Reincarnation: birth is harder than death
We constantly talk about death: how to face it, delay it, understand it. Yet, if we consider reincarnation, or more precisely our successive incarnations, it is birth that is the most difficult ordeal. This article proposes to reverse the question: what if the real challenge were not to die, but to be born, then to be reborn, again and again?
Reincarnation: what is an incarnation?
To be incarnated is to take on a physical form. In several spiritual traditions, human beings do not live only once: they go through a series of incarnations, commonly called reincarnation or the cycle of rebirths. Each body is an opportunity to refine one's knowledge, correct one's mistakes, and experience the divine or cosmic presence for a longer period.
Message Initial prefers to speak of successive incarnations and the cycle of rebirths rather than reincarnation: each birth is a new taking of the body, and not the simple return of the same person.
Incarnation is therefore not a random event without consequences. It is an opportunity, but also a responsibility: What we do in one body prepares us for what we will be in the next.
A biological lottery
At each conception, tens of millions of sperm compete for a single egg. Only one succeeds. Even before having a name, a face, or a will of our own, each of us has already won a competition that almost no one else wins. From this perspective, incarnation is anything but ordinary: it is an achievement.
This biological image also sheds light on the idea of eternity. For most candidates, eternity is limited to the most minute stage of human nature, that of a cell waiting its turn. That is why one can say that We are all eternal, but not all immortal. Immortality, on the other hand, must be won with each new birth.
Willpower alone is not enough to bring about incarnation.
In this initial struggle, no conscious effort is involved. We do not choose to arrive first. Willpower, so precious later, is powerless here: incarnation depends on a set of conditions beyond our control. This is the first lesson in humility of our existence.
Why death is simpler than incarnation
Death is a natural passage. It requires neither competition nor exploit. What makes it gentle or painful is what we have made of our life: our specialty, what we know how to do best, and what we have cultivated within ourselves.
The real challenge, therefore, is not just to fight an illness before dying. It is to be born, then to be reborn, again and again, traversing each life with as much clarity as possible.
Reincarnation in the great traditions
The idea of reincarnation, or successive incarnations, does not belong to a single culture.
- Hinduism: the soul (ātman) passes from body to body in samsāra, the cycle of rebirths, until liberation.
- Buddhism: Rebirth continues as long as ignorance and attachment persist. Liberation from them ends the cycle.
- Ancient Greece: Pythagoras and Plato evoke the passage of the soul from one life to another, which Plato describes in the myth of Er.
Despite their differences, these traditions converge on one point: life in a body is a stage, not an end.
Philosophers and sages on reincarnation: a comparative table
What do the great figures of thought think about reincarnation and successive incarnations? The table below places 59 philosophers and sages according to three positions: convergence (they agree with the idea of reincarnation, 20), divergence (they reject it, 14) or mixed position (they approach it without adopting it, 25).
| Philosopher (era) | Position | Statement | Connection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ptahhotep (Egypt, 5th Dynasty, c. 2400 BCE) | Mixed | Maxims: live by Ma'at, the just order, and cultivate uprightness | Matches the idea of cultivating one's own path; no explicit rebirth |
| Rishis of the Rig Veda (c. 1500-1200 BCE) | Convergence | Hymn to Vāc, the Word; Nasadiya Sukta: the origin remains a mystery | Vāc foreshadows Shabda; the origin as an open question |
| Uddalaka Aruni (9th-8th c. BCE) | Convergence | Chandogya: tat tvam asi; receives the doctrine of the five fires, the first teaching on rebirth | Upanishadic source of the soul passing from body to body |
| Thales of Miletus (624-546 BCE) | Mixed | All things are full of gods; water as the first principle | A sense of the living, but no doctrine of rebirth |
| Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610-c. 546 BCE) | Mixed | Beings arise from the boundless and return to it | A cycle of birth and death without an individual soul |
| Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BCE) | Convergence | Metempsychosis; harmony of the spheres | Rebirth and cosmic vibration, close to Shabda |
| Xenophanes (c. 570-475 BCE) | Divergence | Mocks the transmigration of souls | Challenges the very foundation of incarnations |
