Rebirth

and

Reincarnation

Charles A. Hall

Rebirth

According to the teachings of the New Church, which are based on the heavenly truths revealed through Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 - 1772), every person born into the world is a new creation. He has not existed before. He is an immortal spiritual being with a mortal physical body. His spirit is made out of the non-molecular substance of the spiritual universe, and his physical body out of the molecular matter of the material universe.

It is as a spirit that a person is a human being. The physical body is an organism which enables him to make contact with the natural world and get certain experiences which he needs on the material level. When the physical body has served its purpose, it is left behind, never to be used again. It returns, "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

A person is a spirit right from the start. It is as a spirit that he sees, hears, and experiences every other sensation. The physical eye is a material structure enabling the spirit to see things in the natural world. In fact, all the physical sense organs are channels which the spirit uses to make contact with this universe. It is the spirit which feels, sees, hears, and interprets. The spirit is the lover, the thinker, the doer. Without the spirit, the body is incapable of feeling.

When the spirit the real person is freed from the body by the wholesome process known as death, the body quickly disintegrates. There is no resurrection of the discarded body, nor does the freed spirit ever take on another physical body in order to live on earth again. The immortal spirit continues his life on the spiritual plane, which is his true home.

The Spiritual Body

Actually, as long as it lasts, the material body is in a state of harmony with the body of spiritual substance by which the spirit relates to the spiritual universe. This means that even while we are living on earth we have both a spiritual body and a physical body.

When we die, we do not find ourselves disembodied. We actually have a body made for our life in the spiritual world. It is not an airy, ghostlike body, just "such stuff as dreams are made of', but a perfectly organized body made of real substance.

Since people didn't realize that the spirit and the spiritual body are made of substance, they began to believe that in a future resurrection the bodiless spirit, something like a ghost, would go back into its physical body.

But a material body would be of no use in the spiritual world. To live there, we need a body made of spiritual substance, just as we need a body made of matter to live on earth. As Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth, "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. . . Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 15:44,50) The spirit is real, and the spiritual world is real a world where we can enjoy a full, rich, human life.

Our life on earth is a temporary but very important stage of our existence. It is the prelude to an endless and uninterrupted life in the spiritual world, which is our real home.

The Foundation Now Being Built

I said that our life on earth is a very important phase of our endless existence. This statement needs emphasis.

We may be tempted to think that since we are going to live forever, it is not very important what we do during our short stay on earth. But actually, it is during our stay on earth that our personality is established and our character formed. The inner character formed in the world is what develops forever in the afterlife. While we are living in this world, the foundations of our eternal existence are being laid.

We have to realize that death only gives us a clearer consciousness of our spiritual surroundings. It has no power to change us in any way. It can't change greed into unselfishness, or hate into kindness. In short, while we are living in this world we are forming our future heaven or hell for ourselves.

If we are dominated by self-love and mere physical-mindedness, we have hell inside of us, and in the future life we will go into situations which reflect our inner state of mind. If we are inwardly motivated by love for the Lord and the spirit of helpfulness to others, having kind feelings toward everyone and following the Divine teachings with love in everything we do, we have heaven inside us, and in the future life we will come into heavenly situations.

The Need for Rebirth

But for us to achieve the good character which will bring us into heavenly situations and give us eternal peace and happiness, we have to be reborn. I don't have to remind you that the Lord strongly insisted upon this kind of rebirth in His conversation with Nicodemus (John 3). Without getting into the why's and wherefore's, there is certainly no question that we come into this world with a tendency toward selfishness and the negative things which come with it. Now, far be it from me to say we are born evil! Everyone is born with tendencies toward evil which have a way of coming out into their actions. These tendencies are hereditary, just the way tendencies toward physical diseases are hereditary.

Even a baby is self assertive, and as the child grows up, his egoism becomes stronger and needs to be kept in line all the time. If it weren't for the discipline of life and the influence of the Divine love and wisdom holding us back, we would all break out into terrible crimes.

By physical birth we are creatures of heredity and the children of our natural parents. By spiritual rebirth, or regeneration, we become children of God. We come into this world with the stamp of self. It is a good thing for us if we leave it with the likeness of God, as spiritual members of His family.

In saying that children are born with innate tendencies toward evil, I am considering the known facts of today. But this should not make us think it was always that way. Originally people were born into good. God, who is Good Itself, could not create evil.

