Reincarnation: Q&A

Gauracandra · February 21, 2004

This week’s Srila Siddhaswarupananda television program is a question and answer session on reincarnation.

Audience Member: I have a question about predestination. Can this be changed?

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: There is predestination but it can be changed by your activities. Your destiny is like a train track that you have laid down based on your karma. Your actions create your consciousness and your destiny. Right now you are creating your future. What you experience today is based upon what you have done before. As such your present actions set forth your future destiny. If you understand this then you can change your destiny. I can decide by making my consciousness a certain kind of consciousness what type of body I will take on in my next life. If you want to go to Hellish planets then engage in actions that are demoniac. If you want to go to heavenly destinations then open hospitals, treat people well. And if you want God, then make God the center of your consciousness. You go where you want to go based on the kind of consciousness you have cultivated in life. There are some Christians who will say there are only 500,000 names that will go to God. It is already chosen. This is nonsense. You can go to God, but if you live your life like a dog, then in your next life you will take birth as a dog.

Audience Member: I saw this movie called Audrey Rose. In it a woman dies, and then 10 minutes later she takes birth.

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: Yes, yes. I once did a movie review of this film [tone suggests it was not a flattering review]. People think they know reincarnation from this film. It is not that you die and then one minute later you are reborn. The soul enters at conception not at birth. There is a distinction of a body with a soul and one without. There are characteristics. For instance, have you ever seen a dead cat? What characteristics does it have that a living cat does not? Does it grow? Does it meow? It does start to decay and stink. Metabolism only occurs where a spirit soul is present. If it is growing it means there is someone in that body. They take food and air and elements and it becomes part of the body. The life force has a presence in the body. So from the time of conception there is growth. If there is a child in the womb there is movement. Moving hands, legs, heart. Analyze this distinction.

Audience Member: Doesn’t that mean that abortion means you are killing someone?

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: Of course. Abort means to stop the growth. Why is it growing? Because there is life. And without the soul there is no life.

Audience Member: What about those individuals who are “born” musicians or artists?

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: They are simply bringing forth their talents from their previous lives. What was that guy’s name? He was a famous conductor. He was a natural musician. Anyways, often times that is the reason.

Audience Member: You said that at the time of death some experience hellish and heavenly sights. But people who have clinical death usually experience heavenly…

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: Clinical death is not leaving their body completely. They may experience a white light. But first understand that they have not completely left their body, though what they experience may in fact be a taste of what is to come.

There is a Dr. Rollings who is a heart specialist. He says that 50% of those he knows about who have out of body experiences, experience hellish conditions. However, often they suppress these thoughts. It becomes selective perception. You want to remember heavenly sights, but suppress those that scared you.

Audience Member: Is there any value to hypnotism to regress to past lives?

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: There is no value. Maybe some scientific value if you can document your findings. But notice how they are always humans in their last lives? Not some dog family? Why would you want to do it anyways?

Audience Member: Curiousity?

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: Perhaps. Some people think it helps to clean up their current existence. That is if I go back in time, to my last life, and relive a traumatic experience, that this should help me in this life. I’m not sure why reliving trauma is supposed to be good. I don’t understand this. But suppose you could do this. Suppose you could go back, and separate one life from the next. You have had countless numbers of bodies in your past lives. So first, who is qualified to do this. And second, what are you going to do with it afterwards. You are going to go back to when you were a baby bird being fed a worm, and didn’t get enough attention from your mother?

Even if it were possible, still there is no solution. Why? Because now, today, you are creating new karmic reactions. You fall in love, get kicked in the face, have material desires. You are still suffering birth, disease, old age, and ultimately death. You need to transcend this wheel of death by developing your love for God.

These folks are just coffee table reincarnationists. They like to talk about who they were rather than who they will be. And notice how they were always Cleopatra or Caesar. All romantic figures. So few were dogs. I did meet one psychologist in New Zealand who studies these past lives. I told him his studies were a waste of time [laughter]. He said that the majority of his patients he has treated have had animal bodies in previous lives. Actually he was more honest than most.

ShegavichaRana · February 23, 2004

Slowly but surely, westerners are getting to know about reincarnations, eternity of the soul etc., which are the two basic tenets of Sanatana Dharma. People will now realise that, what they thought (and termed) of India as the country of snake-charmers, has much more to offer to them, than the "devloped" nations.