Updated, 1/27/24.
Reincarnation:
Information is knowledge, which can be an invaluable tool when obtained and understood. Religion, in its broadest sense, varies significantly throughout the earth. It began with our first parents, who worshiped the one true God. Corrupt men started broadening their horizons by worshiping multiple gods, varying concepts, nature itself, or no god.
One of these religions is called the quiet religion. It creeps up on us via Hollywood, the drug cults, the entertainment industry, etc. It’s the religion of Buddhism. It may be the largest of all religions, touching India, Japan, China, Russia, Europe, America, etc. For the most part, the people are peaceful and quiet. It comes in many shapes and sizes here in America and embedded in what is called the New Age.
Recently, a poll estimated that nearly 25% of Americans practice some form of reincarnation. This thinking and teaching has gained a large following in the American culture and is leaving its footprint on the land.
The teaching of transmigration, or reincarnation, is one of Buddhism’s many doctrines. It teaches that a person’s soul passes from one body or form to another body or form. Simply, it states that there is life after death, and after death, we return a very different creature, one that will soon die again, be reborn again to die again, this to continue until a specific condition of your soul has been reached.
Those who practice it claim that it’s some 2500 years old. Bushha means “The wise” or “the enlightened.” Buddhists conclude that the causes of humanity’s pain are his desires. The immediate cause of pain is birth, for if we were not born, we would not be exposed to death or any of the ills of life. Birth is said to be caused by a previous existence and is only a transition from one state to another.
In its most exaggerated form, Buddhism accepts the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. When a man dies, he is immediately born again or appears in a new shape. According to their merits or demerits, that shape or form may be any form of the many innumerable orders of being that represent the Buddhist universe, such as a cow, rat, beggar, wealthy man, etc. This is to say, it can be anything from a clod, meaning anything earthly, base, or vile, as is the human body compared to his soul.
If a person’s deeds are wicked, they will be born in one of the 136 Buddhist hells situated in the earth’s interior. These places of punishment have a regular gradation in the intensity of the suffering measured by the length of time the sufferer lives; the least amount is 10 million years.
On the other hand, a worthy life secures the next birth in an exalted and happy position on earth, a blessed spirit, or they may even return as divinity in one of the many heavens. Regardless, both have an end and at their close, the person must be born again and can attain happiness or be miserable either as the vilest inanimate object or a god.
Death is no escape from this inevitable lot. According to this doctrine of transmigration, death is only a passage into some other form of existence which is equally doomed. Even those who find themselves in heaven have not entered into their final voyage.
The key to the whole scheme of Buddhist salvation lies in the Four Sublime Verites. The first asserts that pain exists, the second is that the cause of pain is desire or attachment, the third is Nirvana can end that pain, and the fourth shows the way that leads to Nirvana.
Reaching the state of Nirvana is the final beatitude that is said to transcend 1. suffering; 2. karma, which is to sustain the cycle of deaths and rebirths, and that which determines a person’s next destination or existence; and 3. Samsara is the extinction of desires and individual consciousness, bringing a person to a state oblivious to care, pain, and external reality.
Their rituals are simple. There are no priests, no clergy, no sacraments, or rites. But there are the Sramanas, a religious order, a kind of monk, who have entered into a course of the holiness of life, character, and austerity that ordinary men have not. The only function the Sramanas have is to read the scriptures or discourses of Buddha to assemblies of people.
The adoration of statues of the Buddha and his relics is the chief external ceremony of the religion, coupled with prayer and the repetition of sacred formulas. Note that their followers have never considered Buddha to be a god. Not being a god, Buddha has become and is the ideal of what man may become.
Prayer is natural to all men. But in this religion, there is no god; thus, no one can hear or answer their prayers. Their prayer works in some magical way, producing effects by a blind force inherent in themselves. From here may come the idea of men being gods within ourselves. Prayer appears to be mere incantations or charms.
The caste system is a division of society based on differences of wealth, inherited rank, or occupation. Buddhism addresses itself to the castes and the outcasts. It promises salvation to all; their disciples are to preach and practice the disciplines of this doctrine in all places and to all men. They have a duty to preach from their homes, villages, country, or to the furthest corners of the earth. Having a feeling of sympathy and brotherhood towards all men united with the idea of humanity.
The works mentioned above and disciplines, in many respects, resemble the commands of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, the differences and fundamental errors in their theories are apparent. They are boyish, trifling absurdities with which the system has been overloaded, making it rather ridiculous.
Many Americans have become involved with yoga practice, exercises, and meditation. Yoga is the name of one of the two divisions of the Sankhya philosophy of the Hindus. According to Patanjali, the author of this system, the term means “The hindering of the modifications of thinking.” Yoga is a Hindu theistic philosophy, A system of exercises for attaining bodily or mental control and well-being.
Christians are to stay away from any false teachings and pagan ceremonies and to avoid any ties that may be attached to these religion’s practices, be they exercises or mantras.
Phillip LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com