The word karma is often used by aspiring spiritualists, and why not, karma makes sense. Let’s look at the ancient Vedic texts of India, where the idea of karma originates, and what they have to say on the subject.

First let’s look at, “Why do “bad” things happen to “good” people?” Well, the simple answer is karma and reincarnation. Suppose an innocent looking little kid is regularly picked on at school by a bully. According to the law of karma this seemingly “bad” act is occurring because the “innocent” child bullied other small children in his previous life. Karmic law is perfectly just and infallible. The child that is getting harassed was placed in that particular situation by universal law of justice. So the child’s punishment is not bad, it’s just, and the child isn’t completely innocent; it is guilty of similarly rude behavior that he had committed in a previous lifetime.

Secondly, this child under discussion is not a child at all; it is an eternal spirit soul who happens to be in a human child’s body in this lifetime. We as spirit souls are placed in different bodies, on different planets, at different time periods, and in various pleasant or unpleasant conditions all based on our previous actions, or in other words our karma. If one has a beautiful or an ugly body, if one lives in hellish or heavenly circumstances, if a person is rich or poor, it is all because of one’s karma.

“Life is eternal, love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.” – Rossiter W. Raymond

According to the Vedic texts, one important concept we should live by is complete forgiveness. This idea that we can and should forgive everyone comes from understanding the law of karma. If someone wrongs us it is because we have wronged someone else in a similar fashion. A cosmic force greater than both, us and them, has directed them to cross paths with us and deliver our karmic reaction. So the advanced transcendentalists forgive everyone for every offense, because they know that they are getting only what they deserve and nothing more. If it wasn’t one person giving us the reactions to our bad karma, it would be someone else. So if we retaliate or try to get revenge when people upset us, then we create more bad karma that must be paid for later.

A possible misunderstanding is, if everyone is getting what they deserve, then shouldn’t we let them get what’s coming to them and not feel compassion? … I have done things in the past that I wish I hadn’t. I would want a spiritually advanced person to have compassion on me, and help me to better myself.

One question you might have about all this is, “If a person is directed by karmic law to punish us, then are they just robots being completely controlled?” The answer is no. We all have free will, so the person who is mean to us was probably in a bad mood that day and was just looking for someone to take it out on. We happened to be nearby, and happened to have the karmic reaction of someone being rude to us coming, so we and the person in a bad mood crossed paths. If a person desires to commit any bad or evil act, there is always someone who deserves such a punishment nearby. However, this is not a license to be mean and say “Well, they must have had it coming to them.” Since we have free will, if we desire for a victim to be brought to us, even if higher powers made the arrangement and the person deserves it, we still have to pay for our bad behavior. We can choose at any time to stop behaving badly, and then we won’t be used to deliver other’s karmic reactions.

Another possible misunderstanding is, “If everyone is getting what they deserve, then shouldn’t we let them get what’s coming to them and not feel compassion?” Well, I would say that we all have behaved badly at some point in our life. I know that sometimes I snap at people, and I have done things in the past that I wish I hadn’t. I would want a spiritually advanced person to have compassion on me, and help me to better myself. Compassion is one of the main characteristics of saintly people from any tradition, and the Vedic texts recommend that we develop feelings of compassion for other living beings.

Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. – Dag Hammarskjold

Unfortunately everyone is forced to suffer or enjoy the results of their karma from this and previous lives in this lifetime, but even if there is some enjoyment there will inevitably be some suffering also. The Vedas tell us that there is no pure happiness in the material universe; that we shouldn’t dabble in karma, whether good or bad, at all. The solution is to become transcendental to material karmic law altogether. When we serve the supreme spiritual cause instead of our narrow personal, family, or national interests, then we transcend the material plane of existence and its karmic laws characterized by concentrated and extended selfishness. If one is a Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or a member of any spiritual tradition, one is advised to seriously follow the universal scriptural injunctions from their particular tradition, about what to do and not to do. I personally follow the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most known and important Vedic texts, which clearly explains how to transcend material consciousness. However, whatever tradition one may follow, if one cultivates forgiveness and compassion and lives for a higher spiritual purpose, one can stop the chain reaction of karma forever.

