Rebirths

Rebirths are described as the beginning of a new life after death or after a profound personal transformation. In common usage, the term is closely associated with beliefs that a consciousness or essence persists beyond a single lifetime, entering a new existence. Debates around rebirth distinguish it from resurrection (the return of the same person to life) and from metaphysical ideas of a fixed soul. In many traditions, rebirth is part of a larger cycle of life, death, and renewal.

Religious and philosophical traditions commonly frame rebirth within a broader cosmology. Hinduism teaches that the atman, or inner self, is reborn through successive lifetimes according to karma until liberation (moksha). Jainism posits a jiva—an individual soul—reborn under the influence of karmic matter, with liberation by purifying oneself of karma. Buddhism describes rebirth as the continuation of conditioned phenomena or a stream of consciousness that takes new form after death, without positing a permanent, unchanging self. Sikhism recognizes rebirth within the cycle of reincarnation, emphasizing devotion to God as the path to liberation.

Outside traditional religion, rebirth appears in literature, art, and popular culture as metaphorical renewal or transformative change. Some modern thinkers and parapsychological studies have claimed evidence of past-life memories, though such claims are disputed in the scientific community. In contemporary discourse, rebirth is also used in a secular sense to denote regeneration or restarting systems, such as ecological, technological, or organizational “rebirths.”