But in creating the human being, He did not make a robot. For a human being to be human, with spiritual freedom, he has to be able actually to want the good he was made for. And to be able to want what is good, there has to be another choice. Evil came into being through people making this other choice. They turned away from willingly following God and gave in to the pull of their senses. They asserted themselves so much that self began to rule them.

In this way, evil, which is disorder, came into the scheme of things through people's turning away from God. And heredity has perpetuated the tendency to disorder.

It could be said that in creating a free being, God had to take the chance of his abusing that freedom. But it could also be said that God foresaw this abuse and right from the beginning provided for dealing with it.

The provision He made is what is known in religion as regeneration or rebirth a spiritual process by which a person gets back into spiritual order. From being dominated by self love and materialistic thinking, he comes to love God and mankind. It is by this rebirth that a person becomes spiritually the image and likeness of God.

We know from history and personal experience that men and women have become unselfish. People who used to be dominated by self love and by the desire for wealth and pleasure are now led by worthy motives and live to honor the Lord in serving other people. In the old revivalistic days it would be said that they'd been converted.

How can this kind of change in a person's whole life be possible? How can a person with bad tendencies, who is living a selfish and immoral life, be changed into a good person and a true follower of the Lord? This kind of transformation is certainly the miracle of miracles!

How Rebirth Happens

A person's spiritual rebirth is brought about by the Lord alone. The Divine Spirit works in unseen ways in the person and around him, using every means available. It is said very truly that a person becomes a son or daughter of God by spiritual rebirth, since his rebirth comes from what could be called an impregnation by the Divine, and the constant watching over or Providence of the Divine. The main influence in spiritual rebirth is the Divine Spirit, or Life, which a person is constantly receiving from the Lord. The Life which keeps him in existence physically also sustains him spiritually. It carries inside of it a re-creative power which tends to bring us into harmony with itself. It is a purposeful power, pressing into our inner being in the effort to rebuild our character and make it a true and fitting manifestation of its activity. It works quietly, respecting our freedom we aren't conscious of it and its effect on us varies with our reaction to it.

Heredity and environment may be strong influences in the determination of human character, but the biggest determining factor is the ceaselessly active Spirit of the Lord.

There are other influences in our spiritual rebirth as well, which the Divine Spirit takes hold of and uses. I said before that a person is born with tendencies toward evil. These exist in his ego. But there are also good tendencies in everyone. These are not from the ego, but from the Lord. I am not talking about hereditary personality traits which seem to be good. If you look at it closely, you will see that this kind of good trait is motivated by the ego and made impure by self. It is just "natural goodness", and it needs to be purified by the process of rebirth. In fact, every inherited trait needs to be refined before it can work in harmony with the Divine purpose. The ego can use good traits to achieve its own ends, and it is only when the ego is mastered that we can be sure the good things we do are genuine. There is nothing heavenly in good done for personal advantage and with the view of getting something out of it. This is true whether we're going after reward in this world or reward in the afterlife.

We have to learn to do good from a heavenly motive to the honor of the Lord, where everything good comes from. The Lord uses His own goodness in us as a very powerful tool for our spiritual rebirth. Under its influence our natural emotions are refined, rearranged, and brought into harmony with the spirit of our regenerator. When the Divine Good comes into our desires, it gives them a new direction and a new motivation. It removes the stain of egoism.

You should realize that all genuine goodness in any human being is from the Lord, and is His. This realization comes to us with more and more force as we move along in the process of rebirth.

Lasting Memories

There are other important influences which contribute to our rebirth from above. They are good states of our emotions starting in infancy and going right through to old age, which make us able to have a positive reaction to Divine influences.

Swedenborg describes these helpful states as "lasting memories," meaning conditions deeply impressed on our nature. They are emotions which form a holy remnant deep inside us and are called on and strengthened as our lives develop.

These "lasting memories" are described as "not just the good and true things learned from childhood out of the Lord's Word and impressed on the memory, but also all the states of being which come from this, such as innocent times from infancy; times of love toward parents, brothers and sisters, teachers and friends; times of kindness to other people, and also of pity for poor and needy people; in a word, every experience of goodness and truth."

Swedenborg also says and his statement can be proved by observation that "these lasting memories are saved up in the person by the Lord and stored in his inner self while he has no consciousness of it. They are carefully separated from the things which belong to the person's ego, that is, from evils and falsities."

