How does reincarnation even happen?

[caspex]

How does the energetic body/soul even find a baby and align with it? I mean why did organisms evolve to make empty husks for these souls?

At first I thought that energetic body also just forms as material body forms, that's how souls come into existence. However, when baby is in womb, these souls become that body's energetic body and connect themselves to it until death(That's what I have seen in every model of reincarnation so far). I am gonna be honest though, I have no idea how reincarnation ties in with this.

How does a soul even connect to material bodies, and why is that even normal?

Edited November 29, 2021 by Swarnim

[Tim R]

There are different ways of understanding what is meant by "reincarnation". The Hindus will tell you one thing, the Theravada Buddhists will tell you another thing and the Zen Buddhists will tell you something else altogether. 

The way I understand reincarnation is that every time you identify yourself with a particular form, you are being reincarnated. 

You believe there was a past "you", don't you? And you also believe that you will go on into the future, no? If you think that there is a continuous "you", you are being reincarnated. Because you identify with a certain pattern. This pattern is the foundation of your illusory sense of self, it's what you identify with. 

Imagine a river. This river is constantly flowing along, never the same. You could say "there is no such thing as 'a river', there's only the continuous flowing pattern". And if you think there is "a river" (even as "a continuous pattern of flow"), the river is being reincarnated, you see? 

Just in the same way, if you think that there is a flowing form that "you are" (i.e. you identify yourself with) and that is in some way fixed and continuous like the river, that is your reincarnation. 

But if you see through the illusion of time and you stop identifying yourself with any particular form, you're liberated from reincarnation (Samsara). You see that you were never born, you're not alive now, and you will never die. 

Edit: That's much rather a Mahayana Buddhist understanding of reincarnation. The literal sense of a soul being reincarnated into a body is both the Hindu and the Western understanding of it, but both are founded on the belief of a soul being inside a body.