The concept that after dying, living beings come back to life in a new body as another living being, is something that most religions originating from India believe. Millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Jainist, etc. believe that one’s karma dictates whether they come back to a life of either less or more suffering and that with every cycle of life, the being has another chance to practice life.
Inherently, every death of any living being, including all insects and animals, marks the end of one cycle of life and triggers the birth/start of another life/cycle. It matters not, how long each life is, as encompassing all living beings makes time a relative term; a 24 hour day to humans could seem like a year to an ant. Meaning, an ant could have ample opportunity to perform its karma for a life time, in that one human day.
I recently spent a month at The Sanctuary at Two Rivers in the Costa Rican jungle, an off-grid solar powered haven that exists in complete harmony with nature. When walking and swimming through the jungle, I of course ran across probably millions of insects, countless amphibians, reptiles and other life forms, all of which participate in this phenomenon of reincarnation. Although covering only 3% of our land today, the jungle is home to half of all of the world’s living species. A single hectare of rainforest may contain as many as 250 species of trees. Some live for years, some for mere days. The Mayfly for example, only lives for a day and its sole purpose is reproduction; almost as if it simply exists as a venue for "rapid" reincarnation. There are countless species of ants that live full lives, have roles and responsibilities within their communities, and serve a meaningful purpose in life until death.
In essence, where there is more life, there is more reincarnation happening. An acre in Manhattan would not be able to provide as strong a venue for life and death to occur when compared to an acre in the jungle, simply because there are fewer living beings. The rainforest is essentially a hot bed for reincarnation! This could be true for our oceans as well.
Is planet Earth one of many venues where souls are going through this process? Was it given jungles and forests and oceans for this reason? Are we slowing down the process of reincarnation whenever we cut down the rainforests to pave roads and cities through them?
An interesting juxtaposition to the train of thought above: What happened when I stepped on and killed a beetle that happened to be under my shoe as I walked to my bathroom in my jungle casita? By shortening its life, did I, in essence, expedite its soul's transition into its next life? If that is true, isn't excavating and paving an acre of jungle and killing many insects and animals helping? Here is what I think.
When I killed the beetle, I did it inadvertently, so it affected my karma in a different way than had I used that analogy to justify excavating the jungle. I may have been chosen by a higher source or intelligence to kill that beetle as it may have been its time to transition. That is why it happened by accident. Also, by paving the jungle I may speed up the process for countless living beings, but I'd also permanently eradicate the space remaining a living breathing hot bed for reincarnation and in turn affected my Karma negatively.
We could live harmoniously with nature just like every single other living being does. If we take a tree out, we could plant another one. We could choose to build cities in the desert where there is far less life happening. We could choose to let rainforest remain a factory for re-incarnation!
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