Text 21: Nature is said to be the cause of all material causes and effects, whereas the living entity is the cause of the various sufferings and enjoyments in this world.

Commentary: The different manifestations of body and senses among the living entities are due to material nature. There are 8,400,000 different species of life, and these varieties are creations of the material nature. They arise from the different sensual pleasures of the living entity, who thus desires to live in this body or that. When he is put into different bodies, he enjoys different kinds of happiness and distress. His material happiness and distress are due to his body, and not to himself as he is. In his original state there is no doubt of enjoyment; therefore that is his real state. Because of the desire to lord it over material nature, he is in the material world. In the spiritual world there is no such thing. The spiritual world is pure, but in the material world everyone is struggling hard to acquire different kinds of pleasures for the body. It might be more clear to state that this body is the effect of the senses. The senses are instruments for gratifying desire. Now, the sum total – body and instrument senses – are offered by material nature, and as will be clear in the next verse, the living entity is blessed or damned with circumstances according to his past desire and activity.

According to one’s desires and activities, material nature places one in various residential quarters. The being himself is the cause of his attaining such residential quarters and his attendant enjoyment or suffering. Once placed in some particular kind of body, he comes under the control of nature because the body, being matter, acts according to the laws of nature. At that time, the living entity has no power to change that law. Suppose an entity is put into the body of a dog. As soon as he is put into the body of a dog, he must act like a dog. He cannot act otherwise. And if the living entity is put into the body of a hog, then he is forced to eat stool and act like a hog. Similarly, if the living entity is put into the body of a demigod, he must act according to his body. This is the law of nature. But in all circumstances, the Supersoul is with the individual soul. That is explained in the Vedas (Mundaka Upanisad 3.1.1) as follows: “The Supersoul is so kind upon the living entity that He always accompanies the individual soul in all circumstances.”

Text 22: The living entity in material nature thus follows the ways of life, enjoying the three modes of nature. This is due to his association with that material nature. Thus he meets with good and evil among various species.

Commentary: This verse is very important for understanding how living entities transmigrate from one body to another.  The Second Chapter of the Bhagavad-gita explains that the soul moves from one body to another just as one changes clothes. This “change of clothes” is due to his attachment to material existence, or life in this world. As long as he is captivated by this false manifestation, he has to continue transmigrating from one body to another. Due to his desire to lord it over material nature, he is put into the undesirable circumstance of being reborn. Under the influence of material desire, the entity is born sometimes as a demigod, sometimes as a human, sometimes as a beast, as a bird, as a worm, as an aquatic, as a saintly person, or as a bug. This is on-going. And in all cases the living entity thinks himself to be the master of his circumstances, yet he really controls nothing and is himself under the influence of material nature.

One is placed into different bodies based on their association with the different modes of nature –ignorance, passion, and goodness. Therefore, in order to transcend the material world, one must rise above the three material modes and free oneself of the material consciousness that is perpetuating one’s rebirth.  To become situated in the transcendental position, or to become Krishna conscious, is an impossible task for an individual to undertake on one’s own.  This advancement in consciousness can be effected only by hearing from authoritative sources.  (Although the false ego in many people’s minds tells them otherwise!) The best example is here: Arjuna is hearing the science of God from Krishna. The living entity, if he submits to this hearing process, will lose his long-cherished desire to dominate material nature, and gradually and proportionately, as he reduces his long desire to dominate, he comes to enjoy spiritual happiness. In a Vedic mantra it is said that as one becomes learned in association with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one proportionately relishes one’s eternal and blissful life.

Americans love their pets. We feed them better than most humans in third world countries are fed. We dote on them with toys at Christmas, and we award them the honorary status of “children.” But do we acknowledge that all creatures are, like us, spirit souls? Do we honor them as living entities working their way slowly toward perfection, or do we just cater to their bodies — treating them like they are toys for our amusement?

