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Importance of reincarnation essay
Arguments for reincarnation in Hinduism
Underlying message of reincarnation
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Imagine people used to be animals. That person can be huge like an eagle, an elephant, or they can be tiny like a worm or a ladybug or something neat. When people die, their souls can be reincarnated so they can be anything that they have. The neat point about reincarnation is that person or a group of people can be anything. Cool right? Reincarnation is major to both Hinduism and Buddhism because it helps with Moksha for Hindus and Nirvana for buds.
First, Reincarnation is very important to Hinduism because it is a part of Samara, Dharma, Karma, and Moksha. It is a part of Samara because Samara is a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. If reincarnation was taken away from Samara, people will be stuck as souls and there would be no point of Samara if you are just born and just died and after death, you would have nothing to do. People would also not be able to be united with bramin.
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The 4 noble truths mean that person has to do before death. Without reincarnation, people wouldn’t need care about the 4 noble truth because people are just going to die anyway. They don’t need to study because they are not going to have another life where they need to do this.
Next, Reincarnation is a very important part of the Eightfold path because the Eightfold Path means to strive to have a great Karma. If people have trouble having getting good Karma, they can follow these simple rules like always be truthful, and to love. Without Reincarnation, people would not need to follow these rules.
Lastly, reincarnation is very important to Nirvana because it means to be in a state of peace. Nirvana can free us from all earthly matter and feel free of death and pain. Without reincarnation, people would not be able to feel free or not worry about there last moments on earth. If these Important parts of Buddhism did not have Reincarnation, then what's the point of
According to document A, “Hinduism was (and is) polytheistic - Hindus believe in many gods…..In this kind of Hinduism, people believed in reincarnation - that people could be reborn into other bodies after they died.” The excerpt shows that the daily life would be affected since Hindus will worship more gods and believe in reincarnation. Moreover, Hindus believed in Karma as well as Dharma. Karma was the good or bad actions that had an effect on the soul in later reincarnations. Dharma was the spiritual duties that one must follow. Now it is evident that beliefs were influenced by religion.
Some of the most prominent aspects of Hinduism are the atman and samsara which is one the clearest distinctions between Hinduism and other religions. When Krishna states, “I have never not existed; nor have you, nor have these lords of men. Nor will we cease to exist, all of us, from now onwards” (Bhagavad Gita, 185), he is referring to the atman or the human soul which is believed to have always existed and will continue to exist. And when he says, “Just as one throws out old clothes and then takes on other, new ones; so the embodied self casts out old bodies as it gets other, new ones” (Bhagavad Gita, 187), he is talking about samsara and reincarnation. It is from this text, where Hinduism gets its defining characteristics. As long as the Gita continues to be relevant in India so will these philosophies. It reinforces the idea of reincarnation, the soul, and duty which shapes the way the Hindus live their lives. The goal for a Hindu is to break out of samsara and achieve Brahman, and according to the Gita, fulfilling one’s dharma is the way to accomplish this. The Bhagavad Gita is significant to Hinduism, because it has helped Hindus identify an ultimate goal and teaches them how to achieve
Buddhism teaches that humans have a repetitive cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Each reincarnated life is decided into a better, worse, or a similar life, depending upon the person's Karma. The goal is to escape from this cycle and reach Nirvana, and once this is attained, the mind is free from suffering. Buddhism teaches a lesson through its followers in order to make them fully understand that one lives for a reason, which is to eliminate all their desires. Document 6 it quotes,
Many religions and philosophies attempt to answer the question, what happens after a person dies? Some religions such as Christianity and Islam believe there is an afterlife. They believe that good and moral people enter Heaven or paradise and that bad and immoral people go to Hell. Other religions and cultures believe that death is final, and that nothing happens after a person dies. Buddhism and Hinduism have a different idea about death. Both of these religions originated in India. Buddhists and Hindus believe that death is not final. They believe that a person comes back after he or she dies. This process is known as reincarnation, and it provides opportunities for people to enter the world multiple times in different forms. Buddhists and Hindus want to reenter the world as humans, and they want to improve their status through reincarnation. In ancient India, many members of lower casts wanted to come back as members of higher casts. While this is an important goal of reincarnation, the main goal is to reach either moksha (Hinduism) or nirvana (Buddhism). In other words, the goal is to reach a point of spiritual enlightenment that removes the person from the reincarnation process. Geoff Childs, an anthropologist examines the views of the Buddhist religion by studying the lives of the people in Tibetan villages. He looks at issues that adversely affect these people such as infant mortality. He carefully looks at the lives of people who have been left behind by deceased loved ones, and he pays careful attention to customs and traditions surrounding death. Tibetan Buddhists view death as a means of reaching spiritual perfection, and they seek to reach this level of spiritual perfection through living spiritually meaningful lives....
Each religion has its own idea of what will happen in the afterlife. In Buddhism, they believe that dying is apart of an ongoing cycle until the dead receive enlightenment. This cycle is called Samsara and by definition means an ongoing cycle of life and death until that person reaches enlightenment (heaven). There is a three stage cycle that occurs from the moment you die until you are reincarnated; This process is called The Three Bardo's. The first bardo is when the soul goes into a trance and often doesn't realize that they have passed away. People recall seeing a bright light once in this trance and if that person welcomes the light then they will not be reincarnated, but most people flee from this light. The second bardo begins when the person realizes they are dead. The deceased will see everything that they have done or throughout their life. The third bardo and final stage contains a longing for possessing someone. When they do posses someone the rebirth occurs and they are reincarnated as a living
Hinduism and Buddhism have different similarities and are in some ways connected to each other. Some of the practices of the two religions are similar in various ways and there are several examples to show this.
