Breaking The Cycle Of Reincarnation.

Astute practitioners of yoga (and Hinduism, for that matter—since they both come from the same tree) know that the primary objective is to escape the endless cycle of death and rebirth (Reincarnation) and achieve Moksha (Liberation).

Taken more allegorically, this can be better understood as escaping the endless cycle of death and rebirth in relation to one’s own suffering, or (more accurately) trauma.

[*Just to quickly dispel any notion of Reincarnation in the more supernatural, esoteric sense—sure, your body does eventually disintegrate and your energy does transfer from one medium to the next; however, in terms of remembering your past lives, that’s a hard argument given that memories are stored in the brain’s synapses and you would essentially need to take your current brain with you into your next life in order remember your past life. Obviously impossible if you reincarnate into a chair or even a new being with a brain like a bug, a bird, or even a human being with its own new set of synapses. Thus, the argument for Reincarnation from a more supernatural and esoteric standpoint barely holds water. As such, I’ll recommence talking about Reincarnation in the more allegorical sense.]

When we fail to unveil the root of our trauma, which brings life to suffering, we are unable to work past that one sticking-point experience and elevate ourselves onto a new plane where we are better able to liberate ourselves from said trauma. Essentially, without knowing why we are in pain, how can we begin to heal? More so, without adequate information, how can we effectively proceed forward? This is where the deeper work of Moksha (liberating oneself from Reincarnation, ie. the re-creation of said trauma which brings about suffering) begins.

Expanding this concept out further; imagine you have a child, but you were unsuccessful in liberating yourself from your own trauma in your life. Chances are, your trauma will reincarnate into your child; essentially, passing down these learned-experiences through mirrored behaviour in your offspring, resulting in the cycle continuing once more. What’s worse is the child will also be unable to pinpoint the origin of their own maladaptive behaviour, resulting in an adverse and undesirable response.

Let’s take a look at an example:
Imagine in your historical lineage, your grandparents were slighted by another race. From that one experience, they taught your parents that the race that slighted them is bad, untrustworthy, and undesirable. Now you are born and as you grow up your parents teach you the same lessons about said race and you (not knowing exactly why) find that race bad, untrustworthy, and undesirable, simply because you learned it. And so, it is now your work to learn about the origins of your beliefs and rectify them or else pass them on to future generations.

This inter-generational knowledge transfer (often called inter-generational trauma when speaking about trauma specifically) can influence both desirable and undesirable behaviours. Interestingly enough, this is actually an innate human survival tactic and serves as the foundation for many overarching paradigms, including the idea of culture. Why are Easterners more collectivist and Westerners more individualistic in nature? Inter-generational knowledge transfer influencing a group’s programming.

In addition, this inter-generational knowledge transfer can go so far as to even affect one’s own occupational choice. How many times have you heard people say “they’re following in the footsteps of their father,” or “their mother,” referring to a similar occupation and status. As we grow up, we all have dreams, but eventually those dreams either flourish or fade away and we can sometimes run back to our generational lineage, resulting in another medium of Reincarnation and potential trauma-induced suffering.

If you’ve always wanted to be a lawyer, but you come from a long line of doctors and you forgo your dream of becoming a lawyer in favour of becoming a doctor simply because of familial pressures, then you have essentially reincarnated into your parents.

Again, viewing the concept of Reincarnation allegorically, we can now begin to see evidence of Reincarnation in our current lives from a vast majority of mediums and this knowledge now affords us a new lens from which to learn about ourselves in order to take away essential information and move forward with more agency in our lives.

When we can pinpoint the origin of any problem, we can begin to take ownership over working towards fixing it. The problem is, it takes a lot of discipline and effort to actually begin to make a change and, more often than not, we just live our lives on autopilot (or simply unaware, ie. ignorant); kicking the can down the road far enough in hopes that someone else down the line will fix the problem for us.

So, now it’s time to ask yourself: do I want to be the one in my lineage to put an end to this trauma, or do I want to sit in my own hurt feelings in hopes that someone else will figure it out for me? The choice is up to you.

-be the change.