In another place Swedenborg says, "It is impossible for any person to live, and especially to live as a human being, if he does not have something alive inside of him, that is, unless he has at least some innocence, kindness, and mercy, or something from them which is like them. The person receives this share of innocence, kindness, and mercy from the Lord during infancy and childhood. What the person receives then is saved up inside him. It is these saved-up impressions which make a person capable of becoming a truly human being when he reaches adulthood." We are also told that while we are being reborn, we receive new "lasting memories" in addition to the ones kept from early life. These "lasting memories" which "are carefully separated from the things that belong to the person's ego" form what is known in modern psychological terminology as a "complex." They are arranged into a unified whole which, under the Divine eye, is valuable in our rebirth process. They are a very powerful factor in our rebirth one which is not usually recognized by psychologists.

Conscience

One more influence helping in our rebirth is conscience. Because of its obvious outward differences in different people, conscience is not considered to be reliable in some quarters. Conscience is formed outwardly by what we've been taught is good and true. Because of this, it varies according to a person's upbringing and culture. But its outer form is like a body which expresses a living spirit. The inner spirit of conscience is made alive and given light by the Divine. It is that spirit which gives us a sense of right and wrong by an inner voice, and we experience qualms of conscience when we do something against this inner voice.

Living according to conscience greatly helps our rebirth, and as we develop, the outer form of conscience becomes more and more refined. It is by devotedly learning what is actually good and true from the Word of God, and living by it, that a true form of conscience is developed.

At this point it is good to summarize the things which help in our rebirth. First, there is the Divine Activity which constantly influences our inner being, working quietly and encouraging our free response. Of course, this is the most powerful influence of all. Second, there is the goodness from the Lord (not from heredity) in our inner sell. Third, there are "lasting memories," which are good emotional experiences carefully preserved. And fourth, there is conscience, which must be formed outwardly by knowing what is actually good and true from the Word if it is going to be the type of conscience which is most helpful to our rebirth.

Negative Influences

Of course, there are also factors which work against our spiritual rebirth. Our natural egotism opposes the process of rebuilding our spiritual character. Hereditary tendencies to evil fight it, and there are influences in the world we live in which appeal to our evil tendencies and encourage us to act on them.

For rebirth to happen, we have to cooperate with the forces which help the process. This cooperation means avoiding anything that is wrong because it is an offense against God. Wanting and doing what is wrong will get in the way of our developing the way the Lord wants us to. It will make it difficult to establish the principles of heaven in our hearts, minds, and lives.

You should realize that if this cooperation is going to have any value in your spiritual development, it has to come from good motives. You may avoid doing what is wrong for sell-centered reasons, not honestly trying to hide it from the people around you. You might be honest, or avoid lying, because you want to look honest and keep a good reputation with your friends. If that is your reason for being honest, then if all your fears of being found out were taken away, your inner dishonesty would immediately show itself in your actions.

Swedenborg says, "If a person does not avoid wrongs as sins, but only because they are harmful, he does not look to the Lord, but only to himself, and so he stays in his degenerate state." And in another place he says, "An evil person may avoid wrongs as hurtful, but only a Christian can avoid them as sins."

In short, our avoidance of wrongs should have a religious motive. When evils in ourselves such as selfishness, greediness for wealth, unkind thoughts and actions are avoided as offenses against God, He can give us the strength to overcome them. We can't overcome our faults without letting the Lord into our lives. While we are expected to do this good work as if we were doing it by ourselves in fact, as if the outcome depended completely on us we should realize that our determination to avoid what is wrong is inspired by God and our actions are supported by Him. This highest act of cooperation with the Lord may seem to be a negative thing, but it is not. There are teachers who insist that we become good by ignoring faults and doing good things. But in actual fact, we can't do any good that is really good until we act from a spiritual motive. And as long as the evil of selfishness is solidly fixed in our motives, this spiritual motive is absent. Only as we get rid of our faults can good qualities take their place. Really, our determination to avoid doing wrong is an effect of good from the Lord working in our deeper being. And that good replaces evil when the mind, by actively changing its attitudes, is prepared to receive the good and give it expression.

Self Compulsion

Someone may argue that this cooperation with the Lord, which is necessary for our spiritual rebirth, can hardly be possible with people who have been influenced toward bad ways of living from the time they were born. But it is a fact known from experience that we can use self compulsion. Anybody can make himself do what he does not want to do.

Some people think of this power of self-compulsion as residing in a higher self which can take control of a lower self. Actually it comes from the Lord and is evidence of the activity of His Spirit in our inner being. In our determination to avoid wrongs we should recognize a Divine motivation.

