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CHAPTER VII
TRANSMIGRATION
It goes without saying that the doctrine of karma is invariably associated with the concept of transmigration. This concept has for its support the existence of the self that goes from birth to death and death to birth. Our present life is nothing more than a link of the great chain of transmigratory circuit. The doctrine of karma is meaningless in the absence of a fully developed doctrine of transmigration. The soul passes through births and deaths retaining its chief individual characters of the next life fashioned by the forces of its mental, vocal, and physical activities of the former life. The belief in the doctrine of transmigration or metempsychosis consists of the fact of the passing of the soul from one body into another. The soul after dwelling in one body for a certain length of period leaves it at the time of death and enters into another body in accordance with its own accumulated karmas. It may enter into a human form, an animal form, a vegetable form, a celestial form, or an infernal form. All this is governed by the supreme law of karma. The souls choose their bodies according to the bent of their previous characters. They are bound to enjoy or suffer the natural consequences of their good or evil deeds. For this purpose they have to adopt various forms.
INDIVIDUAL IMMORTALITY
The soul that runs through various stages of birth and death is not to be understood in the shape of a collection of habits and attitudes. It is in the form of an independent entity to which all these habits and attitudes belong. It is a spiritual and immaterial entity which is permanent and eternal in the midst of all changes. We are not in a position to have an experience of its pure and pristine nature. Nevertheless, on the ground of logical necessity we can establish its existence. Man's mundane soul is an aggregate of the qualities of both the material and the spiritual nature. Karmic particles associated with the soul are held to be responsible for the manifestation of material qualities. The soul is absolutely immaterial and spiritual if its nature be considered in a free stage of its existence.
