Reincarnation and the Law of Karma: A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and EffectAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
Reincarnation and the Law of Karma: A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect
Atkinson, William Walker
Karma; Reincarnation
Closely allied to the last mentioned argument against Reincarnation is
the one that as the memory of the past life is absent, or nearly so, the
new personality is practically a new soul, instead of the old one
reincarnated, and that it is unreasonable and unjust to have it enjoy or
suffer by reasons of its experiences and acts in the previous life. We
think that the answers to the last mentioned objection are answers to
this one also. The "I," Ego, or Individuality, being the same, it
matters not if the details of the old Personality be forgotten. You are
the same "I" that lived fifty years ago in the same body--or even ten
years ago--and you are enjoying certain things, or suffering from
certain things, done or left undone at the previous time, although you
have forgotten the incidents. The impress of the thing is on your
Character, and you are today largely what you are by reason of what you
have been in past years, though those years are forgotten by you. This
you will readily admit, and yet the argument of the Reincarnationists is
merely an extension of the same idea. As Figuier says: "The soul, in
spite of its journeys, in the midst of its incarnations and divers
metamorphoses remains always identical with itself; only at each
metempsychosis, each metamorphosis of the external being, improving and
purifying itself, growing in power and intellectual grasp."
Another argument against Reincarnation is that it is not necessary, for
the reason that Heredity accounts for all of the facts claimed as
corroborative of Reincarnation. Answering this the advocates of the
doctrine insist that Heredity does not account for all the facts,
inasmuch as children are born with marked talents and genius, while
none of their family for generations back have displayed any such
tendencies. They also claim that if Heredity were the only factor in the
case, there would be no advance in the races, as the children would be
precisely like their ancestors, no variety or improvement being
possible. But it must be remembered that Reincarnationists do not deny
certain effects of Heredity, particularly along physical lines, and to
an extent along mental lines, in the way of perpetuating "tendencies,"
which, however, are and may be overcome by the individuality of the
child. Moreover, the doctrine holds that one of the laws of Rebirth is
that the reincarnating soul is attracted to parents harmonious to
itself, and likely to afford the environments and association desirable
to the soul. So in this way the characteristics likely to be transmitted
to the offspring are those which are sought for and desired by the
reincarnating soul. The law of Rebirth is held to be as exact and
certain as the laws of mathematics or chemistry, the parents, as well
as the child, forming the combination which brings forth the rebirth.
Rebirth is held to be above the mere wish of the reincarnating soul--it
is in accordance with an invariable natural law, which has Justice and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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