蜜芽传媒

Like many of you I suspect, I was gripped to hear the news yesterday that a 14 year old girl has won a historic legal battle to have her body cryogenically preserved so that she could potentially come back and live the life which has tragically been cut short. The girl died of cancer last month, and whatever you make of the Judge's decision it鈥檚 impossible not to feel compassion for the heartbreak she suffered in losing her life before it had been, fully lived.

Cryogenics has been the subject of Sci-Fi movies for many decades and it seems that Science has created a realistic possibility that we may well be able to preserve the human body indefinitely. Whether, we can bring an individual back to life is still under question. But I think the subject raises many other issues; if we were to bring people back who is it that we are bringing back, is it the same person? Would they know who they are?

What interests me most about Cryogenics is that it speaks to our insatiable desire to live well. We want to 'be' and we want to be happy! We find ways to immortalise who we are through our deeds and the people and legacies we leave behind. But the opportunity to live again whether through the medium of science or spirituality, it seems, is irresistible to us.

According to the Vedas this is no surprise: In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that we are by nature immortal, full of wisdom and happy, so naturally we will seek to live these out in various ways. But, this is difficult to fully achieve here, given the temporary nature of the body.

Some may think that the concept of reincarnation provides an easy solution. However, Hindu texts describe reincarnation not as a solution but more as a catalyst for an individual to realise that no matter how many lives people live here, they won't truly be themselves until they give up the desire to cling to identities which are in any case always changing.

Our true selves lie beyond reincarnation and Krishna recommends that we invest time in cultivating this understanding in order to live well, both in the present and hereafter. He says 'A faithful person who is dedicated to transcendental knowledge and who subdues his senses is eligible to achieve such knowledge, and having achieved it he quickly attains the supreme spiritual peace'. When a person achieves this state, they are no longer bewildered by changes in their circumstances, bodily or otherwise and are reassured by a here and now experience of their true immortality.

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