The spiritual literatures studied by bhakti yogis teach that every living entity is, at its fundamental core, a spirit soul (called the atma). Every living being is a soul — individual and equal — wearing an individual body. In other words, the soul that is presently in your puppy, Fredo, is an individual living entity spending that lifetime inside the body of a dog. But look deep into Fredo’s eyes and you might sense the atma looking back at you.

Try this. Think of bodies as light bulbs. Some are 15-watt, some 30-watt, some 1,000-watt. The electric current that runs through the walls, into the lamp and to the bulb is the same. What is different is each bulb’s capacity to utilize the current. A 15-watt bulb can only funnel so much current into usable light. A 1,000-watt bulb can channel much more.

So, in the same way, different bodies are capable of expressing different amounts of consciousness. A dung beetle is concerned only with rolling or burrowing deeper into the cow patty. A dog can express happiness, anger and love. A human birth allows the greatest expression of consciousness. But even within the human birth, there are gradations of consciousness.

On the one hand, we treat our pets like they are little humans. But if asked “Is an animal a spirit soul?” most Westerners raised in a Judeo-Christian paradigm will say “No, only humans have souls.” Yet the symptom of the soul is consciousness. Even slight consciousness attests to the presence of the soul (atma) in the body. If Fredo stops breathing, you may say your dog “died.” I use quotes because in the Bhagavad-gita we learn,

“That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul.” —BG 2.17

THE BODY IS A VEHICLE FOR THE SOUL

You might say, “Fredo’s gone!” Nevertheless, the body looks the same, as if Fredo were sleeping. But what exactly is gone? The answer: the atma (soul). And as a result, there is no more consciousness illuminating the body (like the electricity in the bulb). The atma has left Fredo’s body and is on its way to a new body.

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from childhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” —BG 2.13

“Bodies are material productions of different modes of material nature, but the soul and Supersoul within the body are of the same spiritual quality.”—Purport to BG 2.18, by Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

The next time you are on the Internet, visit YouTube and pull up the video entitled “Tara & Bella – the Odd Couple.” When you watch this video about Tara and Bella, remember that at one time in this country (not so very long ago), women and African Americans were considered property with no rights and were often treated inhumanely. Today, animals and other conscious beings, because they are not humans, suffer horrific cruelties (even with pets we often decide what’s “good” for them based on what’s convenient for us). We thoughtlessly squash a spider or ant. Some hunt animals to kill for “sport.” Yet Tara and Bella show us that we should reconsider our “dominion” over other species. Does dominion over atmas who are perhaps akin to a lower wattage bulb (in the example above) mean we have the right to kill them at will? Or does dominion mean to care for and protect all living beings? We should develop equal vision and see all living beings as spirit souls, fundamentally and qualitatively equal, though presently expressing their consciousness through a vast variety of bodies, large and small, with simple or complex consciousness.

Tara and Bella understand that their vastly different bodies should not be an impediment to friendship. Perhaps we could learn something from them.

From ancient mystic scriptures to the smutty tabloid pages in the drug-store check-out line, you hear the word a lot these days — “reincarnation.” What is it, anyway?

Simple: After you die, you get born again in a different body.

Sounds kinda wild at first, maybe. But if you sit down and give it a fair think-over, you’ll see the logic of it.

The last article explained how you are not the body.

Understanding this, you can easily get a grasp on reincarnation. Remember that experiment, comparing your baby pictures with the baby face that confronts you in the mirror? You saw two very different bodies, but they both belonged to one person—you.

You used to have a tiny infant’s body, now you have a mature body, and someday you’ll have a wrinkly body. Somehow, you’ve been imperceptibly changing from one body to another as time passes by. From here it’s not such a gigantic leap to understanding reincarnation. Just as we change bodies throughout life, we also change bodies at the time of death.

It’s a bit more drastic, but it’s the same basic principle.