| Lao Tzu (6th c. BCE) | Mixed | The Tao is the great sound without noise; life and death go together | Close to vibration, without a doctrine of rebirth |
| The Buddha (c. 5th c. BCE) | Mixed | Birth is suffering; rebirth ends with the end of ignorance | Birth as an ordeal; but liberation is the goal, not specialization |
| Confucius (551-479 BCE) | Divergence | Not knowing life, how can we know death? | Centered on this life; matches self-cultivation but sets incarnations aside |
| Heraclitus (c. 540-480 BCE) | Mixed | Immortals are mortal and mortals immortal | Eternal without being immortal: the play of opposites |
| Parmenides (c. 515-450 BCE) | Divergence | Being is neither generated nor perishable | Being born and dying are appearances |
| Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (c. 500-428 BCE) | Mixed | Nothing is born or dies: everything mixes and separates | Birth as recomposition |
| Socrates (c. 470-399 BCE) | Convergence | Philosophy prepares for death; care of the soul | A gentle death for those who have cultivated their soul |
| Leucippus (5th c. BCE) | Divergence | Atoms and void | No soul that incarnates; birth as assembly |
| Democritus (c. 460-c. 370 BCE) | Divergence | The soul is made of atoms that scatter at death | Sets rebirth aside, shares the serenity before death |
| Plato (428-348 BCE) | Convergence | Recollection; myth of Er: souls pass from one life to another | Cited earlier; in Plato souls choose their lives, which this text does not retain |
| Aristotle (384-322 BCE) | Divergence | The soul is the form of the body | No passage from body to body |
| Epicurus (341-270 BCE) | Mixed | Death is nothing to us | Matches the simple death, but denies any survival |
| Bhagavad Gita (India, c. 2nd c. BCE) | Convergence | The soul changes bodies as one changes clothes; death is certain for whoever is born | Heart of the thesis of successive incarnations |
| Patanjali (2nd c. BCE-4th c. CE) | Convergence | Birth and lifespan follow from karma; fear of death is an affliction | Preparing the incarnation through practice |
| Lucretius (c. 94-c. 55 BCE) | Mixed | The newborn cries like a shipwreck survivor; death mirrors the time before birth | Harsh birth, but no rebirth |
| Seneca (c. 4 BCE-65 CE) | Convergence | The day of death is the birthday of eternity | Birth and death as thresholds |
| Gospel of John (1st-2nd c. CE) | Convergence | Born from above | Spiritual birth as the true birth |
| Epictetus (c. 50-135) | Mixed | Distinguish what depends on us from what does not | Matches the powerless will before the origin |
| Marcus Aurelius (121-180) | Mixed | Death is an act of nature, like birth | Birth and death as natural acts |
| Gnosticism (1st-3rd c. CE) | Divergence | The body is a prison to escape from | Incarnation seen as a fall, not as a chance |
| Nagarjuna (c. 2nd-3rd c. CE) | Mixed | Samsara and nirvana are not different | Relativizes the cycle that this text values |
| Plotinus (205-270) | Convergence | The soul's descent into the body and return to the One | Incarnation as a stage; inner vision |
| Augustine of Hippo (354-430) | Divergence | One life, then judgment | Rejects successive incarnations |
| Bhartrihari (c. 5th c. CE) | Convergence | Shabda-Brahman: the eternal Word is the principle of the world | Founds the notion of Shabda |
| Shankara (8th c. CE) | Mixed | The atman is neither born nor dies; samsara stems from ignorance | Eternity of the Self; rebirth as an appearance to overcome |
| Abhinavagupta (c. 950-1016) | Convergence | Spanda, the vibration; the light of consciousness | Vibration and light, close to Shabda and Téjas |
| Rāmānuja (c. 1017-1137) | Convergence | Individual souls transmigrate until grace | Successive incarnations that prepare liberation |
| Averroes (1126-1198) | Divergence | Unity of the intellect; no individual immortality | Denies the survival of each person |
| Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) | Divergence | Each soul is created at conception, one life only | Rejects rebirth |
| Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1328) | Mixed | The birth of God in the soul | Inner birth rather than bodily birth |
| Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) | Mixed | To philosophize is to learn to die | Preparing for death through life |
| Isaac Luria (1534-1572) | Convergence | Gilgul: souls reincarnate in order to repair themselves | Correction of the errors of one life in the next |
| Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) | Convergence | Metempsychosis in an infinite universe | The traveling soul |
| Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) | Mixed | We feel that we are eternal; eternity is not duration | Heart of the eternal/immortal distinction, without rebirth |
| Leibniz (1646-1716) | Mixed | Monads are neither born nor perish naturally; transformation | Continuity without reincarnation |
