Reincarnation - Does It Happen?
My whole life I have heard that the soul continues to come and go until one’s soul gets assimilated with God. The body perishes, but the soul remains. Some time ago, however, I got to know the opinions of some Sikhs who don’t believe in this. Lately I have thought about the arguments on both sides and searched for what I believe in, what I think Gurbani conveys to us regarding this matter.
I think my Guruji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, always talks about the present moment. The precious wisdom tries to make us understand that the only moment we can make a change into this world, is now. The only way we can melt into God, is to be connected with the now by discarding our ego, being humble and living selflessly. We have to do good deeds NOW.
We human beings, on the contrary, waste our time in discussions – “what happens after the death?” is one of those discussions. Some believe in heaven and hell after death, some believe that we have been born a lot of times and reincarnate in different forms, some doesn’t believe in an after-life. As I interpret Sri Guru Granth Sahib Jis message on this matter, Guruji tries to convey that only God knows what’s going to happen after death. No matter how much we discuss this issue, we will never be sure that our belief will turn into reality. Only God knows.
Guruji conveys to us that we should not seek for those answers we will never know. We should rather focus on doing good things in this present moment. We should adopt the good qualities which are mentioned in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and discard the bad qualities. By doing this, we will live in heaven here and now. Guruji gives me the message that I can choose if I want to live in heaven or hell right now. If I choose to adopt the good qualities and discard the bad qualities, like my ego, I will live in heaven here and now, and make a heaven for the people surrounding me. If I use my time in bad habits, like being jealous with people around me, I will make my here and now a hell.
If I focus my attention to here and now, I will not waste my energy thinking of if the soul reincarnates or not. I will abandon my worries regarding what I did in my “past lives” (if I had any at all, only God knows) and if I will come to this earth once again. Our mission is to make our present moment a heaven, we should not waste our energy on what happened in the past and will happen in the future. If we are having a hard time, by accepting it and living in harmony with God’s Will, we will live in heaven. If we start to ruminate about why this is happening to me and if it’s because of some past actions in past life, we will not live in harmony with God’s Will.
As a Sikh, Guruji conveys to me that to melt into God, to see God in everything around me and serve Him/Her properly, I have to live in the present moment. Only by living in the present moment I can do kind deeds, be humble, adopting all good qualities/habits and discarding all bad qualities/habits in my life, and thus make a positive change in this world. By wasting my time and energy on discussions like “what happens after death?”, I will not reach the mission of a Sikh. I have to fully accept that there will always be some issues in life that will never be answered, that only God knows. I have to live in harmony with His Will by trusting Him completely.
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Editor's note: The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the SikhNet team. There is a multiplicity of examples in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib where reincarnation is directly talked about as well as many stories of the Guru's directly affirming reincarnation not as a concept but as a spiritual reality. The point of this article is that we should be mostly concerned with the here and the now which is also a very important teaching of the Guru so we belief the conclusion is the same no matter what one's thoughts are. Our hope is not to create controversy by to allow voices to be heard and provide a place where respectful discussion can take place. Many blessings to all those who call themselves Sikhs and all those who have the Sikh spirit without naming themselves.