How it Works

You’d be surprised how many people belive in this kind of thing. But few have a clue as to the details of how reincarnation works. The ancient knowledge of the Hare Krishna movement, however, explains the subject exhaustively. We’ll just give you a quick summary of the essentials.

First of all, we’re not simply a self in the body. We’re a self in two bodies: a physical body and a mental body.

The physical body is that familiar thing made of flesh and blood and stuff like that. The mental body is formed of the three subtle elements known as manah (mind), buddhi (intelligence), and ahankara (false ego, or conditional identity).

At death the mental body and the self get kicked out of the broken-down physical body. The mentality carries the self from the physical body to the next, to fulfill the hopes and desires of the mind, intelligence, and false ego.

The Purpose of Reincarnation

All right, in a weird way it sounds pretty reasonable and convincing—but what’s the purpose of the whole thing? You get born, you die, you get born again, you die again… What’s the use of it all?

Yeah, it is pretty dumb to get born and die over and over again. But sometimes desires and dreams overthrow our better judgment and we do dumb things. That’s basically how we got involved in this cycle of birth and death to begin with.

Desires and dreams impel us to build our hopeful sand castles of material happiness — which are smashed flat again and again by deathly waves in the ocean of time.

The purpose is to learn the lesson that finding any lasting satisfaction in this costume-party world is hopeless. The whole idea of self-realization is to stop reincarnation, to stop taking off and putting on bodies, to halt the endless parade of masks marching before the forgotten face of the soul.

The frustration of reincarnation is to give us the hint that the fulfillment we seek can only be found by waking up our long-dormant perpetual identity, the true self, who lives outside the avenues of time, beyond the borders of birth and death.

Doubt: If I really have lived past lives, I should remember them.

Answer: I have serious trouble remembering what happened yesterday. Five years back things become a dim haze. Memories of my early childhood are practically forgotten. And my birth is entirely unknown. Is it really such a surprise that I don’t remember previous lives? I can’t even easily remember what I ate for lunch last week!

Doubt: OK, this is like “Karma”. Right? I suffer or enjoy because of what I did in the past. That’s supposed to teach me a lesson and gradually move me toward self-realization or something, right? Well, my question is: What good is it for me to be punished or rewarded for something in a past life that I don’t even remember doing? How is that supposed to teach me a lesson?

Answer: Suppose you rob a bank and get caught, convicted, and locked up. Then one day you get in a fight and bang your head. Bam! Suddenly you can’t remember who you are or how you got into jail. But then your cellmate tells you, “Hey, man, you robbed a bank. You belong here.” Now it all makes sense, and if the system works (which admittedly it rarely does) you’ll learn your lesson, and when you get out you’ll go straight.

This whole world is also a sort of a jail. Ultimately, we’re all on death row, and in the meantime there’s plenty of bad stuff that happens to us—like diseases, wars, getting ripped off. If we’re smart enough to ask “Why?” and look for the answer in the right place—such as the ancient books of wisdom called the Vedas—we’ll understand that it’s because we screwed up in our last life. Instead of working toward self-realization so we could stop reincarnation, we did whatever the heck we wanted, impelled by the desires of the body and mind. And so we wound up with another miserable material body in this prison house of the material world. This is an example of the law of karma.

Doubt: “Karma!” I can’t believe you. To think that people deserve their suffering—it’s just a reaction of their past activities—what a horribly insensitive, cold-hearted outlook.

Answer: If you’re not familiar with the term, karma is the natural law that “every action has an equal opposite reaction.”

Yes, it’s true; people who are suffering are really just  “getting their karma,” getting justice. But that doesn’t mean we prance around famine victims, sneering and pointing fingers – “Hah! You deserve it, buddy!” Of course not.

Reincarnation and karma don’t interfere with our compassion for others. In fact, by understanding the complete philosophy, a person becomes totally compassionate toward everyone and gains knowledge of how to help people become free from karma and suffering.

