What is Reincarnation?

REINCARNATION After death, the soul goes to the next world, bearing in mind the subtle impressions of its deeds, and after reaping their harvest returns again to this world of action. Thus, he who has desires continues subject to rebirth. —Yajur Veda, Br. Upanishad 4.4.6 Reincarnation is the natural cycle of birth, death and re birth. We are not the body in which we live, but the im mortal soul which inhabits one body after another on the Earth during its evolutionary journey. Like the caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, physical death is a most natural transition for the soul, never to be feared. We are now the sum total of all our past lives. The ac tions and re actions we set in mo tion in our last life form the tendencies in the next. Re in car nation ceases when all karmas have been resolved, dharma has been well performed and God fully realized. This is known as mok sha, or liberation from rebirth.