Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: Albemarle Street London

Page 66

REBIRTH IN
As when one layeth
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His worn-out robes away, And, taking new ones, sayeth, These will I wear to-day!" So putteth by the spirit Lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit A residence afresh.1
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ANIMALS
No Rebirth in Animals
The birth may be in the lowest savage or in a prince of virtue, but it will not be in anything less. The degraded belief in rebirth in animal form can be shown to be another example of a spiritual truth misunderstood.
It is all a coarse symbol caricaturing the inner vital truth of reincarnation [says Mr. Walker, who studied the subject closely], springing from the striking resemblance between men and animals in feature and disposition, in voice and mien.2
Once consciousness attains to human level there is no return. If evil reaches a stage beyond redemption there may be an utter dissolution of that entity; otherwise, though man may become a super-man, he will never be less than man.
Objections to Rebirth
There are various objections put forward to belief in the doctrine of Rebirth, and they are always the same. The first is that we do not remember previous lives. The answer is simple, that the brain is new cach life. Memory is a faculty of the mind, not of the brain which is its temporary instrument, and memory is the power to re-read the indelible records made by every thought and deed in the atmosphere around us. In some way nature preserves in the akasha, the substance of manifestation in its finest form, a record which may be
1 The Song Celestial, Edwin Arnold.
2 Reincarnation.
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