It is a long time ago we we're told during class that in Hinduism you can be born as pig, cow, human. If you're a human and you live you're life well you're bound to reincarnate as a higher form. I thought that's great, but how can a pig leave his/her life well and to progress to the next level? I don't know how the system works but could a little worm have a right meaningful life as well which both he and she lived really well. Our teacher who taught us about religions told that he wasn't sure and checked with someone else who wasn't sure either. At different place in UK teacher checked with some 'specialist' and got an answer that 'hindus' believe an animal can live a food life. can we make difference between dog, worm, cow, minipig?

any experts here. Would be nice to get an answer to these questions. I know nothing about Hinduism so maybe someone can explain to me if my question is way off the mark.

I think it's an unanswerable question because we have no way of entering and sharing a different animal's mind to determine what their intentions are or what they are thinking.

It's a very complex question and I'm far from an expert or even decent writer but I'll try to give a little bit of what I've heard.

Sometimes there are "beings" that progress through the lives very quickly as a shining example in each form. The bird who flies the highest, most loyal dog, fastest horse, great human... and reach enlightenment very quickly.

Sometimes lesser beings are leaped through the process by a guru or an avatara (I believe those are the right terms, like spiritual expert or God on Earth). Like a great Hindu could pray for a cow and help it towards enlightenment/reaching higher forms.

Some stuff just happens. Maybe 1 in a billion worms come back as a human. I kind of get the impression that all life has a chance to achieve enlightenment it's just a very long path for some.



That's the gist of some of the stuff I've heard and again I'm a poor writer. I don't mean to be inaccurate and certainly don't mean to be disrespectful or incomplete but take them for what they're worth and blame the source (me) for any shortcomings.

Karma. Ultimately we go through our lives automatically, free will is an illusion we are the products of our life's experiences up to that point and react accordingly. But there is still a learning that goes on. A cow, a worm, a human, spiritual beings, are shards of the same essence in different form. In every form there are different lessons to be learned. Over a long amount of time we are shown that we will never feel truly complete because there is something missing. That missing piece is God, and when we learn that we start to shed our bad karma and ascend to the heavens.

All of this is utter nonsense. We are not reborn, there is no karma, there is no reincarnation, there is only one life, there is no God, there is no "cycle", there are no missing pieces. You are the missing piece to your own life. By sacrificing your mind to idle mysticism, you cede control of your life to other men who "have the answers" because you are too weak to live your life on its own merits. Hinduism, like other religions, is total and utter nonsense. And causes men to waste the only truly valuable commodity: time.

Citation needed.

Happy to oblige: Reality.

I agree with sandsmarc, that's why most people try escape reality, through drugs, drink, religion, addiction, etc....

Sandsmarc just knows. His level of faith and belief is amazing. He may be God. At the minimum he's more knowledgeable than the rest of existence combined given his statement.

Man only reincarnates as Man, never into the animal or other kingdoms. The development of the human soul can only come about through repeated earth lives. Reincarnation isn't forever(it had a beginning and will have an end) and at this end will be the transformation of the human soul and the earth itself. This is what the Revelation of John is about. Abstractly you might consider your time on earth an educational process which is not complete in a "one and done atmosphere".

Reincarnation and karma do not obviate the freedom of Man but actually bring it to fruition. You've planned your life(in certain aspects) and karma becomes more like an instinctual behavior to which we are unable to bring to clear consciousness (some can). Man travels to Australia and meets the love of his life; chance, bingo? The two of them planned to meet and this powerful inner force,hidden from our conscious standpoint, brings them together.( only an example of the activity but each of us has his own karma to manifest which is planned while in the spiritual world between death and rebirth)

I'll speak to Buddhism and indirectly to Hinduism as the great Buddha teaches his disciples to "escape the wheel of life". His message is "all is suffering", "all is pain" and the only way to relieve the suffering and pain of earthly works is to develop one's self and thereby terminate the progression of rebirths. His message is "do not return" and to do this one must develop on the earth the ability to do this activity. It does lend itself to a certain passivity which is noted in previous posts and rightfully so. This great pronouncement was proper and right for the time of the great Buddha which was 600 years before our era but Man progresses, develops and becomes stronger in another sense.

The Christ borne presentation of reincarnation and karma is not to "leave the earth" individually as the Buddha pronounced, but is the development of one's self within the Christ Impulse knowing that all of mankind is involved in this process and at the same time the individual manifests in a selfless Love, Christ Love within. "Not I but the Christ in me". Not a passive approach but active and forthright and desirous of working the earth and returning until the end of times in which the transformation of the earth and individual Man is accomplished .

The Christ Impulse is only in its beginnings in which we have hardly scratched the surface and do not think that it is some type of deterministic mechanism because of one's approach to what is slovenly called modern science. Love can only be freely given and this is exactly where the freedom of Man manifests, not as a force as it is usually spoken to, but contained within the individual Man in his selfless giving while still manifesting an individual wisdom where his freedom lies.