Karma

Dr. Stevenson has devoted the last forty years to the scientific documentation of pas life memories of children from all over the world.  He has over 3000 cases in his files.  Many people, including skeptics and scholars, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation.

Forty years of research by Professor Ian Stevenson (University of Virginia) provides impressive evidence that each one of us is different from his/her physical body and is able to function independently of it. Stevenson has published dozens of carefully-researched cases (see bibliography) in which young children report verifiable details of what they claim were previous lives. The following is a typical case in terms of obscure and detailed information reported by the child. It is atypical in that the previous personality predicted his rebirth.

Obscure and Verifiable Details

In 1945 Victor Vincent, a resident of Sitka, Alaska, informed a young friend of his, Mrs. Chotkin, that he was to die soon and be reborn as her son. He expressed the desire that in his next life as her son he would not stutter as he did in this life. He pulled up his shirt and showed her a scar on his back that was the result of a surgical operation performed several years earlier. The small round holes of the stitches were clearly visible. He also showed her a scar on the right side of his nose (near the eye) that was the result of a surgical operation there. He informed her that in his next life as her son he would have the same marks on his body in the same places, and thereby she would be able to recognize him as Victor Vincent reborn.

A year later he died. Eighteen months thereafter Mrs. Chotkin gave birth to a boy she named Corliss. She told Stevenson that on the body of Corliss at the time of his birth were the same marks, in the same places, as those on the body of Victor Vincent. In 1962 Stevenson visited Alaska and described the mark on Corliss’s back: “It was heavily pigmented and raised. It extended about one inch in length and a quarter inch in width. Along its margins one could still easily discern several small round marks outside the main scar. Four of these on one side lined up like the stitch wounds of surgical operations” (Stevenson, 1974, p.260).

Eliminating Alternate Explanations

Critics claiming fraud by Mrs. Chotkin for monetary gain are silenced by Stevenson’s report that she gained no money from him or anyone else. The claim that she faked the case for notoriety is refuted by the fact that hardly anyone (including her own daughter) was aware that she believed Corliss was Victor Vincent reborn. The claim that she faked the birthmarks is hard to believe, since she was a simple housewife with no access to the sophisticated lab equipment required to fake birthmarks. In fact, it is doubtful that anyone in the world in 1962 would have been able to fake the birthmarks well enough to fool Stevenson (himself an M.D. and professor).

One day when Corliss’s mother was trying to get him to say his name, instead of saying the name “Corliss” he said “Don’t you know me? I’m Kahkody” (Stevenson, 1974, p.260). Kahkody was a nickname of Victor Vincent.

Corliss identified strongly with Victor Vincent and was able to spontaneously recognize a number of people that Victor Vincent had known. Stevenson (1974, p.261) said that when Corliss was two years old he recognized Victor Vincent’s son named William. Corliss saw him on the street and spontaneously said, “There is William, my son.” About that same time Corliss also spontaneously recognized a stepdaughter of Victor Vincent’s. He saw her at the docks of Sitka and correctly said her name, Susie. At that time he was being pushed by his mother along the street in a carriage. Stevenson said that Corliss exhibited great excitement when he saw her, so much so that he was jumping up and down. He said, “There is my Susie.” Corliss also hugged her with great affection. Corliss recognized Susie before his mother had noticed her. Stevenson mentioned that Mrs. Chotkin did not go to the docks with the intention of meeting Susie. In a similar way, when Corliss was three years old he spontaneously recognized and Victor Vincent’s widow and called her by her correct name, Rose. He recognized her in a crowd of people before Mrs. Chotkin had seen her. Stevenson reported that Corliss also recognized a number of other people that Victor Vincent had known.

