Reincarnation

Reincarnation denotes the idea of rebirth – the view that the soul outlasts the death of the body and continues to work in a new life. This entry renders a worldview perspective and personal experience, not a scientifically proven fact and not a medical statement.

What is reincarnation?

Reincarnation (rebirth) is the idea that life does not end with bodily death, but continues on another level and carries on in new lives. In this view the body is the “vehicle of the soul”, which passes away while an inner being continues on.

In the Western cultural sphere this theme was long little present. In an upbringing shaped by Christianity the thought of rebirth scarcely occurs – unlike in many other cultures and religions, in which the idea of several lives has always been a matter of course.

We understand reincarnation expressly as a view and as a model of experience: an image of how people experience and interpret continuity beyond the single life. This is a worldview perspective, not a proven finding about the world.

How is reincarnation connected with karma?

In the reincarnational view, rebirth stands in connection with karma – the thought that experiences and actions have an after-effect across the lives and form a meaningful whole. From this perspective a person returns not by chance, but in order to gather experiences and to continue an inner path of development.

This is an interpretation that creates meaning, not a mechanism that could be measured. It helps some people to place their own life in a larger context.

What happens in a regression?

By “regression” is meant, in the spiritual context, an inner, experience-oriented event: images, sensations and impressions rise up that are interpreted as memories of earlier life circumstances. People sometimes describe such experiences as unusually vivid and moving.

From our point of view, such an experience can contribute to insights and self-knowledge. It is, however, no therapy against illnesses and is bound up with no promise of healing. We understand it as a personal, inner experience – as a path of self-contemplation, not as a treatment.

The term regression also has, beyond this, a psychological meaning: it describes that a person temporarily falls back mentally and emotionally into earlier, simpler states, for instance in order to recover from an overtaxing everyday reality. In this sense autogenic training too works with a consciously initiated, controlled pause for rest: the practitioner goes willingly into a relaxed state and out again. These two meanings – the spiritual regression and the psychological regression – should be kept apart.

Which indications and phenomena are discussed?

In the field of reincarnation various phenomena and experience reports have always been discussed: especially vivid dreams and visions, the feeling of recognising unfamiliar places or situations, or accounts of people who, after a resuscitation, report experiences beyond death.

Personalities such as C. G. Jung and Goethe too concerned themselves with related questions. Jung noted in his memoirs, in reflections on reincarnation:

“The more of the myth we are able to make conscious, the more life we integrate.”

Such reports and quotations are no proofs in the scientific sense. They are experiences and interpretations that have long accompanied the theme and that many people experience as a spur to reflection. We render them as indications and views, not as established facts.

How does the Kyborg Institute see reincarnation?

The Kyborg Institute stands for a practical, grounded spirituality. We understand reincarnation as a worldview and as a lived experience – as an approach to placing one’s own life in a larger context and to meeting the question of meaning calmly and without fear.

In doing so we remain deliberately reserved: we assert no proven facts about the beyond, promise no healing, and do not see engagement with the theme as the treatment of illnesses. Whoever is interested in it finds in it above all an invitation to their own experience and reflection. Related terms are karma, death and regression.

Note: This article renders a spiritual, worldview-based view and is not medical advice. It describes experiences of experience and consciousness, promises no healing and replaces no medical diagnosis or treatment.

Autor: D. Harald Alke