"Self-portrait as Shiva"
(oil painting on canvas, 30X40, 2008)
"Doctrine of reincarnation is neither absurd nor useless. It is not more surprising to be born twice than once."
Voltaire
I became fascinated with Hinduism as a child. Not with the deep spiritual side of it, but with the things that most children would consider amusing, such as six-armed deities and a possibility of being reincarnated as a hamster in the next life. The former made me very happy to have only two arms since at times I didn’t even know what to do with the two I have, the latter made me furthermore respectful towards animals.
I kept my childhood fascination with Eastern religions as an adult, although I have considerably reconsidered some of the dogmas I took for granted as a child. For years I thought that people live many lives because each life is a trial or a lesson that helps them learn everything that there's to learn on this Earth before they move on to the Great Beyond.
I thought that going through lives was like going to school. You enter your first grade, you don't know much, and if you don't learn what you were suppose to - you don't get to enter the second grade until you pass the first grade and so on. People move on to the next life (a harder one with more material to study) when they learn everything there's to learn from the previous one. My theory was that everybody's goal in life should be to better themselves and to learn as much as they can from every experience they have. However, I’ve eventually decided that Reincarnation can only be voluntary, since I believe that God is kind and wouldn’t force people to learn if they didn’t want to or just felt like resting between lives. I personally feel that I would want to come back again and again, because I love life and I can never imagine being able to get enough of it.
My theory was that everybody's goal in life should be to better themselves and to learn as much as they can from every experience they have. However, I’ve eventually decided that Reincarnation can only be voluntary, since I believe that God is kind and wouldn’t force people to learn if they didn’t want to or just felt like resting between lives. I personally feel that I would want to come back again and again, because I love life and I can never imagine being able to get enough of it.