Rebirth is the great purpose of our existence, since we can only start a life which is really alive by being reborn. The Lord has an overarching purpose for creation which is no less than the building of a heavenly human society in this world as far as possible, and in its full expression in the eternal world.

This heavenly society has to be made of heavenly beings. And for human beings to become heavenly they have to be reborn. We are born into this world as the children of our natural parents. By rebirth we become children of God, members of His Family.

It is this great goal that gives meaning to human existence. God has a purpose for us, and all the discipline of life is related to it. Our experiences are watched over so that our heart of stone may become a heart of flesh, and we may freely direct ourselves into the order of heaven.

Intensified Individuality

This teaching does not imply the idea that when people are reborn they all become the same of one monotonous type. Everyone knows that individual people are different, and as character develops, personality traits become stronger. Some Eastern philosophies teach that the purpose of human existence is mergence with the Divine. Obviously, this means losing any distinctive personality.

According to the teaching of the New Church, the closer a person lives to God, the more intense is his individuality. The Spirit of the Lord working in his soul brings out his distinctive characteristics, just as the warm sunshine makes a seed planted in the ground germinate, grow, and produce according to the specific type of plant it is.

As members of the family of God we are distinct individuals, each adding the value of his personality to the common good. A heavenly society is harmony in variety, and the unifying force is the love of good and the desire to be of service to others. In the process of spiritual rebirth individual characteristics are not blotted out or silenced. They are saved from being used badly, spiritually refined, and put to heavenly use.

To be merged with the Divine would be to become God, the creature being lost in the Creator. If that were the end result of our labor, we would have to give up the hope of our own immortality.

Reincarnation is Not Meant

You will realize from what I've said that according to the New Church teaching, rebirth does not imply reincarnation. We are born on earth just once. After our earth life we continue as spiritual beings, with bodies made of spiritual substance, in the spiritual world. There is no need for us to return to the earth to gain further experience and undergo further discipline. Everything necessary for our eternal well-being is provided in the eternal living place of humanity. The idea of reincarnation flourishes in the East, and has invaded Western thought. Stated briefly, it says that the soul of a person now living on earth is not a new creation. It may have existed here before in different bodies and circumstances, and will probably exist here in many future incarnations.

According to the reincarnationist, a newborn baby is a reincarnation of a soul which has had many incarnations, and between incarnate existences has lived in a disembodied state in a nebulous astral realm. While it was in that realm it supposedly assimilated past experience and developed characteristics whose good or bad effects will appear in the next incarnation. In each incarnation the bill is paid for past error, and reward is given for past good. The soul must continue to be incarnated at intervals for a longer or shorter time until it is purged of evil and no longer needs the discipline of earth.

As to its final destiny, there seems to be a difference of opinion among teachers of the theory. Hindu reincarnationists, millions in number, seem to hold that the soul finally finds Nirvana, which, as I understand it, means mergence into the Divine. As we've already seen, this involves loss of individuality. Others teach that individuality survives, but the form in which it survives is mostly left to the imagination.

There are some reincarnationists who say that the end result is not mergence with the Divine, but the attainment of a Divine status in which, to use my own term, the purified individual becomes a kind of demigod. With the Buddhists this means the attainment of Buddha-hood. While for his own development the purified individual needs no more incarnations, he may decide to take on a body once more as a great world teacher.

It was probably a reincarnationist teaching that started the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ would make a second personal advent in the flesh, no longer to be despised and rejected by men, but to be accepted as a great world leader. If this surmise is true, we can see that the teaching of reincarnation is responsible for a serious misunderstanding which deceives millions of Christians. We should not look forward to a new physical appearance of the Man of Nazareth, but realize that now and always the Kingdom of the Lord in his Divine Humanity is spiritual. He is always with us spiritually in His Word, and in the goodness and truth He puts into the human soul. The Lord's Second Advent is spiritual, and a person sees it with his spiritual understanding, not his physical eyes. The theory of reincarnation implies the existence of a limited number of souls. And if, as the Hindus believe, the end of the individual is mergence in deity, unless by some device new souls are created, the human family will gradually get less numerous until at last only deity exists.

