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I An Stevenson MD, a Canadian-American psychiatrist, died at
the age of 88 earlier this year. During his lifetime he occupied several
prestigious chairs such as director of the Division of Personality Studies and
head of the department of psychiatry at the University of Virginia,. But his
death gains more in significance because Professor Stevenson's research
interests included children who claimed to remember previous lives and survival
of the human personality after death. His book. Twenty Cases Suggestive of
Reincarnation written in1966, though not accepted by main-stream scientists, is
still considered a pretty rigorous and documented account of the phenomenon.
Thus the question naturally arises: where is the professor now ? Or to put it
another way, has he finally found the proof he was looking for ? The reason is
because, Stevenson always maintained that the one fundamental flaw in his
argument for reincarnation was the absence of any evidence of a physical process
by which a personality could survive death and journey to another body. Another,
and even more profound concern of his was, having travelled extensively in India
and imbibed its myths and culture, he wanted to know that if there was no such
thing as self - meaning if the self was only illusory as the Upanishads held -
then what was it which got reborn ?
Steeped in the very science which chose to sidestep his work, Stevenson was
probably unable to rise out of its thrall. For had he been able to, he might
have found answers that would have been more acceptable - at least to himself,
if not his peers. He may, for instance, have come to conclude that by dint of
the self being illusory, it obviously could not have a nuts and bolts physical
mechanism governing it. He may also have recognised that an illusion is
perfectly capable of repeating itself and, indeed, repeating itself several
times till it realised it was nothing but an illusion and stopped. That, after
all, is at the basis of the Hindu philosophy behind reincarnation.
Instead, the professor has gone to his grave now
clutching a materialistic objection tight to his heart till the end of his life.
According to many sources of spiritual wisdom this makes him exactly like the
rest of us who die "ignorant" and are then reborn, though not necessarily to
repeat our mistakes. In fact, it's a chance to rectify them. here's hoping the
good doctor will be able to do so the next time around - if, of course, there is
one for him. |
