Fwd: Is reincarnation or rebirth real?

[Guest guest]

advaitajnana, "Tony OClery" <aoclery>

wrote:

Namaste,

 

Reincarnation is as real as the following. 'Firewalkers who walk on

hot coals believing they won't burn them, don't get burned. Those

who have a doubt get burned.' It is in the mind only, and it is the

same with reincarnation. If you believe in a small self and that all

this happened then for you there is rebirth and Devas...ONS..Tony.

 

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Reincarnation exists only so long as there is

> ignorance.

>

> There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor

> will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.

>

> [Note: Comments by David Godman: Most religions have constructed

> elaborate theories which purport to explain what happens to the

> individual soul after the death of the body. Some claim that the

soul

> goes to heaven or hell while others claim that it is reincarnated

in a

> new body.

>

> Sri Ramana Maharshi taught that all such theories are based on the

> false assumption that the individual self or soul is real; once

this

> illusion is seen through, the whole superstructure of after-life

> theories collapses. From the standpoint of the Self, there is no

birth

> or death, no heaven or hell, and no reincarnation.

>

> As a concession to those who were unable to assimilate the

> implications of this truth, Sri Ramana would sometimes admit that

> reincarnation existed. In replying to such people he would say

that if

> one imagined that the individual self was real, then that imaginary

> self would persist after death and that eventually it would

identify

> with a new body and a new life. The whole process, he said, is

> sustained by the tendency of the mind to identify itself with a

body.

> Once the limiting illusion of mind is transcended, identification

with

> the body ceases, and all theories about death and reincarnation are

> found to be inapplicable.]

>

> Question: Can a yogi know his past lives?

>

> Maharshi: Do you know the present life that you wish to know the

past?

> Find the present, then the rest will follow. Even with our present

> limited knowledge, you suffer so much. Why should you burden

yourself

> with more knowledge? Is it to suffer more?

>

> When seen through the sight of the supreme space of Self, the

illusion

> of taking birth in this mirage-like false world is found to be

nothing

> but the egotistical ignorance of identifying a body as "I". Among

> those whose minds are possessed with forgetfulness of Self, those

who

> are born will die and those who die will be born again. But know

that

> those whose minds are dead, having known the glorious Supreme

Reality,

> will remain only there in that elevated state of reality, devoid of

> both birth and death. Forgetting Self, mistaking the body for Self,

> taking innumerable births, and at last knowing Self and being Self

is

> just like waking from a dream of wandering all over the world.