The concept of reincarnation is related to karma, karma deals with a system of rewards and punishment based on the actions of the individual (Oxtopy & Segal 266). Due to bad karma by the individual, it takes many lifetimes for the karma to be worked out; reincarnation also known as samsara in Hinduism is an ongoing cycle of death and rebirth. To be released from the cycle of samsara, to achieve moksha one must reach enlightenment (Oxtopy & Segal 266-267). In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, an incarnation of the ultimate deity as a personal god in the Hindu religion, explains three ways to moksha: the way of action, the way of knowledge, and the way of devotion. The Gita also made it clear that one should strive for moksha in everyday of our life as long as we act without attachment (Oxtopy & Segal 274). Reincarnation a concept widely receive by Hindu’s around the world, there are evidence to support the truth of this concept.
Buddhist follow, along with karma, follow an idea called the eightfold path. These 8 steps are: right understanding, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. These steps are another process Buddhist take to get to their revelations to enlightenment. It is the last of the very first of Buddha’s teachings, The Four Noble Truths. These truths are the basic guidelines of what Buddha wants to teach. They work in tandem with each other to explain the suffering of life, what causes it, and what one must do to eliminate
Buddha believed that by following the Eightfold Path, one could fulfill and find legitimacy in the Four Noble Truths, and reach Nirvana; the release from selfishness and pain. Like the Hindu, Buddha believed in reincarnation, a major factor in achieving Nirvana, as...
In the western world, a dominant belief is that after life, a person’s soul is sent to a place of eternal bliss, heaven, or a place of eternal damnation, hell. To Buddhists, this concept is not the norm. Buddhists believe that a person is reincarnated into another life form, either human or animal. What life form a person is reincarnated as is determined by the person’s karma. The concept of karma not only affects reincarnation, but also what path a person’s life takes. While much of the concept of karma is believable and comprehensible by a person of any denomination, some aspects are dependant upon a belief in reincarnation and that a person will eventually be punished for his sins or rewarded for his good deeds, whether in this life or the next. At the same time, in order to believe in how reincarnation works, a person must understand the idea of karma.
Nirvana is a word that is commonly used in Buddhism with varied meanings depending on the use. It means the state of blowing out from certain detractors in life. To “blow out” has great meaning and refers wholly to the extinguishing or dispelling of oneself from certain characters that are considered to be iniquitous. It is characterized by peace of mind and it saves man from the sufferings, the cycles of rebirth, and death. Nirvana could only be achieved by individuals who observed the laid down rules and detached themselves from sin. Moksha is a common belief in the Hindu religion and it describes a state where one’s soul connects with god’s soul. In the Hindu religion, achieving moksha removes one from the cycle of life and death, which is the state of reincarnation as one moves from one life to the next. In essence, moksha is a state of unification of one’s soul with that of the creator, therefore achieving oneness of atman and Brahman. This essay discusses the various similarities and differences that exist between Buddhist Nirvana and Hindu Moksha.
Hinduism’s view on human nature is complex and involves the concept of the self or soul. According to the Hindu concept of self, it is recorded that “the atman is beyond sound and form…it is eternal, unchangeable, and without beginning or end: indeed above reasoning” (Wall, 30). What this refers to, is that Hindus believe there to be a deeper self that lies within us. This self hides behind our experienced self and is referred to as atman. Atman is what survives our deaths and continues to be reborn again. This type of self is continually reborn into different bodies until it escapes the wheel of rebirth. Through prayer, meditation, and ascetic practices, this self can become known, especially because it is essentially the same in all human beings. The idea behind atman tends to be more complex because of its dealings with the levels of consciousness, samsara, etc.
Reincarnation is the concept that at the point of death only the body is lost. The soul or spirit lives on and is reborn into a new body. " All things, on both the microcosmic level of humankind and the macrocosm itself are subject to this cyclical nature of existence, so what is born must die and what dies must be reborn" (Fowler. 1999. p208). Hinduism tells us that a spirit is not reborn into a random body, the karma and jivatman decide on an appropriate womb. This means that a sport oriented person will always be reborn into a family who have sport orientated lives.
The Eightfold Path can be considered a guide to end the suffering stated in the Four Noble Truths. Everyone experiences suffering in their life at one point or another, however, it can be very difficult for someone to know how to deal with suffering. I find it fascinating that the Buddha figured out a way to deal with all kinds of suffering based on eight ideas. In fact, I feel like I can relate to the Eightfold Path with my own life experiences.
Stemman stated that “growing numbers of people are prepared to mix and match the beliefs of teachings that most appeal to them” (Stemman 3) this then suggests that the idea and beliefs of reincarnation are increasing; people are tending to expand their knowledge and beliefs and integrating the different beliefs into their own. Stemman also states that “we already know that at least half of the worlds’ po...