Is There a Fixed Number of Souls?

Answering some more of your questions on Reincarnation

Could my gender get changed during reincarnation?

The soul is considered sexless. It could reincarnate in either sex and it may change from one to the other gender in different lives. Those who hold that the ego is reincarnated now as a male, now as a female, point to the people with male bodies who have female minds, and vice versa.

Can any of us become animals again?

Two great reincarnational traditions, Buddhism and Vedanta, do not agree on this one.

The Buddhists say, yes, we have incarnations as humans, animals, plants, and even toadstools, and that a human incarnation is something very special because it is so unusual. The Vedantic thinkers disagree, saying that once a human cycle of incarnations begins, the soul continues on with human incarnations until the cycle of incarnation is complete.

However, we do know that actually some animals are on a plane above some human beings! The particles of the body, after dissolution, may come to be particles of animals namely, our bodies - may become reincarnated in animals.

If I can't remember my past lives, why are they important?

The events of a past life, per se, amount to very little if anything. It is the lessons, learned and unlearned, which are carried forward that count and not a specific event. Those lessons form a script or a filter through which you experience your current life until the unlearned lessons are learned.

Is there any evidence at all suggesting life after death?

Scientists investigating 'near-death' experiences say they have found evidence to suggest that consciousness can continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function.

Is there a scientific basis for reincarnation?

Our body's cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones. Every seven years we change the complete set of cells. This means that, in a sense, we change our body every seven years, but this change is so gradual that it's imperceptible. So, each of us has a number of "different" bodies in this very life. The body of an adult is completely different from the body the same person had as an infant. Yet despite bodily changes, the person within remains the same. In other words, we reincarnate even in the course of one lifetime. Something similar happens at the time of death, when this body cannot be worked any more, the self undergoes a final change of body.

If there's only a fixed number of souls, how has the world population increased?

Let us take note of the fact that as man's population has increased, the animal kingdom has gradually been decimated - and that is where some mystics say human souls gradually evolve upwards from. It is also probable that life exists on many other places in the unlimited expanse of the universe, in which case the planet Earth would be only one of many places for souls to inhabit. In the Vedic literature, our universe with innumerable planets throughout the galaxies is comparable to a grain of mustard seed in a bag full of mustard seeds.

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Thought for the Week

“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. . .
The other eight are unimportant”
Henry Miller (1891-1980)
American Author
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First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times