Q. How does reincarnation figure numerically? For instance in plant and insect life, does each flower or bug have an individual soul? What about a worm that divides itself, or a cutting from a plant or tree that takes root and becomes another plant or tree? What is the explanation regarding soul in each case?
A. The entire universe is humming with one life impulse call it as one may. Each flower and each fruit when on the parent tree or shrub is activated by the self-same life principle, but when it is plucked or falls down, it begins to shrivel up and decays. But the life concentrated in the tiny seed at the core remains intact and once again springs up into form and colour when the seed is sown in proper soil and nurtured carefully. Similarly the freshly cut-branch when engrafted or transplanted from one soil to the other, carries with it its power to grow anew with the sustenance it draws from nature. It is only the forms and colours that change and not the life principle which remains eternally the same. Some worms, when cut into two, retain the life current just for a while and eventually it disappears.
Q. Do you think my husband who passed away last May has reincarnated yet?
A. It does not fall within the purview of sacred teachings to discuss or disclose the Divine disposition about the reincarnation of those souls who have passed away. Suffice it to understand that unions and separations in this physical plane are veiled and governed by the inexorable law of karma. There is nothing ‘premature’ as the Divine machinery works with meticulous precision and nothing happens haphazardly, although it may look to us as such. Just as a man standing at the power-house can see quite distinctly as to how the smallest cogs and spindles are working, but the person who cannot look beyond these small units cannot understand as to how these are being operated by the Divine will of the Lord. Reincarnation is a spiritual phenomenon which cannot be understood adequately by limited human intellect.
Q. In ‘Spiritual Gems’ page 313 it says: ‘When spirit is attached to Naam, it draws one toward itself and the door is opened. Until this happens, no one need think he can get in.’ Please explain if one does not get ‘through the door,’ but desires never to reincarnate but does one’s best, even if it is only a ‘widow’s mite’, need one reincarnate?
A. The account of those who have received initiation is in the hands of the Master from the time of initiation. If a disciple after initiation keeps faith with an intense love and strong longing for the Master, does not fall into bad habits and does not commit foul deeds; but has not, due to adverse circumstances, or for some other reasons, been able to give full time to the spiritual practices, he is, after death made to stay at some intermediate stage to complete Bhajan and Simran before he is eventually taken upwards. Rebirth is only for those who lost their faith, go in actual opposition to the instructions of the Master or who do foul deeds and have very low desires and gross worldly tendencies. That pan of the scales goes down which is overloaded, and not the other, is the law.