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| "How Can You Prove Reincarnation?" by G. de PuruckerHow Can You Prove Reincarnation?By G.de Purucker How can you prove reincarnation to be a fact? This is one of thecommonest questions that we are asked, and I always wonder howsuch a question could be asked. Do you expect to prove after themanner of the laboratory something that does not belong there?What is proof? The bringing of conviction that a thing is trueto the thoughtful mind. That is proof - so stated in courts oflaw, and properly so stated. Now, if by the adduction of evidencethe mind is not swayed into the belief that a thing is true, thatthing has not been proved, even though it may be true. Don't yousee that the only way to get proof of a thing is by thinking itthrough to the end? Then you are convinced; and while you maybe entirely wrong, still that is the only possible way for thinkinghuman beings to get proof. But don't mistake evidence for proof.I have a receipt which shows that a certain sum of one thousanddollars has been paid. Does that prove the money has been paid?Any lawyer will tell you it is not proof. It is evidence tendingto substantiate a possible fact that a thousand dollars has beenpaid by so and so to so and so; but it may be a forgery; thatreceipt may not be an actual receipt. But if an individual hearingdetailed circumstances about a thing, sifting and analysing theevidence laid before his thinking mind, is convinced that X haspaid Z a thousand dollars, then that evidence substantiates theconviction brought to the mind, making the conviction more strong.Now then, how can you prove reimbodiment to anyone? By bringingconviction to the impartial and thoughtful mind that it is theonly possible and satisfying explanation of the existence of humanbeings. And how is such evidence of proof adduced? By thinking.Thus: we are here. We are not all alike. We vary as amongst ourselvesmore than the leaves on the trillions of trees on the surfaceof the earth do. Each man is a unit. How came that thinking, feelingunit on this earth? Created by God? Prove to me first that sucha creating God exists.How much simpler and more reasonable is the supposition - as itseems at first - that here we have a thinking, feeling, self-consciousentity, which we now in this one life find amongst us. We findthis entity at one stage of what is evidently an incomparablylong journey of evolution. That is the first thought. We are here.We were not created by a marvel - some extracosmic God of infiniteinjustice, making some men almost godlike and others heavily,woefully, afflicted. You can cheat the mind by saying, "Theseare things which belong to Divine Mercy and are beyond our power";but that is no answer and no proof to the thinking mind. It issidestepping the question.What we are faced with is the fact that we exist, that we differgreatly amongst ourselves; that we show in ourselves the evidenceof growth. And where can you get all this needful growth in oneshort life on earth? How about the poor infants who are born anddie before they have a chance to grow? Haven't they another chanceto come back - a chance to try again? We have to take things asthey are. I never would be one to accuse this spirit, whose attributesare harmony and cosmic justice, of acting with injustice and partiality- never!Another thought: Who are we - we human egos, with our wonderfulpowers and feelings? Whence our ethical instincts? A thought thatobliged the German philosopher Kant to admit of there being divinejustice, because these ethical instincts often act contrary, soit seems to us, to the merely selfish, personal man; as, for instance,when a man gives up his life for some grand ideal or for someonewhom he loves. There is divinity in that. We show divinity inour very composition. Does not this tell us that we are essentiallysons of God, as the Christian would say; sparks of the divineflame which keeps the universe in orderly progression - sparksof that divine harmony and intelligence which makes the manifoldmarvels around us in the heavens or on earth? We are in this universebecause we are intrinsic parts of it. We cannot ever leave it.We belong to it. It is we and we are it in essence. And what doesthis mean, this being formed of its stuff, of its essence? Asit is eternal, so are we eternal. We are coeval with the universe,and we perdure as it does. It is but we in essence.Let us carry our thought a step farther. As there is no chanceaction anywhere, no fortuity, naught but ineluctable proceduresof cosmic law, therefore we humans, one small hierarchy in thatcosmos, are not here by chance, therefore our being here has ameaning, and that meaning is rooted in the cosmic life, in thecosmic intelligence, in the cosmic law. It would be utterly meaninglessif we simply appeared on this earth for one short earth life andthen vanished and no good came of it, or mayhap no retributionfor our evil doings.Why are we here on this earth? Why are we here now? Why were menliving in other ages, or what about the men who will follow usin future ages? Why will they then be? These things are mattersof cosmic law. Now pray follow the reasoning, because we are advancingfrom link to link of thought. Being here by law, and one lifebeing utterly insufficient to produce the purposes of cosmic mind,it is obvious that our being here once is a proof of reincarnation.Otherwise what brought us here? What cosmic mind put us here insteadof on some other planet in some solar system, either ours or outsideof ours? We are here because we have been here before, becausehere we sowed seeds of destiny, and we come back on this earthto reap those seeds which we sowed. This universe, governed bycosmic law, will not allow us to sow corn or wheat in San DiegoCounty, and three or four months afterwards travel into Arizonaor Nevada and attempt to reap the corn and wheat there. Wherewe sowed the seeds, there shall we reap the harvest. It is obvious.Our very being here, to the man who can think clearly and logicallyfrom step to step, or thought to thought, is a proof of reincarnation.Otherwise we must say cosmic law put us here by chance. And whobelieves that? If fortuity governed this world we would see thestars in their courses and all the planets running helter skelterall over the cosmic spaces without law, without reason, withoutorder, without intelligence, without system.There you have your proof. Just think about it, reason it out,advance step by step in logical thinking. We are here on thisearth because we have sown seeds of destiny, of life here, andwe come back to reap them: to undo the wrongs we did in the past,to reap the rewards that we sowed in the past. And that is whywe will come back to reimbodiment in the future. We are now makingourselves to be what we shall in the future become. We are nowpreparing our destiny for our next life on earth. I am not nowspeaking of the intermediate phases of life between life on earthand life on earth. That itself is a wonderful story. I am nowmerely pointing out that in the universal law things move lawfully,causatively and effectively, every cause produces an effect whichcannot be escaped. If you distort your soul by evil thinking andfeeling, you will not become by such action and angel of pity.You will become ugly and distorted within, and you will reap thereward and the retribution of what you yourself have done untoyourself.The universe is ensouled, and that soul is to the universe whatman's soul is to him. The physical universe we see around us isbut the body of the universe, as man's body is but the body ofhis soul; and both the physical universe and the body of man expressbut very imperfectly the divine and spiritual and intellectualand psychic and astral and all the higher laws and powers andenergies and forces and substances that are the invisible worldsin space.Don't you see how from step to step, by reason, instinct, carefulthinking a thing through, we are led to the belief that we arenot only in our inmost essence very children, offspring of thedivine fire, but that, being such sparks from the divine flame,we are in evolutionary cyclic growth constantly advancing fromlower to higher things, just exactly as the child is born andfrom unthinking childhood grows to be a thinking, feeling manwith ethical instincts?So, pursue these ways of reasoning, and then you will never askanyone: prove to me that reincarnation is or exists. You willhave the proof of it yourself.(From the author's Wind of the Spirit, TheosophicalUniversity Press)Reincarnation Menu |
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