Where are we born after we die? How do we become born again? You are born again in the same way you died. After some time, the astralbody cannot stay on the astral plane anymore, because the seeds of pranic motion have to be expressed on the physical plane again due to one's activity on the astralplane. A new physical birth is entered. Generally, this happens through a newborn child's body, but a more advanced soul who has his spiritual body well developed can pick up a body which is fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old and go right along in life from that point. In what country do you become born? It all depends upon what country you were thinking about before and when you died. If you had a desire to go to Canada, most likely you will be born in Canada next time around. If you had been thinking about going to South America a year or two before you passed away, you would be reincarnated in South America, because that was your destination. If you were very much attached to your own particular family and you did not want to leave them, you would be born back in that immediate family again, because your desire is there. The astral body is the body of desire. Students probing the mysteries of reincarnation often ask, "If reincarnation is true, why can't I remember my past lives?" They might just as well ask another question: "Why do we not remember everything in detail in this life?" The memory capabilities, unless highly trained, are not that strong, especially after having endured the process of creating a new body through another family and establishing new memory patterns. However, there are people who do recall their past lives, in the very same way that they remember what they did yesterday. Former-life memory is that clear and vivid to them. However, it is neither necessary nor advisable to pursue events, identities or relationships that may have existed in previous lives. After all, it is all now. We don't think it important to remember details of our childhood years, to wallow in happy or unhappy nostalgia. Why pursue the remembered residue of what has already come and gone? Now is the only time, and for the spiritual seeker, past life analysis or conjecture is an unnecessary waste of useful time and energy. The present now is the sum of all prior thens. Be now. Be the being of yourself this very moment, and that will be the truest fulfillment of all past actions. The validity of reincarnation and its attendant philosophy are difficult to prove, and yet science is on the threshold of discovering this universal mechanism. Science cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence, the testimony of thousands of level-headed people who claim to remember other lives or who have actually died and then returned to life, and the impressive literature spanning Hindu, Tibetan, Buddhist and Egyptian civilizations. Thus, the pursuit of various theories continues in an effort to bring theory into established law according to the reason and intellectual facilities of man. Those living in the heart chakra, anahata, are able to cognize and know deeply the governing mechanism of rebirth from their own awakening.
Death is the departure of the self, the atma, from the gross material body. The gross body dies, you do not. You are not the body, nor are you the subtle body, the mind. However, in most cases, at the time of death the self leaves the gross body still covered by the subtle material body, the mind. Death is like a person removing his outer garments but having his underclothes. These underclothes are the subtle body, the mind, intelligence and false ego. This subtle body is a materialistic mentality covering the self and bridges the re-incarnations, linking one type of body with the next. Srimad Bhagavatam 4:29:60 “The great sage Narada stated: ‘The living entity acts in a gross body in this life. This body is forced to act by the subtle body composed of mind, intelligence and false ego. After the gross body is lost, the subtle body is still there to enjoy or suffer. Thus, there is no change.” Desires and attachments cultivated during the lifetime of your gross material body do not die when the gross body dies. These desires remain with the self and act as a link with the next gross body. Material desire is the reason a person reincarnates. Material desire is the major reason a person reincarnates rather than returning to the kingdom of God. Material desires remain with the self and act as a link with the next gross body. Srimad Bhagavatam 4:29:76-77 “The caterpillar transports himself from one leaf to another by capturing one leaf before giving up the other. Similarly, according to her previous work, the living entity must capture another body before giving up the one she has. This is because the mind is the reservoir of all kinds of material desires.” The subtle body is the reservoir of desires for sense gratification, and the gross body is the vehicle for carrying out those desires. The tongue is the external manifestation of the desire to taste. The sex organs are the external manifestation of the desire for sex pleasure. And the nose is the external manifestation of the desire to enjoy aromas. The sense organs are the link between sensual desires seated in the subtle body and the objects of sense pleasure. The Supreme witnesses our desires, knows the heart and mind of every individual self, and arranges for the fulfillment of these desires: Sri Isopanishad Mantra 8 “Such a person must know in fact the Greatest of all, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient Philosopher Who is awarding everyone’s desire since time immemorial.”
