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James Webster:
East is East and West is West
The 'bed partner' with reincarnation is karma (often referred to as the Law of Karma) which is a corruption of ‘cause and effect’ and has no connection with the scientific description in the West - and so we have the worst scenario and relationship with what can be termed ‘karmic reincarnation’ - with its roots in Eastern religion and belief.
Mahatma Ghandi called reincarnation ‘a burden too great to bear.’
Countless millions of Hindus and Buddhists down the ages are trapped in a monstrous tread-wheel of punishment for eternity and their only salvation is via the meditation of yoga (or ‘Zen’ the Buddhist equivalent).
Eastern reincarnation is about dying in the physical body and returning to earth again and again to be born in another physical body and work out their karma depending on how good or bad they have been in previous lives. If you are a woman you have no chance of salvation for that is reserved only for men. A woman’s only hope is to serve her men folk and in so doing earn the reward of being reborn as one of them. According to one Eastern saying; ‘The most foolish male is more intelligent than the most intelligent female.’
One branch of Hinduism slavishly follow their gurus (god-men or holy-men) who claim to reveal the shortest routes to salvation. These invariably involve a range of meditations to transcend the suffering of a wounded continent. The quick ways of salvation include walking around naked, or blindfolded, or drinking the urine of cows (the animal which symbolises the female divinity of Mother Earth and Mother India). For the really dedicated, sex is banned. This is perhaps just as well for they also plaster their hair with cow dung. Having done all this, the Hindu believes he will still not escape the ever-grinding Wheel of Samsara (reincarnation). However, he hopes that these additional sufferings will increase his capacity to meditate away the hunger pangs, disease and further suffering. Some gurus maintain the meditation can make a hungry person a "happy hungry person.”
Reincarnation paralyses the initiative of millions. Those imprisoned by it rarely strive for social improvements or justice, for that would then deprive people of their karma - a merciless law of consequences. The suffering is the consequence of a previous misspent life. If it is avoided in this life, it will only be piled up on to the suffering of the next life. There is no escape from karma. The only help acceptable are hints on how to improve meditation. Only the guru can provide this!
These gurus have now come to the West, and millions of Europeans and Americans have accepted a revamped version of reincarnation. The very hell that has caused the grotesque sufferings and early deaths of countless millions has become an enduring part of the sophisticated Western man. Some opinion polls reveal that one in four people believe in reincarnation. This grotesque philosophy which ignores the matchstick legs and distended bellies of starving children has now hit the streets of every major European city. Even in small rural towns typical surveys reveal that 20-25% of the population believe in reincarnation.
The gurus, emigrating to the West, have introduced their philosophies with a calculated sensitivity to European and American cultures. They travel in their planes and limos to bring modern man a modern doctrine of reincarnation. There is, for instance, no distinction between male and female, as in the East. There is no mention of the grinding agony of Samsara, nor that reincarnation is the nearest vision of hell-like punishment man can ever experience this side of the real thing.
The guru's philosophy is clothed with scientific terminology and hailed as the missing link of evolution. New-Agers take on board the idea of ‘conscious evolution’ - one of the main Western names for reincarnation. This, we are told, is the way to reach the next stage in our development. Conscious evolution is the road to Utopia and a higher level of existence. It is that which will ultimately make us one with the ‘divine’ or the ‘Masters’ or the ‘higher beings’ from outer space who have been guiding our planet through the dark eons on earth.
This form of reincarnation is sold in the West as another chance to make good the way to true salvation and to great knowledge and enlightenment. Reincarnationism has become more and more popular in the West but is no more a truth or fact than it has ever been throughout history - like anything which is shouted loud enough and for long enough is accepted by a majority of unthinking following. Hundreds, or rather, thousands of books have been and still are published making their authors popular and the more wealthy just ploughing the same old field over and over again and getting no nearer to proving reincarnation or so-called past-lives.
Reincarnation, by its very nature, is an egotistical, self-seeking philosophy and at total variance with the nature of the true spiritual goodness (‘god’). It is an ugly, frightening doctrine because it is not rooted in love. The fact that it is sophisticated and is backed by a complex esoteric doctrine does not prove it right.
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