The book contains 12 chapters , Total length 4hrs 3min
William Walker Atkinson
Reincarnation and the Law of Karma
CHAPTER I.
THE EARLY RACES.
By “Reincarnation” we mean the repeated incarnation, or embodiment in flesh, of the soul or immaterial part
of man’s nature. The term “Metempsychosis” is frequently employed in the same sense, the definition of the
latter term being: “The passage of the soul, as an immortal essence, at the death of the body, into another
living body.” The term “Transmigration of Souls” is sometimes employed, the term being used in the sense of
“passing from one body into another.” But the term “Transmigration” is often used in connection with the
belief of certain undeveloped races who held that the soul of men sometimes passed into the bodies of the
lower animals, as a punishment for their sins committed during the human life. But this belief is held in
disrepute by the adherents of Reincarnation or Metempsychosis, and has no connection with their philosophy
or beliefs, the ideas having sprung from an entirely different source, and having nothing in common.
There are many forms of belief–many degrees of doctrine–regarding Reincarnation, as we shall see as we
proceed, but there is a fundamental and basic principle underlying all of the various shades of opinion, and
divisions of the schools.
This fundamental belief may be expressed as the doctrine that there is in man an
immaterial Something (called the soul, spirit, inner self, or many other names) which does not perish at the
death or disintegration of the body, but which persists as an entity, and after a shorter or longer interval of rest
reincarnates, or is re-born, into a new body–that of an unborn infant–from whence it proceeds to live a new
life in the body, more or less unconscious of its past existences, but containing within itself the “essence” or
results of its past lives, which experiences go to make up its new “character,” or “personality.” It is usually
held that the rebirth is governed by the law of attraction, under one name or another, and which law operates
in accordance with strict justice, in the direction of attracting the reincarnating soul to a body, and conditions,
in accordance with the tendencies of the past life, the parents also attracting to them a soul bound to them by
some ties in the past, the law being universal, uniform, and equitable to all concerned in the matter.
This is a general statement of the doctrine as it is generally held by the most intelligent of its adherents.
E. D. Walker, a well-known English writer on the subject, gives the following beautiful idea of the general
teachings: “Reincarnation teaches that the soul enters this life, not as a fresh creation, but after a long course
of previous existences on this earth and elsewhere, in which it acquired its present inhering peculiarities, and
that it is on the way to future transformations which the soul is now shaping. It claims that infancy brings to
earth, not a blank scroll for the beginning of an earthly record, nor a mere cohesion of atomic forces into a
brief personality, soon to dissolve again into the elements, but that it is inscribed with ancestral histories,
some like the present scene, most of them unlike it and stretching back into the remotest past. These
inscriptions are generally undecipherable, save as revealed in their moulding influence upon the new career;
but like the invisible photographic images made by the sun of all it sees, when they are properly developed in
the laboratory of consciousness they will be distinctly displayed.
The current phase of life will also be stored away in the secret vaults of memory, for its unconscious effects upon the ensuing lives. All the qualities we now possess, in body, mind and soul, result from our use of ancient opportunities. We are indeed ‘the heir of
all the ages,’ and are alone responsible for our inheritances. For these conditions accrue from distant causes
engendered by our older selves, and the future flows by the divine law of cause and effect from the gathered
momentum of our past impetuses. There is no favoritism in the universe, but all have the same everlasting
facilities for growth. Those who are now elevated in worldly station may be sunk in humble surroundings in
the future. Only the inner traits of the soul are permanent companions. The wealthy sluggard may be the
beggar of the next life; and the industrious worker of the present is sowing the seeds of future greatness.
Suffering bravely endured now will produce a treasure of patience and fortitude in another life; hardships will
give rise to strength; self-denial must develop the will; tastes cultivated in this existence will somehow bear
fruit in coming ones; and acquired energies will assert themselves whenever they can by the Law of
Parsimony upon which the principles of physics are based. Vice versa, the unconscious habits, the
uncontrollable impulses, the peculiar tendencies, the favorite pursuits, and the soul-stirring friendships of the
present descend from far-reaching previous activities.” |
