Only once some would say: we are born, we die – that’s
it.
Others suggest that we experience past lives and so we
have been reincarnated a number of times.
Still others propose that we live in a never-ending
cycle of birth-rebirth-birth-rebirth…
All these answers have one thing in common. They
assume a life that can be thought of, and conceived as – me, I, myself. A
single human being; entire, complete, and - apart from the aging process -
unchanging.
Yet, when we consider the make-up of our body, we are
not unchanging, nor are we complete.
Our body is comprised of somewhere between 50 – 75 trillion
cells.
These cells do not have a lifetime consistent with the
lifetime of the being we think of as me. Skin cells, for example, are
replaced every two to three weeks. Red blood cells last about four months. The
cells lining our stomach are lucky to reach two days. They all get replaced
however.
Not so brain cells. They do last our lifetime. At
least those that last that long do so. Brain cells do die, but are not
replaced.
All these cells are made of proteins, and those
proteins in turn are the product of atoms.
We all know, roughly, what atoms are. The building blocks
of everything is one way to conceive of them. The Periodic Table lists 118
elements, of which atoms are the basic ingredient.
Back to the Question
Back to our question: how many times have you been
reincarnated?
If we consider all the elements and atoms that make up
our body, then we could easily claim to have been reincarnated many many times
over.
Just four elements - Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, and
Nitrogen – constitute around 96% of our body weight. The atoms of these
elements have been around for billions of years.
The atoms of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen
that make up our present-day body have been part of the Earth’s ecosystem for millennia.
Perhaps millions of years ago, the atoms on the tip of your tongue may have
been in a plant that was then eaten by a passing Stegosaurus. Maybe millions of
years before that, the atoms lining your stomach lined the bottom of an ancient
seabed.
Consider your breath. Perhaps some of the nitrogen or
oxygen that you breath in right now once passed through the nostrils of
Cleopatra or Genghis Khan.
We are being recycled, rejuvenated, revivified, and
reincarnated continuously. We are part of an eternal cycle that includes
animal, vegetable, and mineral.
We are part of everything. Everything is part of us. I
am one with all. All is one with me.
It is a humbling thought, isn’t it?
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