Reincarnation: How depressing!

I’ve been following some blogs on Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. After reading Bruce’s post yesterday, he got me thinking about how hopeless the belief in reincarnation is. You can read his post here:

The Yardstick of God’s Revelation « Bruce’s Blog

Bruce wrote:

“For lack of better words, New Age philosophy is Hinduism wrapped in Western garb. Humanity’s primary problem, according to Hinduism, is that we have forgotten we are divine. The consequence is that we are subject to the Law of Karma, another important Hindu belief. This is the moral equivalent to the natural law of cause and effect. You always reap what you sow. There is no grace, there is no forgiveness, there is never any escape from consequences. It’s a very heavy burden to carry. Not only that, but Hinduism says that the consequences of our choices, both bad karma and good karma, follow us from lifetime to lifetime. This is another Hindu concept: samsara, the ever-revolving wheel of life, death, and rebirth, also known as reincarnation. A person’s karma determines the kind of body–whether human, animal, or insect–into which he or she is incarnated in the next lifetime.” [emphasis mine]

Historically, reincarnation is viewed in the Eastern religions as a “bad” thing. If you are reincarnated in any form, that means you did not attain “salvation;” blissful realization that all things are One. It is a repetitive trap; a cosmic “Ground-Hog Day” of sorts. The New Age Movement in the Western world has re-packaged reincarnation and presented it in a more positive light. You work in this life to improve your next life. Also, your life today can be improved by investigating what you did in past lives that is causing you suffering here and now. Scientology warps this idea even further into a mechanical system to cleanse this life of past lives’s “sins.”

If I believed in reincarnation: I’d be worn out thinking about millions of past lives’s problems, when the problems of this one are overwhelming in solo! Talk about anxiety. I’d be so worried about past Karma sneaking up on me and whacking me over the head for something my soul did last life. I’d be stressed out one of my screw ups now, would condemn me to the life of an orphan in Russia next time. How alone, and big, eternity would be! I think I’d give in to the hopelessness and struggle with a sense of depression.

But praise be to God! There is NO condemnation in the precious and forgiving arms of Christ. I am not condemned to pay for my selfishness, mean spirit and self indulgences by being re-born as a newt. My soul has already been born again in this life wondrously (I wonder at the how of it) through simple belief that Jesus suffered my death sentence. He assures me that I don’t have to be physically re-born to join Him outside of time.  Eternity with my best friend is looking pretty good.

We are of good courage, I say, and prefer…to be away from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:8

Tags: Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, Bible, salvation, Jesus, forgiveness, grace, Depression, hope, reincarnation, hopeless, Karma, Hinduism, reaping and sowing