Stevenson (1974, p.261-262) wrote that Corliss was able to provide a detailed account of certain events that had occurred in the life of Victor Vincent. One day Corliss related an experience Vincent had had when he was out on a fishing trip. The engine of Vincent’s boat had broken and left him helpless in one of the many hazardous channels of southeastern Alaska. Vincent wanted to attract the attention of any ship that might be passing by, but he thought that most crews would not take much notice of an ordinary fisherman. It turns out that he happened to be a part-time worker for the Salvation Army, and he had with him a Salvation Army uniform. He put on this uniform and rowed in a small boat to attract the attention of a passing ship named the North Star. He asked some of the crew members to deliver a message for him. Mrs. Chotkin heard this story directly from Victor Vincent himself when he was alive. She was sure that Corliss had not heard the story from her or her husband before he told it to them.

On another occasion Mrs. Chotkin and Corliss were at the house that was previously owned by Mrs. Chotkin and her family during the life of Victor Vincent. Corliss pointed to a room in the house and said that he (as Vincent) and his wife had slept in this room when they visited the Chotkins. This statement is impressive since at the time Corliss was visiting the house, it had been reorganized and was being used for purposes other than an ordinary residential house. None of the rooms in it were recognizable as bedrooms. But the room that Corliss pointed to had in fact been occupied by Victor Vincent and his wife when they had visited the Chotkins.

The claim that Corliss acquired all this information by psychic power (and hence reincarnation is not required to explain the informational aspects of this and other similar cases) is refuted by the observation that Corliss was unable to provide such impressive information about anyone other than Victor Vincent. The same is true for the many other cases reported by Stevenson.

Mrs. Chotkin told Stevenson that certain of Corliss’s behavior patterns closely resembled those of Victor Vincent. She mentioned that Corliss combed his hair forward over his forehead in the same way that Vincent had done, although she had tried to train Corliss to comb his hair in exactly the opposite manner.

As mentioned earlier, Victor Vincent stuttered severely and told Mrs. Chotkin a year before his death that he hoped he would stutter less in his next life as her son. Corliss also stuttered severely when he was young, until he received speech therapy around the age of ten. Vincent was a very religious Christian. When Corliss was young, he expressed similar devoutness. Vincent was very fond of handling boats and living on the water. Corliss had the same interest. In fact, Corliss surprised his parents by repairing a boat engine without any training. Both Vincent and Corliss were left-
handed.

Correlation Between Birthmarks and Wounds

Stevenson (1987, p.101) wrote that he had researched hundreds of cases in which a child claiming reincarnation had distinctive birthmarks supporting this claim, and in about thirty cases he had obtained independent corroboration (in the form of medical records or autopsies) of similar marks on the body of the previous personality. These are described in Stevenson (1997). There are many cases in which a child reported that he was violently murdered (usually by shooting or stabbing) in his previous life, and the child had on his body a birthmark of the same shape and in the same place as the fatal wound in his previous life. Stevenson wrote (1987, p.101): “Birthmarks and birth defects related to the previous personality seem to me to provide some of the strongest evidence in favor of reincarnation as the best interpretation for the cases. They are objectively observable (I have photographed several hundred of them), and for most of them the only serious alternative explanation that I can think of is a psychic force on the part of the baby’s mother that influences the body of the embryo or fetus within her. However, this explanation, which is itself almost as mind-stretching (for the average Westerner) as reincarnation, can be firmly excluded in about twelve cases in which the child’s mother and father had never heard of the identified previous personality until after the child’s birth.”

Those who want to eliminate the hypothesis of reincarnation and explain everything as psychic force on the part of the child must take into account the fact that the marks are present on the child’s body at the time of birth. This means that the child would have had to be able to wield this psychic force while in his mother’s womb, which is more consistent with the hypothesis of reincarnation than psychic force without reincarnation.

Functioning Without a Physical Body

Dr. Stevenson reported a number of cases in which the conscious self existed for days, weeks and even years without a physical body and acquired information by transcorporal senses. (Transcorporal senses refer to senses that are different from those of the physical body and able to function independently of it.) For example, a Thai boy named Bongkuch Promsin claimed that in his previous life he was a Laotian man named Chamrat who was stabbed to death (Stevenson, 1987, p.68). After the murder, the conscious self that had resided in the body of Chamrat remained in a discarnate state for seven years, staying near a bamboo tree in the vicinity of the murder. One rainy day the discarnate Chamrat saw Bongkuch’s father and accompanied him home on a bus. Bongkuch’s father later told Stevenson that he happened to visit Hua Tanon (the place where Chamrat was murdered) shortly before his wife became pregnant with Bongkuch. Bongkuch’s father said that the day he went to Hua Tanon was in fact a rainy day.

