​Philosophy of Reincarnation

Philosophy of Reincarnation
by Swami Jyotirmayananda

REINCARNATION and the law of karma consti­tute the most vital factors of Hindu thought or Vedanta philosophy. In general, the law of karma implies the law of action and its mathematical reac­tion — the law of cause and effect. In common par­lance, it is understood as an immutable law explaining every circumstance in life, pleasant or unpleasant, as a result of one’s past actions in this or previous births. The theory of reincarnation follows as a corollary to the law of karma. One must be born again to reap the reward of his past deeds or suffer the consequences of his previous errors.

To understand of the law of karma, the following points must be well understood and philosophically ascertained:

What Is That Which Reincarnates?

Does Mr. Charles reincarnate as Mr. Herbert, and then after Mr. Herbert’s death reincarnate as Mr. Edward to continue the process of evolution? Or, is Mr. Charles himself a reincarnation of some other personality who was historically famous in ancient times?

Most people would like to believe reincarnation as the recurrence of the same personality of Mr. Charles continuing to exist with his special habits and notions, characteristics and inclinations, reincarnating to pay the debts of the past and gathering enjoyments for the future. Such a belief would be irrational, however.

Reincarnation is not the continuity of a personal­ity. It is the evolutionary rebirth of one’s deeper ba­sis — the Jiva (individual soul). Therefore, the Jiva-Atman (individual soul) of Mr. Charles at the time of his death, drawing out the essence of his karmas (past deeds), reincarnates as Mr. Herbert, and by thus rein­carnating, evolves; and later manifests through Mr. Edward, and continues to do so, until it has attained its identity with Parama-Atman (Supreme Self) — the Real­ity behind all phenomena.

What is the Nature of the Soul?

Is the individual soul a permanent, immutable entity, incarnating through various personalities? Or is it part of the changing flux of nature?

If the soul itself undergoes changes, there would be no continuity through various reincarnations. Mr. Charles finds continuity in his childhood, youth and old age. He is no longer a child and has little memory of his childhood values, yet he knows it was “he” as a child or a young man who continued through these stages of life. However, he has no conscious under­standing of existing before his birth. Yet deep within, it is impossible for him to accept his non-existence ever in the past or in the farthest future.

The continuity of personality through childhood, youth and old age is a changing continuity sustained by a limited mental process. There is a deeper basis of the personality which enables the mind to link childhood with youth and find an unbroken continuity behind the apparent changes. To that deeper basis, Vedanta designates the name Jiva-Atman (individual soul).

But Jiva-Atman is not the ultimate basis of its existence. It is Parama-Atman (Supreme Self) or Brah­man (Absolute Spirit) which is the basis of every indi­vidual soul. Therefore, even though the individual soul continues to exist through different personalities as if immortal and immutable, it undergoes a process of expansion, a process of spiritual rebirth, until it is united with its cosmic substratum — the Supreme Self.

The “individuality” of the soul is caused by the limitation of the chitta (mind-stuff). These two — the individuality of the soul and the limitation of the mind — are interdependent factors of the phenom­enon of relativity. They are the products of Maya (Cosmic Illusion). The essential nature of the indi­vidual soul is the Supreme Self, which is the Reality behind matter and mind.

What is Life? What is Evolution?

The biological concept of life is too limited. It is difficult to set a line of demarcation between inert matter and conscious life. The Upanishads use the term chaitanya (consciousness) to designate a profounder concept of life which includes life and matter. The great utterance, ^uPrajnanam Brahma” asserts that Brahman or the Absolute is Pure Consciousness. He is the Ocean of Life. Thus, the world pulsates with life and consciousness.

In biological evolution, life is struggling against form. On the onward march of life, the forms of lesser creatures are destroyed, and higher and more suitable forms are adopted. Thus, generations of a particular species sacrifice their forms so that life may continue surging, swirling, swallowing, and engulfing all forms.

Instinct pervades biological evolution. Instinct is intuition involved in the grosser layers of existence. Through the ascending rungs of mental and rational development, life comes to mingle with intuition and realizes itself as universal, homogeneous, one and infinite.

On the ascending rungs of life’s ladder, there gradually emerge the senses with their various ways of functioning. Then there emerges mind on its instinc­tive plane. In a human personality, there emerges the power of reason, which has the possibility of studying life in different stages of its development. It assimilates the higher truth in itself and imparts strength of will to the soul, in order that the latter may evolve and realize its intrinsic unity with the Supreme Self.

Thus, we transcend the biological concept of evo­lution and study evolution in terms of the expression of the mind. The spirit of a primitive man evolves into the spirit of a civilized man to recognize a moral law in life. It conceives of a reward for virtuous acts, and a punishment for sinful acts. It further evolves to under­stand good and evil as relative. Finally transcending good and evil, it unites with the intuitive mind which restores it to the intrinsic Universality. However, dur­ing the transition from reason to intuition, the soul passes through different levels of evolution. The hu­man level is not the ultimate. The belief in higher forms of beings possessing supramental powers is not unfounded. Rather, it is a rationally established and mystically revealed fact.

