Casual Friday

Reincarnation

This weekend I watched a very beautiful movie call Water. I have no idea who the directors and actors are, so apologies if you are looking for more info. It was a Hindi movie about widows being locked up and kept in a commune, yes, sounds gripping.

The sort of bastardization version (my version) of the story is this:

A woman belongs to her husband even after his death. Any interaction with another male would be seen as unfaithful after the husband is 10ft under (or wherever he is). If a woman chooses to disobey and sin by hooking up with another homo erectus then she will be reborn or come back as a jackal or something like that.

Thankfully, there is someone who sins and breaks the rules in the movie and takes the risk with never never land. You can watch the rest if you want the real version.

When thinking rationally about reincarnation it is my understanding that if it actually existed you would be unaware of who/what you were in a previous life. That means that for most of your life you live in a hope of coming back as someone higher up on the food chain but will not know it when you get there. Or if you screw up you will come back in the lower levels yet again unaware of who you were before. It doesn’t appear as much of an incentive in my opinion. I suppose if you wanted to escape from an awful God-forsaken world or something then maybe there is something there but it then lacks the aspect of contributing and living an incarnational life where you can recognize the beauty and purpose around in the now. For the majority of us who are in touch that we cannot really lead a good life per se but can only stumble through with our best intentions then it would seem that the populations of jackals would eventually outnumber humanity. Maybe that is why I was born in the year of the dog…

That is my rambling musing for the day

posted by Mark Dowds @ Monday, March 27, 2006