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RE-INCARNATION.
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ego. In this state it resembles a seed which readily germinates as soon as it finds itself in suitable congenial soil. It is attracted into surroundings suitable for its objectification by the operation of certain magnetic forces operating upon its material, and becomes the starting point of a new phase or complexion of life. Now, since descent, lineage and other circumstances relating to status are dependent on the family in which one is born, and since the incident of birth is governed by the nature of the forces residing in the kârmânia śarira, the sumtotal of the effects of the different kinds of the soul's activities, it is clear that worldly status is ultimately traceable to one's own karmas in the past. The same is the case with the bodily form, the duration of life, and all other incidents connected with the physical life. Thus the determining factor of the genus, and in the genus of the particular species to which an individual belongs, as also of the longevity of the body and the development of intellectual faculties and of all other individual peculiarities and traits is nothing other than the force of karma persisting in the form of the kârmâna śarira.
The taijasa sarîra is a coat of luminous matter thrown over the karmů na śarira, and forms an atmosphere, or aura, of light round it. It is to the kârmâna sarira what a body is to the bony skeleton beneath. Taken together, the taijasa and the kârmâna sarîras form only one organism, and accompany the soul throughout its evolution as a migrating ego.
The karmâna and the taijasa bodies, taken together, are the equivalents of what are described as the kârana and the sukshma sariras in Vedanta, though taken separ
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