What Is Karma and How Does It Operate?

Karma exists in the form of unconscious impres­sions (sanchitta karma) in the chitta or mind-stuff. Out of the unconscious impressions, a particular group begins to operate in the present life of the individual. This is termed as prarabdha karma (fructifying action). The forming of unconscious impressions into opera­tive impressions is determined by the day-to-day un­derstanding and inclination of the individual. The day-to-day impressions of actions constitute kriyamana karma (current action). Thus, while every person is backed up by a past operation of karma, he has within him the secret fount of freedom, the Universal Self, from which he can draw free will to overcome fate or destiny.

What Are Good and Evil, Virtue and Vice?

In general parlance, good karma is said to fructify through pleasant and joyous circumstances. Good karma leads to prosperity and happiness. Evil karma leads to pain and miserable conditions.

In the process of evolution, the concepts of good and evil undergo a great change. In the early stages of mental development, the sense of morality is crude — “An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.” One conceives of a universal order that is just in punishing sinners and rewarding the virtuous.

Yet, in spite of the belief in a just God, many a Socrates must be killed by poison and many a Christ must be mercilessly crucified. Many saintly people must undergo untold miseries, trials and tribulations.

Also, the concept of pleasure and pain undergoes radical changes. The pleasure of the senses may exalt people in the lowest rung of evolution, but it is an obstacle to the deeper maturity of the mind. What is pleasure to the dull-witted is painful to the wise. There­fore, while a less-evolved person sees a good karma of his past as the cause of his apparent pleasures of the senses, a more-evolved man considers a bad karma responsible for his indulgences.

With the advancing horizons of consciousness, good and evil become more mental than physical, more subjective than objective. They are no longer defined by externally imposed, socially adopted can­nons of ethics and morality. Therefore, what is good for the masses may not be good from the spiritual point of view. In the Gita, the nonviolence that Arjuna praised was dubbed as cowardice by Lord Krishna. Thus, the wise have found expressions of virtue myste­rious and confounding.

What Is the Goal of Life? What Are The Purposes of Karma?

The Hindu seers have outlined four principal objectives of life — dharma (ethical and moral develop­ment), artha (material achievement), kama (vital ful­fillment), and moksha (spiritual realization of the Self). When human consciousness is operating on a lower level, a person seeks material gains and lacks the understanding of a higher ethical and moral law im­plied in its movements. With further evolution, one’s life leans on desires and their fulfillments. A still higher degree of evolution reveals a moral sense un­derlying the movements of life. Therefore, one read­justs his values to the advancing concepts of good and evil. But, the highest state of evolution is marked by the development of intuitive intellect, which lends trans­parency to the chitta. Through the ascending heights of vairagya (detachment), the spirit develops viveka (discriminative knowledge), and realizes itself to be the Universal Self — beyond the duality and relativity of mind and matter, life and form, soul and body.

With increasing understanding and revelation of the Universal Self within, one pursues the spiritual goal of life. In so doing, an aspirant gradually goes beyond elation over good deeds and torment over evil deeds performed in the past.

What Are the Types of Rebirth?

First let us sum up the different views regarding this question:

• a. One may be born as an animal, an insect, or be involved in matter due to one’s sinful deeds.
• b. One may be born as a human being in lesser or in more agreeable circumstances.
• c. One can never devolve to a lesser state of con­sciousness. Evolution must lead him onwards.

Each of these views is partial, and therefore, defec­tive. If human life was wholly instinctive, one could be born as an animal as a consequence of actions that are obstructive to evolution. But, human life has different depths and profundities. If one were essentially hu­man, one would continue to be a human being. Since human consciousness is only an evolutionary state, there is a higher process of karma leading one to the realization of higher mental and supramental possi­bilities. Even though the spirit may continue to ascend upwards, there is a possibility for human conscious­ness to experience a fluctuation. The immature judge­ment, “I have fallen from a higher level” is incorrect. Even though one may be involved in confusing cir­cumstances, a deeper law continues to promote the evolution of the spirit through diverse conditions of life — painful or pleasant.

What Does the Spirit Experience after the Death of the Body?

Death separates the astral body from the physical body. The astral body consists of mind and its different planes — the senses, conscious mind, ego, intellect and chitta (subconscious and unconscious mind). The spirit snaps the vital bonds with the physical body for its further evolution, and exists with the astral body, experiencing the mental processes along with sym­bolic forms. Like experiencing a dream, the individual soul continues to experience the contents of the mind, whether positive or negative. Like different degrees of sleep, the spirit remains unconscious while the chitta continues to arrange and rearrange the karmic impressions. Thus, the soul passes through an astral existence before it reincarnates into another physical body and manifests as another personality.

What Is the Real Nature of Heaven and Hell?

