Rebirth: A Reality
"This house is not mine. My home is in Mathura, where my husband owns a garment shop. He is one of the richest persons of the city." When the four-year-old Shanti Devi began saying things like this to her mother, she thought that her daughter had learnt something from her friends while playing. Shanti Devi was born on December 11, 1926, at Delhi. Since childhood, she liked solitude. This was the first occasion when she spoke so much to her mother.
Some days later, this incident occurred again, but in a different way. Shanti Devi refused to consume the non-vegetarian food cooked at her home saying: "I am a vegetarian and only vegetarian food is cooked at my home at Mathura." After this incident, her parents began preferring vegetarian food. However, they realized that their daughter had something unusual.
Finding no solution to their problem, eventually they took the matter to the principal of the school where Shanti Devi was studying. By this time, Shanti Devi had already completed eight years of her life and her revelations had begun becoming the subject of discussion in her neighborhood. The principal, upon investigation, found that she had told her fellow students: "I am already married and a married woman does not converse with others unnecessarily."
This made the principal curious. Making her comfortable, he asked her about her Mathura connection. She told him that her husband's name was Pandit Kedarnath Choubey and he belonged to a prosperous Brahman family of Mathura. The inquisitive principal wrote a letter addressed to Pt. Choubey. After some weeks, he received a reply from Pt. Choubey, who confirmed all the details mentioned. He expressed intense desire to meet Shanti Devi so that he could establish the authenticity of the case. He sent the letter with his cousin to analyze the matter. When Shanti Devi met him, she not only recognized him, but even addressed him with his nickname.
Now it was the turn of Pt. Choubey's brother to get excited. He called his brother to Delhi immediately. By then, Pt. Choubey had married again. He arrived at Delhi with his second wife and the son of his first wife, Lugdi Devi — which Shanti Devi described as hers in the previous birth. Pt. Choubey decided to introduce himself as his elder brother. However, when Shanti Devi came, she recognized him, touched his feet, lowered her head and receded to a corner of the room timidly. Then, she embraced the ten-year-old boy who accompanied them and cried with delight. She rushed to her room, brought all her toys, gave them to Navneet and said: "Your mother is giving you these toys, take all of them." She slowly asked Pt. Choubey: "You promised me that you won't marry again after my death, then why did you break your promise?" Choubey was startled, as this was a secret between him and his wife, Lugdi Devi.
This news spread swiftly to the whole nation. When the newspaper daily 'Indian Express' published the story, the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi himself went to Delhi to meet Shanti Devi. He even constituted a high-level committee to investigate the matter. On his instructions, a fifteen-member committee arrived at Mathura on November 24, 1934. The committee was astonished when she recognized and greeted the elder brother of Pt. Choubey, who was standing amidst the huge crowd. On reaching her home, she expressed her surprise and said that the color of the house had changed. The relatives of Lugdi Devi confirmed the fact and revealed that the house was painted in a new color after her death. Not only she described correctly every big and small thing of her house, but even took the group to the house of the parents of Lugdi Devi and embraced her mother. The committee had no option but to declare that Shanti Devi was actually Lugdi Devi in her previous birth. Later, Shanti Devi remained unmarried for her whole life, as she had promised to Pt. Choubey. She left her mortal body in 1988.
The case of Shantidevi is one such example which compels even the most suspicious mind to believe in the concept of rebirth. Numerous such cases are found not only in India but all around the globe, in which people not only retained the memories of their previous births, but upon investigation, their claims were found to be true.
Astro-psychologists explain this as follows: when a person leaves his mortal body in pain, he reaches such an intense emotional state that he becomes unaware of the events which occur during his sojourn from one body to another. Consequently, he takes the memories of his previous life to the next, which is an unusual situation.
This concept has been an indispensable part of Indian philosophy and it has been repeatedly mentioned in our sacred scriptures. The Vedic literature has envisaged this concept long back. Ved Vyasa, the author of the great epic Mahabharata, has declared in its Shanti Parva: "Those who die suddenly attain a new life soon and even retain the memories of their past birth for some time. This fades away, as they grow up, in the same way, as a dream is forgotten after a while."
The concept of rebirth not only reveals the to-and-fro movement of souls, but elucidates an important philosophy. According to this philosophy, the world is a system created by one's own actions. The Indian thinkers believe that rebirth is not the mere process of movement of souls, but is a self-sustaining system through which people get the fruits of good and bad actions they do. The concept of rebirth strengthens the 'law of karma.' If the consequence of good and bad deeds is not obtained, then immorality would prevail in the whole world and ethics and morality would turn into impractical idealism.
"It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion." — Physicist Paul Davies