The knowledge of rebirth is the turning point in the history of mankind.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

The principles of reincarnation, karma and moksha are fundamental to Hinduism. 

The soul that resides in the body of the human is indivisible, indestructible and eternal.  In human form the body acts as a carrier to the soul.  When a person dies the soul enters a new body.

God determines the quality of one’s next life based upon the karma undertaken in one’s previous life.  The soul yields the benefits and suffers the pain of the actions undertaken in one’s past life.  The soul is indestructible and continues the everlasting cycle of birth and death, which is associated with extreme pain.

The ultimate goal of the soul is to gain moksha and to reach the abode of Almighty God Supreme.  This can only be achieved through devotion to God, pure karma and spiritual knowledge of the soul and God.

The concept of reincarnation has been present in virtually every culture since ancient times. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Aztecs all believed in the "transmigration of souls" from one body to another after death. It's a fundamental precept of Hinduism. Although reincarnation is not a part of official Christian doctrine, many Christians believe in it or at least accept its possibility.

The fact that reincarnation is part of Jewish tradition comes as a surprise to many people.  Nevertheless, it's mentioned in numerous places throughout the classical texts of Jewish mysticism, starting with the preeminent sourcebook of Kabbalah, the Zohar. 

Is there any proof for reincarnation ?

1. Precocious children who have abilities far greater than their age are a medical mystery. How does a child of five solve complex calculus problems that graduate level students struggle with? Because he has cultivated maths skills in his previous life.

For example, on May 20, 2012, Times of India reported, Bihar farmer’s 12-year-old son cracks IIT-JEE. His name is Satyam Kumar and he is from Bakhorapur village of Bihar.

2. Many people with mental problems - especially phobias - that are incurable by normal psychotherapy have been cured by Dr Brian Weiss of the Sinai Medical Research Center, USA. He traces, through hypnotically-induced past life regression, that these phobias originate in a traumatic previous-life death caused by the very object toward which one has phobia in this life. For example, he found that several patients having hydrophobia had died due to drowning in a previous life. When the patients realize that the traumatic event is already over, then their phobia disappears or at least decreases dramatically. Those who don't consider reincarnation real have no explanation for the real healing that has taken place.

3. Numerous cases of past-life memories are documented by rigorous researchers like Dr Ian Stevenson in his books, especially “Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect”. The quality of his research was acknowledged in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, which stated that he had "painstakingly and unemotionally collected a detailed series of cases in which the evidence for reincarnation is difficult to understand on any other grounds..He has placed on record a large amount of data that cannot be ignored."

The Case of Kumkum Verma

Kumkum Verma was a girl in India who described a life in the city of Darbhanga 40 km from her village (Stevenson, 1975). Her aunt made notes of her statements 6 months before anyone attempted to identify the previous personality, and Stevenson was able to obtain extracts of her notebook that contained 18 of them. They document details that all matched the life of a woman who died 5 years before Kumkum was born, including the name of Urdu Bazar, the section of Darbhanga where she lived; her son’s name and the fact that he worked with a hammer; her grandson’s name; the name of the town where her father lived and the fact that his home was near mango orchards and reaching it involved crossing water; the presence of a pond at her house; and the fact that she had an iron safe at her house, a sword hanging near her cot, and a snake near the safe that she fed milk to. A man from Urdu Bazar who worked for a friend of Kumkum’s father was eventually able to identify the previous personality. The previous family belonged to a relatively low artisan class while Kumkum’s father was a landowner, homeopathic physician, and author, so even though he went to Urdu Bazar once to meet the previous personality’s family, he never allowed Kumkum to go.

The Case of Jagdish Chandra

The case of Jagdish Chandra in India was quite old when Stevenson (1975) investigated it—in fact, the subject was then in his late 30s—but the subject’s father, a prominent lawyer, had made a written record of the boy’s statements and their verifications at the time that the case developed. Jagdish was born in Bareilly, a large city in northern India, and when he was 3½ years old, he began saying that he had lived in Benares, a city approximately 500 km away. His father sent a letter to a newspaper asking for help in verifying the child’s statements. In the letter, he said that Jagdish stated that his father was named Babuji Pandey and had a house in Benares with a big gate, a sitting room, and an underground room with an iron safe fixed in one of the walls. He said Jagdish described a courtyard where Babuji sat in the evenings and where people gathered to drink bhang, an Indian drink. He said Babuji received massages and put powder or clay on his face after washing it. He described two cars and a horse-drawn carriage and said Babuji had two deceased sons and a deceased wife. The day after this was published, Jagdish’s father went to a magistrate to have Jagdish’s statements officially recorded before they traveled to Benares. The recorded statements, in addition to those listed in the paper, included the fact that his name had been Jai Gopal and that his brother, who was bigger than he was, had been named Jai Mangal and had died of poisoning. He said the Ganges River was near the house, and the Dash Ashwamadh Ghat was there. (Ghats are piers where people go to bathe, and Babu Pandey was the supervisor of one.) He also said a prostitute named Bhagwati had sung for Babu. Jagdish was then taken to Benares, where all of the above statements about the previous personality were verified (except that Babu Pandey had used automobiles but not actually owned them) and where he appeared to recognize people and places.

Conclusion

“No wonder”, prominent author Collin Watson says , "The sheer volume of evidence for reincarnation is so immense, that to ignore it is like standing at the foot of Mt. Everest and insisting that you cannot see the mountain."

References

Brody, E. B. (1979). Review of Cases of the Reincarnation Type. Vol. II. Ten Cases in Sri Lanka by Ian Stevenson. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 167, 769–774.

Haraldsson, E. (1991). Children claiming past-life memories: Four cases in Sri Lanka. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 5, 233–261.

Mills, A., Haraldsson, E., & Keil, H. H. J. (1994). Replication studies of cases suggestive of reincarnation by three independent investigators. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 88, 207–219.

Mills, A., & Lynn, S. J. (2000). Past-life experiences. In Carden˜a, E., Lynn, S. J., & Krippner, S. (Eds.), Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence (pp. 283–313). American Psychological Association.

Schouten, S. A., & Stevenson, I. (1998). Does the socio-psychological hypothesis explain cases of the reincarnation type? Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 186, 504–506.

Stevenson, I. (1960). The evidence for survival from claimed memories of former incarnations.

Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 54, 51–71& 95–117.

Stevenson, I. (1974). Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (2nd rev. ed.). University Press of Virginia.

Stevenson, I. (1975). Cases of the Reincarnation Type. Vol. I: Ten Cases in India. University Press of Virginia.

Stevenson, I. (1977). Cases of the Reincarnation Type. Vol. II: Ten Cases in Sri Lanka. University Press of Virginia.

Stevenson, I. (2001). Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation (rev. ed.). McFarland & Company.

Stevenson, I., & Samararatne, G. (1988). Three new cases of the reincarnation type in Sri Lanka with written records made before verification. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2, 217–238.