Reincarnation in the New Testament

We know that the reincarnation theory penetrated Palestine and had its advocates among the Apocalyptics who flourished around the time of our Lord. Many Jewish thinkers adopted the theory, and it appears in the Zohar. It was probably a person who favored reincarnation who asked Jesus the question, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?" (John 9:12). And the theory is reflected in the answer given to Jesus when He asked, "Whom do people say that I am?" The disciples answered, "Some say Elijah, others Jeremiah, and others one of the old prophets." But nowhere in the Bible do we find a positive word which approves the theory. We do not have to accept a teaching which is mentioned in Scripture as being held by people with a speculative mindset. The Bible shows that by a certain time the reincarnation theory had influenced popular thought. It also shows that people once believed that the earth was a flat disk floating on water. We do not have to believe either.

The Word is not given to tell us about ancient beliefs, but to show us spiritual and eternal truths about the Lord, the way He provides for us, and His life in people's souls. Just because there are shadows of reincarnation in the Bible does not prove that the theory is true. Reincarnationists claim that Jesus was a reincarnation of a pre-existent Christ. But the New Testament indicates that He was God Himself accommodated to human understanding. Someone may bring against this statement the philosophical doctrine of the Eternal Word, given in John's Gospel. All I need to say is that the Word, or Logos, referred to there is the Eternal Wisdom, Thought, or Mind of God which became personal and appeared as the Word made flesh.

Compensation

It is claimed for reincarnation that it explains our present experience and shows why we suffer or enjoy as we do. In suffering we are punished for wrongdoing in a past incarnation. In present well- being we are rewarded for bearing hardships.

The teaching implies that the poor must accept poverty and look for compensation, not in this present existence, but in a future incarnation. In fact, each incarnation is said to compensate for past ones. The rich man of today may return a thousand years from now in the dress of poverty. Someone who exploits others may return to earth and be exploited.

The law of retaliation has a prominent place in the theory. Even if we are completely unaware of wrongs done in a former incarnation, we will have to pay the bill. It seems to me that the payment can hardly be helpful or reforming if we have no idea what it is for. It is more likely to bring on bitterness and rebellion. In actual fact, we experience the consequences of our actions in the present life, and our wrongs are not held against us if we do not persist in them. The rigid caste system in India is supported by the widely accepted teaching of reincarnation. The person of low caste is told he must be content with his lot. His present position is attributed to his behavior in former incarnations, and he is taught that submission to an obviously bad condition will lead to a better position in a future incarnation.

Social change is impossible under the tyranny of this kind of belief. Indeed, the belief is fatalistic, and leads to tame resignation. It overlooks the saving power of the Lord, which is always at work and can set us free from the tyranny of circumstances if we cooperate with it.

Those who suggest that Christianity should adopt the teaching of reincarnation must hardly realize that they are advocating an impossible union. Christianity calls for change in the present, and newness of life here and now. It is concerned with present issues, dealing with things as they are. It

does not evade the urgent call of the present in speculating about remote causes.

Claims of Remembering Past Lives

Some reincarnationists say that they can remember past incarnations. I believe two well known advocates of the theory have claimed to be re-embodiments of Hypatia. Since both were living at the same time, at least one of them must be wrong!

Sometimes, at times of day-dreaming or deep thought, we seem to experience a sense of having lived in conditions that don't exist now, but which are vivid to the mind for a moment. Reincarnationists take such experiences as evidence for their theory.

But Swedenborg shows that they can have a completely different explanation. He tells us that we are in unconscious association with spirits who influence us in an inner way. On the communication of spirits with people on earth, he says in his HEAVEN AND HELL, paragraph 256:

Angels and spirits are not allowed to speak to a person from their own memory, only from the person's memory. Spirits and angels have a memory just the way people do. If a spirit talked to a person from his own memory, the person would not know anything else but that all he thought then were his own thoughts, when they were actually the spirit's. It is like remembering things which the person never actually heard or saw. I have been shown by experience that it is like this. It was from this experience that some of the ancients got the belief that after several thousand years they would return to their former life, and to everything they did in it, and also that they had already returned from before. They concluded this because they occasionally had something like a memory of things which they had never seen or heard. This happened because spirits flowed from their own memory into the ideas of their thought.

So according to Swedenborg, the claims of remembering past lives are due to the projection of the memory of a spirit into the mind of a person receptive to it. Each spirit has had his own life on earth, which the person would "remember" quite clearly, believing it to be a buried memory of one of his own past lives.

Determination of Character

Reincarnationists suggest, or insist, that compensation for present experiences is given in future incarnations. In our returns to earth we are rewarded for the good we have done and punished for our wrongs.

