Question: What are your views on reincarnation?

Sri Chinmoy: Reincarnation is necessary for ordinary human beings, but not for God-realised souls. But if it is the Supreme’s Will that I take another incarnation, then I will have to come down. Otherwise, a God-realised soul can stay always in the highest Bliss. But the highest kind of Bliss is also this: to serve the Supreme and humanity. The Buddha did not care for this kind of service. He advised his followers to stay in Nirvana. There are already hundreds of souls who have entered into Nirvana and who are not coming down again. They Feel that the world has given them enough bad experiences. They are more than satisfied with these and they do not want to come back. So those who follow the strict path of the Lord Buddha and achieve their highest Goal are not for reincarnation. They will not come back into the world and will not accept any more suffering from the world.

The Buddha wanted to remain always in perfect Bliss. He did not care for the transformation of the physical nature. He felt that once you can escape from the cycle of human suffering, you should stay in Bliss. But the Hindu philosophy says that you should work to transform the suffering of humanity. The Buddha had a heart larger than the universe. He cried for the end of human suffering, but his wisdom took him to another road. If you follow that road, you do not come back into the world once you have attained liberation.

There is another Nirvana which is higher than the Nirvana that the Buddha realised. In his later years the Buddha once said that he did not want to have the highest Nirvana until all human beings were liberated. But then he entered into his own Nirvana and he did not come back to earth.

According to the great Indian spiritual Masters, the Buddha was the most perfect man that Mother Earth possessed. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and many others said that the Buddha was the most perfect man on earth.