Reincarnation means "the rebirth of a soul in a new body". The human soul is eternal and cannot die. Therefore when the physical body ceases to exist, the human soul must go somewhere. The soul goes to a spiritual plane of existence where the personality and consciousness of the person still exists. The soul stays in this spiritual place for a certain amount of time (which is different for everyone, but can last anywhere from as little as a few months, to several hundred years) and then reincarnates into another physical body to continue learning the lessons it needs to learn.

When we die, (meaning when our physical bodies die), that means we have finished the work we had to do in this lifetime. Our work will be continued on the spiritual plane and again in our next incarnation into a physical body.

We come back to continue the work of perfecting our souls to be reunited with God as One. We do not return as animals or plants or anything but human beings. We are on a journey upwards in consciousness and returning as an animal or anything else non-human would be a step downwards in consciousness. There would be no point in this. Animals, by the way, reincarnate too! As animals, that is.

Reincarnation doesn't mean we are being punished in any way. God does not punish us. We punish ourselves by our own actions. God has set up Universal Laws which we are all subject to and one of them states that whatever you send out into the Universe will be returned to you. Hate returns hate, love returns love, etc.

Reincarnation is our way of learning the things we need to learn. There are some things which can only be learned on the physical plane.

When so called bad things happen to us, this isn't punishment. This is a learning experience. Experience is the best teacher, you know! When we have learned what the bad experience has to teach us, we move on to the next lesson. Some people are very stubborn and have a hard time learning from a situation, so the Universe/God sends an even harsher lesson for us to learn. Sort of like, tapping us on the head with a stick at first, then when we fail to get the message, a brick falls on us! If that doesn't work, then a whole wall falls on us and so on. Well, you get the message.

Some people come to earth in order to teach others or to be an inspiration to others. Sometimes this is what is happening when children become ill and die at an early age. They have a lesson to teach us about love, forgiveness, acceptance, etc. They give us their message and then they go back home to God. We were all spirits in the beginning, you know. Until some of us decided that being in a physical body would be really great. Then we became stuck in the physical and the only way to leave and go back home was to die. So you see, dying is not a bad thing for the person dying. They are finally getting to go back home. It's the people left behind who hurt.

There are many other reasons for reincarnating. Some people reincarnate as the handicapped (or those who will become handicapped) in order to speed up their spiritual development. How better to learn patience than by having to do things slower and more carefully than others? This can also be a learning experience in accepting the limitations of others and appreciating a healthy body.

The people you have strong feelings for, positive or negative, are people you have known in a past life. Everyone carries over strong emotions into the next lifetime, and we all tend to travel in groups. By this I mean that you have known all the people you have strong feelings for in a past life and will know these people in a future one. This would explain the reason you have strong feelings about someone you had just met, whether positive or negative. You knew them in a past life and either liked or disliked them then.

Reincarnation is also one reason why some people have a strong fear of something like water, that can't be traced to something that happened in this lifetime. Many times a person who has a strong fear of water has drowned in a past lifetime and carried over the fear of water into this one.

We all have memories of our past life or lives, we just call it something else, like a dream or imagination or wishful thinking. The reason we don't recall all of our past lives if because it would interfere with the life we are living now and we wouldn't be able to complete the work we came here to do this time. But, I can assure you, everyone has had some memories of a past life at one time or another. Usually these remembrances surface to help us in our present lifetime. Pay close attention to your dreams and imagination. They may not be simply a dream or just your imagination!

Some people think reincarnation goes against the Bible. It doesn't. Jesus spoke of reincarnation in Matthew 17:12 when He said "Elias is come already and they knew him not". Then the disciples understood that he spoke of John the Baptist.

There is another reference to reincarnation in the Bible in John 9:2 when it was asked of him, "Who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind?" And Jesus answered and said, "neither...but that the works of God should be manifest in him". Now this question makes no sense whatsoever unless reincarnation is understood to be a fact of life, for how can a baby sin before it is born unless the soul had lived before?

Reincarnation was a fact of life for the early Christians until the Roman influence expunged if after the Emperor Constantine recognized the church. The church leaders thought no one would follow their rules and regulations if they believed in reincarnation. they thought people would choose to go against their teachings thinking that they could make up for it in a later lifetime. Having people not believe in reincarnation was a way to ensure that people would look only to the church leaders for what God wanted them to do and thereby they would have full control over the people, their lives, and their resources.

Dr. Ian Stevensen investigated many claims of reincarnation throughout his career. He did many studies of children who remembered their past lives and often would take their parents back to another house where they claimed they lived in a past life. These children would recognize people they had no way of knowing in their present life as someone they had known in a previous lifetime. They would point out where a favorite chair used to be or where they hid money right before they died. This would be investigated and found to be true.

Children are more likely to remember past lives than are adults because children have not had the conditioning done to them that says that things like past lives do not exist. The are freer to believe in such things. If only adults would listen to their children when they express knowledge of a past life and not ridicule them when they try to tell of their remembrances!

People do not always reincarnate in the same gender. Females do not always come back as females and likewise males are not always males. This could be one reason, if not the only one for homosexuality. A female who reincarnates as a male in this lifetime night tend to carry over female attributes and appear more feminine even though she reincarnated this time in a male body.

People tend to reincarnate in groups, also. Anyone that you have a strong emotional bond with, either positive or negative, you have been with in at least one past life and probably more than one.

Also, we do not always come back in the same relationship. For instance, a father and daughter who reincarnate into this lifetime might not be father and daughter. The daughter might now become the father and the father might become the daughter. Or they may not even be related this time around. They may be really close friends, or neighbors. As long as there is a strong emotional bond, whether love, friendship or hatred, you have known that person before.

If your relationship is loving, it is comforting to know that you will be with this person again. However, if your relationship is a negative one, you really need to turn this around into a positive one or at least a neutral one or you will continue to be with this person time after time.

Our most important relationships are the ones which are the most loving and the most frustrating. The ones we love, we choose to be with because we enjoy being with them. The ones which we do not love, or really dislike, or hate, we are together in order to work out this relationship. As long as there is hatred, there is a lesson to be learn, a relationship to be worked on and a healing which must take place in order for you to grow in consciousness. A perfect soul carries no hatred in it. We are all on a journey to perfect our souls. This is why we are here on planet earth, in the physical plane.

Racism makes no sense whatsoever if you believe in reincarnation (or any time for that matter),because no one always comes back as the same race. We have all been many different colors before and will be again. This is because the more different races and nationalities you are, the more varied are your experiences and the greater your opportunity for learning.

There are many things in this world which would make a lot more sense if people kept an open mind. An open mind always lets in more light than a closed one!