Reincarnation: The Cyclic Revolutionary Trend of Life Manifestations - Onyeji Nnaji

Copied from the book Cosmic Chain by Onyeji 

Nnaji.

One extempore remark popular among Africans addressing magnitude of an offence and the magnitude of recompense proposed to the offender often draws attention to life after life. We often say, "... You will never try it in your next world," showing the extent we are offended. This expression stands tall to vividly reveal how lucid our knowledge of life in the afterlife is in our memories. By expressing this in extempore, one speaks unequivocally about how far this philosophical view has been absorbed by his system. The reason for this spontaneous act is that, in Africa, especially among the Igbo race; the knowledge of reincarnation is highly instinctive. It doesn't matter how steadily we repudiate our views for it because of our marriage to the western religion and it's Carrier culture. This mystery is called reincarnation.

Reincarnation is the term used to explain situations where a dead person chicken chooses to return to the earth and is be born a second time. As a branch of incarnations, reincarnation only occurs after death. Unlike life incarnations that are concerned with the splitting of souls within lifetime to create another body that would coexist, reincarnation does not occur while the donor soul still lives in the original body. The body must return to the earth first before the whole process commences. 

Many people reincarnate and return to their original families. This situation is prominent among children. There are instances where children die and return to their original parents during reincarnation. Many children do this momentarily, while others do it repeatedly. In such repeated cases, what parents do to curb the traffic is to give the deceased child a mark at any visible body part. Once this is done during burial, as the child returns in the next generation, he will carry the mark at the very part of the body where he was inflicted. This later time the child will not die as usual again. In our different societies, there are people with these distinct marks on their body parts. They got them via this transgendrational process.

I used to have a classmate, during my primary school days, who was born with this kind of pre-birth mark on his right ear. We made fun of him; we called him names because of his split ear. His name was Chukwuemeka. So we called him, "Chukwuemeka Eberenti". He never felt better about this; but he had no option. We cajole him and blamed him for the split ear. We believed that he gave the parents taugh time and that had led to his split ear. Some parents do not ear-mark the deceased Person at death. What they do is to open the child's one ear. This is done mostly to male children found in such transit process. When this is done, the child would survive. People in this light are given such names as Ozoemsna, Umezuruike, Afamefuna, Ikemefuna, Mbaechu etc. among the Igbo where this philosophical view prevails dominantly. Repeated reincarnation is sometimes misinterpreted as "Ognanje" because it hardly transcend one family.

Reincarnation among adults does not happen repeatedly. It occurs onece within one family. As a mature process, reincarnation among adults appears to be instinctively controlled. There are situations where some adults specifically mention the family they are expecting to be reborn in their second coming . Announcing this before hand is a clear indication that they are aware of their dead time and have good knowledge of their place in the afterworld. The prior information also helps to prepare the mind of the next generation parents ahead of the children's arrival. In many of the cases, the announced family is usually members of the deceased person's family; sometimes within and sometimes in extension. The return soul may even return to any of the friend. The Igbo used to see this return as one great reward to the receiving family following the care given to the deceased during his lifetime. Many adults see their return as a way of rewarding their receiving parents. This is majorly the difference; adults have prior knowledge of the family they were returning to, while children do not.

Apart from adult souls having the permission to choice about where to return to during reincarnation, they also have the permission to decide Whether to return as one body or not. There are situations where the adult soul returns as two different individuals. In most cases it occurs within people of the same age limit. What I do not know, perhaps because I have not seen any of such situations, is where a departed soul returns in more than two individuals, their genders notwithstanding. All I have witnessed has been maximally two. And from my knowledge of their age, they are usually of the same age rating. One notable feature of such paired souls is their pugnacious zest against each other's opinion. There is always the desire to oppose the opinion of one by the other thereby making it difficult for the both to come to term. In the same way, they also struggle for superiority in both strength, words and other areas of life, including wealth and riches. These are very remarkable about their characters.

THE PUZZLE IN MINDS ABOUT REINCARNATION:

Mysteries bothering on life are in every culture complicated. The reason for their complications is that they are interwoven. The attempt to explain one concept is usually difficult individually without drawing references from another concept. For instance, to fully digest matters about reincarnation, one would need to also have a good understanding of "Living Within Lives" and "Ogbnanje" because, at some points, their interpretations are realized as one same whole. Sometimes too, the learner would need to have a better understanding of "Soul Mutation". All these contribute to the reason  why people find it relatively difficult to particularly analyze reincarnation as a metaphysical process.

One of the questions people ask is on how the returning soul manages to acquire flesh. This same puzzle also includes how mutant souls manage to acquire Flesh. That of mutant souls is simpler, one would say. It is necessary to note here that mutant souls do not pass through reincarnation. That is why they could easily disappear and reappear at will. Their bodies are improvised; they are the copy of their original body. They wear it as a shadow. Being a shadow of their original body, they have the capacity to vanish at a slight instance, just like smoke. It is not the same with reincarnation, the latter process involves a complete body in all the forms.

Now, before any soul reincarnates, it passes through three distinct processes in the afterlife. After death, the first process for the soul qualified for reincarnation is "Purgation". Purgation is naturally a renewing stage for the soul. After renewal, the soul proceeds for bathing. When bathing is over, the soul is recreated. These three processes help souls to gather memories of the afterlife. After this, the new baby reincarnated is born. We know that a particular person is an incarnate through his "memory of the Second Coming". This memory is Determined accurately via three factors. These factors are illustrated with instances in the book mentioned earlier. There are factors that fault reincarnation. Details of all the process, including the three processes in the afterlife are contained in the book.