in front, and the woman is sweetly following behind, doing the submissive womanly thing as it were. Then in the next picture their bodies were maybe 75 years of age, or 80, then you had the woman out in front, really strong, and the guy’s like wimping along behind. And when I saw that, it was just like, oh, that was the setup for next time around.

These ideas, some people, if they’ve never heard anything like this before, might be quite startling and maybe even shocking, and even like, “Eww,” you know. But if one gives this thoughtful consideration, it explains so many things. It explains so much of what happens in this world.

I was at a retreat in Whangamata, a couple of weeks ago, and in—we had a Q&A session, and a young guy asked me about reincarnation. Then he was saying, “But isn’t it like a really good thing, because you get the opportunity to now learn, and learn lessons and apply them next time around?” And I said, “No, it doesn’t actually work that way.”

People have a lot of ideas about reincarnation and stuff. It used to be a big thing before, back in the 60s and70s. When people would talk about it, they would always say like, “I used to be Julius Caesar,” or, “I was Cleopatra,” or some famous person, or beautiful person, or skillful person. That’s just fantasy ideas.

In relation to this, I said the big problem with reincarnation, you imagine in this lifetime, if a person was in a car accident or something happened, and as a result of that they were hospitalized, they were in coma, and they remained in coma for months, and then finally they come out of their coma, and they have lost all memory. And people are looking at you, and, “Oh, it’s so good to see you again!” It’s like, “Who are you?” You didn’t even know who that person is, even though there had been a relationship for maybe decades. And you can’t, you’ve forgotten how to talk and how to walk and do things. You come out of this very severe comatose state, and you’ve lost all memory. There’s no continuation of anything, of a former life or anything.

And so this is actually what the situation is like, and it’s very grave. It’s not that a person can think that, “Oh yeah, I’ll just wait. Next time around I’ll do this, and I’ll do that,” or, “I’ll be more serious about spiritual things,” and you know… you have no idea what the process is actually like, and how one can become utterly forgetful of everything.

Just like in this lifetime we have relationships, and relationships are always a bit of a roller coaster. Sometimes everything is wonderful, other time we’re pulling our hair out. We’re heartbroken, then we’re all happy again, and then people are fighting and going through all these emotional roller coasters, and there’s this intensity to a relationship. We’re fearful of what could happen with that person or a situation. But the reality is, as soon as a living being leaves that body, in the event called death, they are utterly forgetful of everyone they were connected with and everything that has come before. And you suddenly got your eyes open, and there’s people looking at you going, “Goo goo goo, aaah…” [mimes looking down at baby] and you’re going “Oooaah” [mimes baby looking up in trepidation] …going to start building new relationships, struggling with this body, trying to—you know it can do stuff, but you just can’t make it work. Not much fun.

So in relation to that aspect of things another verse from the Bhagavat Purana:

“When the living entity passes from the present body to the next body, which is created by their own karma, he becomes absorbed in the pleasurable and painful sensations of the new body and completely forgets the experience of the previous body. This total forgetfulness of one’s previous material identity, which comes about for one reason or another, is called death.” [Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.22.39]

This is the result of the experience of death. Although the living being is eternal, the experience is considered so overwhelming that one forgets everything that has come before. Is this disturbing? Or are we okay? This is hardcore reincarnation, the reality, not the fanciful ideas and… people want to speculate about.

It also raises then, sometimes people have, they ask a question, not in relation to reincarnation, but they ask a question, “Why do bad things happen to really good people?” Sometimes there are people that are just so good, they’re so kind and they’re always so thoughtful and careful, yet they can meet terrible tragedy. And the answer lies in the subject of reincarnation.

Just like we talked about a little baby body, somebody is showing up in this little baby body, and people look at it like it’s so innocent and it’s so pure, and the answer is, no it’s not. You don’t know where that dude’s come from. You don’t know what they got up to in the past. And we cannot see the enormous amount of baggage the living being brings when they occupy a new body. That baggage are the fruits of past activity; and in their life these bags will be unpacked, and we will have to accept the fruit, whether it is bitter or sweet.

When one engages in material activity, this is called karma, there will always be a consequence, a result. And for this reason, wherever we find ourself in life at any time, it is always the result of choices that we made, of actions that we took, and now we are experiencing the fruit of that. And having this perspective is actually not disempowering, it’s really empowering; because you have freedom of choice, freedom of will. You can set your life on a course where you carefully consider how you should act, how you should speak, what choices you should make so they produce really good outcomes.

That’s like probably the most important lesson to be learned from the subject of reincarnation. We have to be the driver of the bus. It shouldn’t be somebody else dictating what choices I’m going to make. It shouldn’t be my own mind going off on a crazy tangent and dragging me down a dark alley and get mugged.

People are just—one of the things that I find quite heartbreaking is when I see people getting married, especially when people have not really done their due diligence. And so in my years of counselling and stuff, you hear people say, “If I knew you were like that, I would have never married you.” It’s kind of like, hello, do you know how dumb that is? That is your job, to know. If you enter into something blindly, then you are forced to accept consequences you didn’t anticipate. The need for us to be thoughtful in life, and to be careful, and to form good judgment, and to be rightly guided, and to act in a way that produces good outcomes is really important; and this is one of the big lessons that we should take away from the topic of reincarnation.

I mentioned earlier that the human form of life is an extraordinary gift, it’s looked at that way by the great sages and saints. It’s only in the human form of life that you can ask questions like, “Who am I? Why am I here? What’s this all for? Where is it all going?” I can ask those questions. In lower life forms they don’t ask those questions, they simply react constantly to desire, emotions, fears, just different mental states. They’re just constantly reacting to those things. But in the human form of life, we can consider these questions and utilize this form of life for a higher spiritual purpose, our actual spiritual liberation. And so human form of life was considered very important.

So this is kind of like a really big topic, a long subject. I will post the talk. It requires some considerable contemplation and consideration. I will post this online, and when I post it, I will also post links to three other talks that I’ve done on it, which may help people really develop a good and healthy understanding. And hopefully it will inspire people to become really incredibly more responsible, and learn to make really, really good choices in life.

Okay. Was that depressing? This was a crash course on reincarnation.

What we’ll do is I’ll just chant for a short while, and then we can do a Q&A.  Anybody that’s got questions, then we can try to answer them. Is that okay? [Audience: Yes] So I’ll be chanting the Mahamantra, the Hare Krishna Mantra