Through death and rebirth, it kept wandering

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: The harsh winter of ‘88, the earth dragon year, had blossomed into shades of spring. I vividly remember it was the fourth day of March. A group of monks from far south of India reached my home. As they were honourably seated and served tea, the leader of the group proclaimed me to be the reincarnation of a high lama of the yellow hat sect. He had died in a Chinese prison in Tibet around the time I was born. The group had been sent as a search party by his holiness the Dalai Lama, with definite signs and indications from a series of hard played prognosis and sortilege. All those signs favoured my existence as the rebirth of a high Buddhist soul from the Gelukpa sect. No, it was not the beginning of a fascinating journey for me. Instead, I was sent to a Catholic school.

The subject of reincarnation has baffled and fascinated everybody for centuries. Science has neither been able to accept the theory, nor defeat it. Far beyond reason, this subject of dialectic discourse continues to be a mystery — mystery that transcends death, emotions, and karma. It is deemed a sacred comeback of an existence that surpasses all agonies.

Reincarnation is a process of purification; a preparatory sequence which finally leads matter (that physically manifests as the body) through one hundred thousand forms — a cycle of birth and death. Most believers credit it to the karmic connection. But some beings who have surpassed this state too make a comeback. This return though is assumed to be for the benefit of all sentient beings.

In 1391, the roof of the world, Tibet saw the birth of a lineage that has mesmerised the world since. The Mongol patrons of the Buddhist faith gave to the world the Bodhisattva of Compassion, “Avalokteshvara”. The physical manifestation of the wish-fulfilling jewel was born. The forecasts to his birth are exceptional, with the weather, the skies and the lakes having been the elements of direction of the rebirth. Indeed, the sixth Dalai Lama Tsayang Gyatso predicted of his comeback through poetry.