Reincarnation

From the Jacket

In these discourses the Swami Abhedananda considers the questions of evolution and resurrection in their bearing upon the ancient teaching of rebirth. Its truth, logic and justice, which are rebirth, its truth, logic and justice, which are rapidly permeating the best thoughts of the Western world. For the preservation of this doctrine mankind is indebted to the literary this doctrine mankind is indebted to the literary storehouses of India, the racial and geographical source of much of the vital knowledge of Occidental peoples. Reincarnation is shown in the present volume to be a universal solvent of life's mysteries. It answers those questions of children that have staggered the wisest minds who seek to reconcile the law of evolution and the existence of an intelligent and just Creator, with the proposition that man has but a single lifetime in which to develop spiritual self-consciousness. It is commended to every thinker.

Swami Abhedananda, an apostle of Sri Ramakrishna-Born October 2, 1866-Spent his early life among the brotherhood in Baranagar monastery near Calcutta, in severe austerity-Traveled barefooted all over India from 1888-1895-Went to London in 1896 at the call of his senior spiritual brother, Swami Vivekananda-Acquainted with many distinguished savants including Prof. Max Muller and Prof. Paul Deussen-Landed in New York, and took the charge of the Vedanta Society in 1897-Became acquainted with Prof. William James, Rev. R. H. Newton, Prof. W. Jackson, Prof. Josiah Royce of Harvard, Prof. Hyslop of Columbia, Prof. Lanman, Prof. G. H. Howison, Prof. Fay, Mr. Edison, the inventor, Dr. Elmer Gates, Ralph Waldo Trine, W. D. Howells, Prof. Herschel C. Parker, Dr. Logan, Rev. Bishop Potter, Prof. Shaler, Dr. Janes, the Chairman of the Cambridge Philosophical conference, and the Professors of Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Berkeley and Clarke Universities-Travelled extensively all through the United States, Canada, Alaska and Mexico-Made frequent trips to Europe, delivering lectures in different parts of the Continent-Crossed the Atlantic seventeen time-Was appreciated very much for his profundity of scholarship, intellectual brilliance, oratorical talents, charming personality and nobility of character-A short visit to India in 1906-Returned again to America in 1906-Came back to India finally in 1921-On his way home joined the Pan-Pacific Educational Conference, Honolulu-Visited Japan, China, the Phillipines, Singapore, Kualalumpur and Rangoon-Started on a long tour and went as far as Tibet in 1922-Established centers at Calcutta and Darjeeling-Left his mortal frame on September 8, 1939.

Publisher's Note

We have great pleasure in thanking the readers all over the world on the issue of the new edition of the book Reincarnation by Swami Abhedananda. There is no doubt that a wider circle of readers will be delighted to go through the book and appreciate the master-mind whose invincible logic clears the mist created by the materialists and all other religionists advocating a single-birth theory as also those having a hazy idea of reincarnation. The listeners to whom the lectures embodied in the book were delivered in America, included professors of universities and other notables who were confirmed believers of one birth theory advocated by the Christians. Still they were convinced that various stages of evolution of Prana as we find in the world cannot be explained without having recourse to the theory of reincarnation; and the impartiality of God, to whom all are equal, cannot be established without acceptance of this grand truth of evolution through different incarnations.