The New Church teaches that the consequences of good or bad actions are immediate, not just in outward experience, but also in the deeper level of their effect on our character. A single existence on earth is enough to determine a person's character. And the character developed here, not under compulsion but in free response to the different inner and outer influences which bear upon us, continues in the afterlife.

Seen from a spiritual standpoint, even if the situations we are in here on earth seem far from ideal outwardly, they are all directed by the Divine Providence so as to bring us into a state of heart and mind which prepares us for our eternal service. It is not wealth or poverty, sickness or health, high or low position, but character that counts. Not what we have, but what we are. Experience is stuff to try our strength on, and we should take our circumstances as a way toward compassion. If we react with good spirit to our present conditions, we gradually create new and better ones.

It is not necessary or desirable that we be forced to conform to one type of personality. An individual is happy in the life of good which he freely chooses, and if that good is not the highest, he can still enjoy it as long as his actions do not hurt other people.

Just as in the human body there are organs which have higher, middle, and lower functions, all of which are necessary for the health of the whole, so in spiritual society there are different levels of people who are happy and healthy in doing services which are all needed for the common good, whatever their status is.

A Spiritual Interpretation Needed

The true spiritual seers of ancient times, like those of all ages, have had a clear vision of the need for human rebirth, or spiritual regeneration. For lack of better language, they have always described it in terms of ordinary birth.

Our Lord did this when He said, "Unless a person is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." But as the rest of what He said shows, he was speaking of spiritual rebirth, not physical rebirth. It is only a grossly literalistic outlook which leads readers of ancient Eastern Scriptures to find statements in favor of reincarnation in them. In the Bhagavad Gita there are frequent passages which describe spiritual rebirth in physical terms. So we read, "We have been born many times, I and thou, Arjuna" And again, "Those unhappy ones, who hate and are cruel, I cast from one reincarnation to another."

Indeed, in a spiritual sense we are born many times in the course of our labors. Without our taking particular notice, we are reborn every time a new motivation takes over in our lives. We are a new person, a different person, under the rule of new and vital interests. A changed person is a different person, and when we see a definite mental or moral development in a friend we even speak of him as a new person. Yet he is the same individual the difference comes from his new motivation and changed outlook.

Most mature people can look back over the years and notice the changes which have been critical in causing a remade personality to emerge in themselves. A person is spiritually reborn when, from being completely apathetic, he becomes motivated by the love of truth. He is again reborn, becoming new, when he lives according to the vision of that faith. And he is a new person once more when love for the Lord and kind goodwill toward other people rule his outlook and his life. The rebirths referred to in the Bhagavad Gita are spiritual, not physical. The language used is figurative and should be interpreted in spiritual terms, not literally. Rebirth, in these Scriptures, is a figure of speech. Anyone who has a spiritual understanding sees in it a picture of the states of mind and heart which we must pass through to reach true spirituality.

Rebirth From Above

In all I've said, the rebirth mentioned is one which means spiritual development. It is the rebirth taught by the Lord Jesus. But we should realize that a person who rejects the Divine Love and Wisdom, deliberately choosing a way of selfishness and wrongdoing, is reborn again and again in a descending scale. He goes from bad to worse, and as new ideas of evil dominate him, he is shaped by them. His spiritual rebirths are from below, not from above. They are the opposite of the ones which happen in true rebirth. The potential angel, through his own deliberate desire, becomes an actual devil. He is a child of hell, one of the company of "those unhappy ones who hate and are cruel," and he passes from birth to birth as malicious loves dominate him one after another. But let me emphasize that those births are changes in his state of mind, and do not produce reincarnations.

Reincarnationists, in my view, have done themselves and the world an injustice by their literalistic and materialistic interpretation of sacred writings which are actually speaking of spiritual realities. And it seems that their literalism comes from failure to see sound spiritual values and the reality of the spiritual world, and to an unconscious but compelling materialism which demands physical satisfactions.

The aspiring soul does not ask to return after death to scenes on the earth, but reaches out to the eternal world where it will enjoy the full fruits of its labors. It does not ask for any other reward there than the fulfillment of its being. It does not suffer any punishment arbitrarily meted out, but only the painful reaction which comes after failure to serve a good and sacred purpose. In the other world every person finds his own place where he can truly be himself and find the fulfillment he needs. Even in this world, with all its inequalities and imperfections, no one can corner happiness. Whatever condition we find ourselves in, we can be fairly happy most of the time if we will only decide to be.