An Indian boy named Veer Singh said that after the death of his previous body (belonging to a man named Som Dutt) he, as a discarnate conscious self, remained near Som Dutt’s family and observed their activities. Veer Singh said that he accompanied members of this family who left the house at night and went out alone. Stevenson said that Som Dutt’s mother had a dream in which Som Dutt told her that he had accompanied his brother a number of times when his brother had surreptitiously left the house at night to attend local fairs. When this brother was asked, he admitted that he was in fact attending local fairs at night, but no one in the family knew about it until Som Dutt’s mother had this dream. Stevenson added that Veer Singh also knew about other private family affairs that took place after Som Dutt’s death and before Veer Singh was born, including the fact that the family bought a camel, that they were involved in a lawsuit, and that several children were born during this period (Stevenson, 1987, p.110).

The persons who reported seeing things in the discarnate state could not have been using physical eyes. Thus, the above evidence supports the hypothesis that the conscious self is inherently transcorporal and possesses transcorporal senses.

Reincarnation is a Natural Process That Happens to All of Us

The idea that reincarnation is a natural process that all conscious selves undergo when their physical bodies die is supported by Stevenson’s statements that it is easy to find persons who claim to remember a previous life in certain places such as West Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon and the northwestern part of North America (Stevenson 1980, p.13; 1987, p.93). Stevenson said that in these places he has received so many reports of possible cases that he simply did not have enough time to investigate them all. It is important to note that cases of the reincarnation type are found not only in southeast Asia but all over the world. Stevenson wrote, “Fortunately, many new cases are available, and as I mentioned in the General Introduction to this series, I should have no difficulty whatever in indicating places in several countries where an investigator can easily find more cases of this type than he could possibly study” (Stevenson, 1980, p.351).

Stevenson mentioned that he has also found and investigated many cases of the reincarnation type in the other parts of North America and Europe. The lesser frequency of reported cases in these countries is due to the fact that many parents ignore or suppress their children’s statements that would support such cases, and hence they can not come to the attention of investigators like Stevenson (Stevenson, 1987, p.93-94). Careful studies by other scientists have uncovered dozens of cases similar to those reported by Stevenson. See, for example, Pasricha (1990, 1992, 1998), Mills (1989, 1990), Haraldsson (1991, 1997), and Keil (1996).

One might raise the following objection: “If reincarnation is actually true, why don’t I or more people I know remember a previous life?” A reasonable answer is that the power to remember a previous life is a rare talent like Einstein’s mathematical talent or Mozart’s musical talent. The fact that I and my friends do not have these talents does not mean that no one has these talents. Obviously Einstein and Mozart were real historical persons. Another important consideration is that there are things which we know we went through (such as being in our mother’s womb) but which we have no memory of. To say that I was not in my mother’s womb because I don’t remember it is clearly fallacious logic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Haraldsson, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1997, 11(3), 323
• Haraldsson, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1991, 5(2), 233
• Keil, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1996, 10(4), 467
• Mills, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1990, 4(2), 171
• Mills, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1989, 3(2), 133
• Pasricha, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1998, 12(2), 259
• Pasricha, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1992, 6(2), 167
• Pasricha, S., Claims of Reincarnation, New Delhi: Harman, 1990
• Stevenson, I., Reincarnation and Biology, London: Praeger, 1997
• Stevenson, I., Children Who Remember Previous Lives, University of Virginia Press, 1987
• Stevenson, I., Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Volume 3, University of Virginia Press, 1980
• Stevenson, I., Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, University of Virginia Press, 1974