| David Hume (1711-1776) | Mixed | Metempsychosis is the only system of immortality worth considering | More acceptable than the others, but barely demonstrated |
| Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) | Convergence | Palingenesis: birth and death are phenomena of an underlying reality that remains | Rebirth without the transmigration of a soul |
| Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836-1886) | Convergence | Nada-Brahman, the sound of the Absolute; rebirths until realization | Vibration and incarnations |
| Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) | Mixed | Eternal return | Returning endlessly, but without specialization or liberation |
| Henri Bergson (1859-1941) | Mixed | Consciousness exceeds the brain | Opens onto a survival, without a doctrine of rebirth |
| Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) | Convergence | Rebirth of the soul; OM as the first sound | Incarnations and Shabda |
| Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) | Convergence | The psychic being evolves from life to life | Incarnations as the evolution of consciousness |
| Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) | Mixed | Rebirth as a psychic theme; individuation | Cultivating one's singularity |
| Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) | Mixed | Who is born? Birth and death concern the ego, not the Self | Eternity of the Self; incarnation is a matter of the mind |
| Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) | Mixed | Evolution of consciousness toward an omega point | Spiritual progress without reincarnation |
| Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) | Divergence | Being-toward-death | Centered on death, not on birth |
| Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) | Convergence | Reincarnation; Aum, the cosmic vibration; the spiritual eye | Matches Shabda and Téjas, with a practice of listening and light |
| Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) | Mixed | Dying every moment; critique of the self that continues | Goes beyond the idea of a self that is reborn |
| Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) | Divergence | It is absurd that we were born, absurd that we die | Harsh birth, but without meaning |
| Derek Parfit (1942-2017) | Mixed | Personal identity is not what matters | Questions who is reborn |
| Daniel Dennett (1942-2024) | Divergence | The self is a story produced by the brain | No soul that incarnates |
| André Comte-Sponville (b. 1952) | Divergence | Live the eternity of the present; accept death | Eternal without being immortal, but without rebirth |
Specializing to better navigate our incarnations
If incarnation is the ordeal and death the passage, then the meaning of life is to cultivate what makes us unique. Each person has a talent, a path, a unique way of acting. Focusing on this specialty prepares us for the moment of death and, in the cycle of rebirths, the next incarnation.
It's not about performance. It's about recognizing what you do best and committing to it consistently, rather than spreading yourself too thin across a thousand tasks.
Two methods to remember: Shabda and Téjas
- Shabda: the cosmic vibration, the sound of the universe. It is perceived through inner listening.
- Téjas: the oscillation of light, the light that vibrates. It is perceived through the inner gaze.
These two paths, listening and seeing, are at the heart of the contemplation offered by ACAV. They can be practiced from today onwards, without equipment, in silence and with attention.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have to believe in reincarnation to practice?
No. Inner listening and observation can be practiced regardless of belief. You can try them, observe what happens, and then judge.
Is reincarnation the same thing as successive incarnations?
Both words refer to the idea that human beings go through several lives. "Reincarnation" is the most common term; "successive incarnations" and "cycle of rebirths" emphasize that each life is a new opportunity to progress.
Is dying really easier than being born?
From this perspective, yes: birth requires passing through a selection process that death does not impose. Death primarily demands being ready, and preparation comes from what one cultivates during life.
What does "to specialize" mean?
It's about identifying what we do best and dedicating ourselves to it, so that each day contributes to the same direction.
In summary
Incarnation is the real struggle: millions of candidates for a single place. Death, by comparison, is easy. So specialize in births: cultivate what you do best and practice Shabda and Téjas to more smoothly navigate your successive incarnations, what is commonly called reincarnation.
To explore these questions further, Go to Message Initial.