Hinduism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hinduism - Essay Example However, this is depended on the moral quality of the actions in the previous life. According to the reincarnation beliefs, people take one form of life before taking a different form in another life (Somer and CarmitOr-Chen 460). As such, life does not stop at any particular time; rather, life is a process that keeps on evolving continuously. According to their beliefs, argues Burch (76), when one dies as a human being, he could take the form of an animal, which when dies may take the form of an insect. After the insect dies, it may assume the form of a carrot and later a human being again. There is thus no particular time when the life of one particular generation would ever end, concludes Davidson (123). Unlike other religions such as Islam and Christianity, which believe in the end of life after the death of a person, Hinduism holds different views. However, a person does not emerge in the next life as the previous life; he or she assumes this form as a spirit, and as such, point out Hui and Peter (453), people have hope that they will not entirely vanish from the world. Thus, a man who dies before the birth of his daughter could re-emerge in the daughter buy his spirit entering in the daughter. The belief tries to explain the similarities in people’s characteristics, behaviorisms, and mannerisms. Living people could possess characteristics of a long dead person, and thus, Hindus belief that the spirit of the long dead person reincarnated in the new person. Some Hindu cultures, due to the reincarnation belief, do not eat particular kinds of animals or plant’s (Waterhouse 97). To them, these are spiritual, and are the very kinds that people assume through their reincarnation process. Thus, eating such plants and animals would be killing a person. However, even if I were to believe in re incarnation, I would not agree with the argument that some of the animals having a higher likelihood of people reincarnating through them than others. I would a rgue that all animals and plants, just as if they have equal opportunities of life, have equal opportunities of taking part in the reincarnation process. After all, they all will die at some point, and are too have to reincarnate to one particular form. Although the belief has widely spread in other religions and cultural practices, initially, reincarnation was an eastern religions belief, especially within the Hinduism religion (McClelland 15). However, currently, philosophies such as dianetics and channeling appear to embrace the concepts of reincarnation. In the past, the eastern religions did not consider reincarnation as a good thing; instead, to them it was a bad thing. The ancient belief, assuming the state of nirvana in essence, to them was an escape from the wheel of rebirth. Further, the beliefs held that while reincarnating, when the metaphysical devotion of a soul enters the body of a person was an impure rite of passage. Although conceptually closely related to reincarn ation (Almeder 81), I think the new age religions belief in being born again is a mirror concept to reincarnation. To these religion though, being born again is a good thing rather than a bad thing. Being born again, having a perverse goal differentiates it from the original meaning of reincarnation. Being born again prepares a person to what exactly one