afterlife

malaygirl

my english is bad..
but i want to know what is your point of view in the concept of afterlife by hinduism religion.

Sephiroth

Afterlife? Rebirth of course.

You end up in Hell (or Heaven) depends on what you do in life, spend some time there to get to know your mistakes and when your sentence is over, you will return back to this World (or countless other Worlds) and reborn again (not as same person but different person but with the same soul).

In Hindusm, physical body is not important ... it is just a tool for Souls to use. It is the Souls which travels around till it finds its way back.

Originally posted by Sephiroth at 25-4-2006 07:35 AM
Afterlife? Rebirth of course.

You end up in Hell (or Heaven) depends on what you do in life, spend some time there to get to know your mistakes and when your sentence is over, you will return ba ...

seph - if the souls are recycled. it must have to start somewhere? where & when is the origin? where do new souls come from?

BeanDiesel

Originally posted by bob at 5/12/06 06:29 PM

seph - if the souls are recycled. it must have to start somewhere? where & when is the origin? where do new souls come from?

aah, valid and good question.

if i can add, i'd also like to know if maybe it's mentioned somewhere in Hinduism that the number of souls in the universe is a constant, that once all souls were initially created, none was added to the total.

barney50

1. responded by BeanDiesel: if i can add, i'd also like to know if maybe it's mentioned somewhere in Hinduism that the number of souls in the universe is a constant, that once all souls were initially created, none was added to the total.

Copy the Code

Many a times I have given the concept of karma and reincarnation as stated in our scripture "Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and wears new ones." (2.22)

If you look at the personality of an ordinary human being, you will realize that there is a lot in him, that is grosser and denser which cannot be purified and transformed in the shorter time of one life span. What is a hundred years or less than a hundred of life on a scale of millions of years of continuous evolution of life on earth ? Does not it sound illogical to say that we would remain static from the evolutionary point of view, while change is the nature of life and every thing else all around us is changing and evolving constantly?

Hinduism does not accept the premise that under normal circumstances an individual soul can free itself completely from the entanglement with Samsara and unite with its Creator in just one life time. The Jiva has to progressively evolve through the cycle of innumerable births and deaths before the soul can liberate itself. From inert matter to inert consciousness and then to dynamic consciousness, from ignorance to semi awareness and then to self awareness, from attachment to detachment and then to complete freedom, from illusion to awareness and then to reality, from darkness to dawn and then into light, from mortality to immortality: this is the forward movement of life in the whole creation. And all this cannot happen just in a few hundred years.

The inexorable law of karma operates through out this grand drama. Karma is the correction mechanism, the chisel with which the negative self, the inert stone, is chiselled away till the hidden deity comes out of it and enters the temple of God. In the ordinary circumstances, awakening of a sleeping self cannot take place through miracles but through trial and error. Good actions lead to good future, and bad actions to the opposite. An awareness of this very law is the first great awakening and the first sure leap towards the Light.

All this cannot take place in one simple life, but over a period of time involving many lives. It cannot happen on the strength of a life time's learning but in the light of a great mass of accumulated wisdom. It cannot happen if the purpose of whole life is to move towards light and truth.

This is where the idea of reincarnation of soul perfectly fits in. If we accept the whole creation as a grand process stretching over a vast period of time, we cannot over look the importance and the role of man in it. Man cannot make a brief appearance on earth, live just one life and then disappear forever into the cozy corners of some safe heaven, or the vast dungeons of some burning hell, leaving creation, God and Nature to themselves.

Thus depending upon the merits of the previous deeds, a being may evolve into higher life forms or regress temporarily into a lower life form. However, due to some peculiar circumstances, if an individual takes birth as a lower life form, he can still reverse the process. He can change his present actions and establish a basis for his forward movement again.

The Jiva thus drifts, sailing in the boat of his own karma, in a sea of worldly illusion (samsara sagaram), towards the shores of liberation, through trial and error, self effort and assisted by invisible laws and mysterious forces, with the soul remaining as its silent, witnessing companion.

That the theory of reincarnation is not a mere theory, but an actual fact is being now established beyond reasonable doubt. Many instances have now come to light where individuals were able to recollect their past lives through a process of regression or by other means. The theory still baffles many, while many others refuse to acknowledge it because of intense prejudice.

Sephiroth

by bob   

seph - if the souls are recycled. it must have to start somewhere? where & when is the origin? where do new souls come from?   

If you want answers, you need to study SCIENCE as well as RELIGION.

Actually, Souls doesn't start anywhere and it doesn't bring in new quantity as time passes. What appears to be a New Life is actually Consciousness of being Alive.

Souls either born, grows old or dies that it can be reborn. What born, grows old and dies is the Conscious State of being Alive (Artificial Soul).

According to Science, there exist something called Quantum Consciousness after the Cambria Explosion. Lifeforms which existed before does so in a singular mode of existence - live and multiply alone. Evolution cannot begin because all Lifeforms are in equal state.

Source :
http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/quantum.html
http://www.thymos.com/science/qc.html

After Cambrian Explosion occurred, there were two state of relationship between lifeforms - Predator and Prey, and two state of Existence - Suffering and Need to End Suffering.

Predators suffer due to hunger and in order to end the Suffering, they consume meat of other lifeforms. Prey suffers due to be hunted down and eaten and need to end this Suffering comes in form of close knit relationship between societies and new technology.

This continued onward to current state and even in Man. But who are the Predators and Prey in Mankind? Predators are those who are greedy, selfish, hateful etc and Prey are those who avoid themselves from Suffering and find ways to remain peaceful and in tranquility.

This Duality state in Nature is clearly defined in Bhavagad Gita and even in Buddhism.

What about the Soul? In Bhavagad Gita, Sri Krishna stated that some people WILL believe in the Soul, some WILL deny Souls exist and Soul WILLl ponder whether Soul exist. He said it doesn't matter as long as they understand the Nature of Duality.

So, if it good enough for Sri Krishna to allow you guys to ponder meaninglessly whether Souls exists or not, it is good enough for me. For me, based on my personal experience, Souls exist.

Sephiroth

Source : http://www.newscientist.com/arti ... own-stem-cells.html


Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury. But, in 2003, researchers at Piero Anversa抯 laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US, discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice, and subsequently humans. However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow.

Leri and her colleagues have now removed tiny numbers of cardiac stem cells from people undergoing heart operations, grown them in the lab and then transplanted them into the damaged hearts of rats and mice.
揑f these cells truly do exist we would like to be able to find out what regulates their activity and whether you can simulate that mechanism to repair heart tissue without having to use cells from elsewhere,