And yes, things have changed since Golgotha when the Christ Being entered the earth and became the Spirit of the Earth while entering into the hearts of ALL MEN. None the less, in the planning of ones work on the earth and in the manifestation of individual freedom we still have our responsibility, not enforced but freely given within our development within Love. Believe it or not, the Earth is the Planet of Love, a work in progress. At the end, another state of being, but that's another story but i believe in the Revelation of John there is the passage about the "New Jerusalem" in which the walls are akin to Man which is that of an Angel, his studied progressive state.

Sandsmarc & Carlo,

OP was asking how Hinduism would answer his question - fairly egocentric to jump down someone's throat or claim some one is wrong, when from what I gathered in my study of world religions, Mike0292's answer was pretty close to how a Hindu would answer the question posed.

This is exactly the opposite of the buddhas message.

Yes, I wasn't speaking to an opposing opinion for I wasn't speaking about opinions. I attempted to shed some light upon reincarnation and karma. I have too much respect for Hinduism and Buddhism but the idea that you will return as a mollusc in the next life is patently egregious. I don't know where this came from but it seems to be a modern intellectually driven perspective in which everything is everything. Something is lost here but who can argue against these statements unless the source be clarified.

In our modern times the spiritual presence is practically totally lost and the idea of an after life is questionable or totally denied. Its not only here in the west but the influence of western intellectuality strikes at the modern Indian in strong aggression. We are , really, coming together but in abstract intellectual activity and in this perversions of a truthful reality i.e. the after life are lost. By the way, one must consider that the individual man's sojourn between birth and death takes about 800 years. this is individually specific as some could be 400 or 600, etc. or even 1000.

This ant to worm to man just appears as an intellectual western driven "theory" from a person or people who have lost sight of that world from which they have incarnated. But again, I can't speak to it except to say that my studies of reincarnation and karma reveal what I've spoken to and this is no different for the Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim, etc..

This will help, Anthroposophy.. "Theosophy"http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/RSP1965/GA009_index.html

and this: Christianity as a Mystical Fact"http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/English/RPC1961/GA008_index.html

I don't know where you have gotten the idea that reincarnation through the different realms is a "western" concept. It is not. According to both Hinduism and Buddhism it is possible to be born in any realm according to what karma was ripening at your time of death.

Buddha didn't teach that an individual should leave the cycle of rebirth - though a fully awakened person would be able too. It's all about arhats and bodhisattvas.

The teachings of Buddha calling for things such as control of thoughts and feelings, right thinking, etc..I don't remember..are directed to the individual who can strengthen himself in order to leave the suffering of the earth. If one wishes to learn of Love the the greatest teachings are those of the Buddha as he was a great teacher and of course there is a development of the individual man in this work. The fact that Buddha called for selfless behavior is in itself a development of the individual though some may say that annihilation of self is in order. Somewhere in the East is the deniability of the "Ego" of "I" of Man in that it represents illusion and therefore how can one improve one's self which is not existent? It goes on and on.

In western or Anthroposophical considerations the human being has an "I" or "Ego" which goes along with his physical body, etheric body (not that of the scientist), astral body and Ego. The "Ego" is from the highest realms of spirit land but it is also that which falls prey to evil. In egocentric behavior one approaches the evil in man while in the selfless Ego we find the manifestations of Love.

Buddha brought forth the "teachings of Love" whereas the Christ Being is Love Manifest" in and of itself. Christianity is not a teaching but the Impulse, the Christ Impulse in the hearts of all men.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/...008_index.html---Christianity as Mystical Fact

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/...html-Theosophy

I like to think of it as 2 entities making up the package that is a person. A soul living in an animal body. The animal body contains the ego or self, and it's manifestations are best described as emotional nonsense. That's what you want to get rid of.

The animal body is like a training suit for your soul that you have to overcome. So..non human bodies aren't part of the program as you can't learn anything in them. IMO, I don't know what the official Hindu stance is.

This is certainly what I've heard though it hasn't been much of a focus for me.

So, if there is reincarnation, how does the population increase?

From my perspective, before the first man/body was created, there were souls waiting on standby for them to be made.

What am I training for?

You might like to think of it like that, but is it true? Thats the important thing. And so far, there is absolutely zero evidence for a soul.

I think a Hindu or Buddhist would say that there are many beings in the lower hell realms and in the god realms that could be reborn into the human realm. Also, think of all the bugs, animals, fish etc ... There is a lot out there - possibly on a different planet.

I heard a lama talk about this and he said when two people have sex tens of thousands of being consciousnesses (?) surround them looking to inhabit the baby. It actually made sex a little uncomfortable for a short time afterward.

Rehabilitation. To make it back into heaven.

If I can't remember past training experiences, I will never advance and never be rehabilitated. It's like trying to learn calculus with a memory that lasts 5 minutes.

Well, the whole reason for the body, is because spirit can't feel pain. It can't receive a spanking because it has no butt. So they're joined in such a way that when the body feels pain, the soul feels it.

Between death and reincarnation, you retain the good lessons you've learned and forget the bad things you did, or had done to you. So you don't 'start' with psychological trauma. Also if you knew who you were, you'd likely start claiming property rights and things like that.

So you actually do come in 'knowing' some spiritual/intellectual things.

I think this is why little kids can be pretty profound and pure compared to adults (that aren't going to make the cut, so most). They have small bodies that they haven't become slaves to yet.