A profound understanding of this question de­mands different concepts of reality. The reality that exists for human consciousness in the form of living relations, objects of attachment and value, and expe­riences of pleasant and unpleasant circumstances is not the absolute reality. Every perception demands a mental basis, and every mental movement demands the underlying substratum of Pure Consciousness. Therefore, the loss of physical objects does not re­move the possibility of the soul to construct its own reality in a different plane of existence.

Heaven and hell are thus formed through the impressions of the mind, and are differently experi­enced according to different symbolisms acquired through life. Most descriptions of heaven and hell are symbolic. It is impossible to describe the realities of the astral plane without masking them with the symbols of a consciousness involved in the physical body. Therefore, to consider heaven and hell as a myth is wrong. Conversely, to consider them as liter­ally true is blind faith.

It is important to understand that impressions of virtue will widen the expansion of consciousness, giving rise to the experience of bliss; and impressions of vice will contract the sphere of consciousness, giving rise to the experience of pain. Heaven is the expansion of consciousness and hell is its contrac­tion.

Again, consciousness is the innermost Self. Its expansion and contraction is due to the limiting adjunct of the mind. When the mind assumes its simpler and more purified modes in the course of evolution, there is the increasing revelation of the Self, leading to more and more bliss and peace.

The sky is said to contract and expand with relation to the clouds that gather and intensify, or scatter and dissolve. Similarly, the consciousness of man expands or contracts according to the latent impressions of the mind.

How Does One Reincarnate?

The mind draws a proper circumstance in the form of right parents at the right time and a physical body is thus formed in the womb of a mother. When the body — the house of the soul — is ready for occu­pancy, the soul manifests itself through it in the form of life-functions. As the body is born and grows, the power of the mind manifests along with the previous basis of the past karmas. The process of reincarnation does not rule out the importance of heritage and planetary conditions.

What Are the Paths after Death for the Soul to Adopt?

These are the general views:

• a. For the virtuous, the path of reward leading to heaven.
• b. For the sinners, the path of punishment lead­ing to hell.
• c. For the devotees and practitioners of medita­tion on God, the path of gradual emancipation.
• d. For the fully illumined, termination of all movements.

In the light of the previous explanations regard­ing the profundity of life’s movements, none of these views can be adopted as wholly correct. Virtue is relative, therefore, heaven is relative. Vice is an ob­struction in the manifestation of virtue. Therefore, there cannot be an absolute hell. Hell and heaven are blended in human experiences even in life, and the same continue in a different circumstance after death. At the same time, the soul’s movement on the path of liberation continues as it seeks higher levels of con­sciousness in a gradual succession. The horizontal movement of life is blended and transfigured by a vertical movement. When the vertical movement brings about the state of Yoga (the cessation of all mental functions), the Spirit is no longer in conjunc­tion with the mind. Therefore, there is no move­ment. There is instantaneous release.

Thus, through virtue and vice, heaven and hell, and through diverse personalities, the spirit of man continues to realize its essential glory in different degrees until all limitations are overcome.

Can One Be in Contact with Someone Even after His Death?

Human companionship is a reality for the evolu­tion of the soul. But, it is not the absolute reality. Even in the case of an intimate relation and intense affection, there is no complete communion between two persons. Partial communion and communication can exist even after death on the basis of the mutual interdependence of souls for their evolution. How­ever, in life or after death, the emphasis should be more on inward movement and less on the outward development of relations and circumstances. The inner condition automatically draws the outer cir­cumstances and relations. In the physical world, reliance on outer circumstances and personalities seems to be more acute and concrete, while in the inner astral world, there is a greater awareness of the subjective state being responsible for the outer devel­opments.

Therefore, it is unnatural to contact the departed souls. If their guidance is needed, one will receive an internal contact with them unconsciously.

Why Can’t Everyone Remember the Facts of Past Lives?

Details of even the present life are not remem­bered. However, the mind keeps the record of all experiences. Past records can be recovered from the unconscious and brought to the conscious mind through meditation or special techniques. This gen­erally is not beneficial, however, for one’s evolution. After death, the mind undergoes a process of reorientation and even the nature of the ego changes. Therefore, things of great interest to the ego of the past personality are no longer important to the newly formed ego. In cases when this reorientation is not complete, impressions of the previous ego continue to stay in the mind and enable some children to remember their past lives to a certain extent. How­ever, in everyone the unconscious memory of the past — the unconscious operation of karma — contin­ues from life to life.

In the light of the above questions and their explanations, one should profoundly understand rebirth as a need of the spirit rather than a mechani­cal movement of nature leading one onwards to many reincarnations. When the mind transcends good and evil and seeks moksha (liberation), there arises a special rebirth within the spirit of man, leading to increasing glimpses of cosmic unity and universality of existence. Thus, the spirit is born in God, the individual soul is led to the Supreme Self, the veil of Maya (illusion) is removed from the vision of the Self. Herein karmas are transcended!

“International Yoga Guide” Vol. 34, NO. 12, August 1997

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