Re-incarnation

[Guest guest]

Kuntimaddi Sadananda wrote:

> The discussion of re-incornation is only from jiiva's perspective who

> indetifies himself with the equipments not from the all pervading self

that

> the statement of Nisargadaatta Maharaj states. Hence both statements are

> correct within their refereces. As long as we donot get confused from what

> references these statements are made there is no problem.

 

If re-incarnation is from the jiva's perspective, then it is an illusion.

Because the jiva itself is an illusion. What is a jiva anyway? According to

Sankara, a jiva is Brahman seemingly (but falsely) appearing as a body-mind.

But the body-mind doesn't really exist, it isn't a real, independent,

separate entity. It is just an appearance in Consciousness, hence a concept.

All individuals are mere concepts, with no substance or essence. Only

Consciousness is. All else is illusory. Hence to speak from the jiva's

perspective is tantamount to speaking from an illusory perspective.

> It is like ring which thinks I am a ring now and I was a bangle in my last

> life and I may reincornate as bracelet in my next life. But from the Gold

> point - I am gold all the time never a ring, not a bangle nor a neckless -

> they are in me and I am not in them -

> Who reincornates? - From the gold point never. From the egotistical ring

> point all the time.

 

And I ask again: who reincarnates? The gold or the ring? The ring cannot.

Once it is melt down nothing remains of it but the gold. Once we die nothing

remains of us, except only our true nature, Pure Consciousness. It is not

the individual who reincarnates. His/her death is the end of everything

he/she had as an individual, including the karma. Because, as I said, what

makes an individual an individual is purely a name and a form. And both are

imaginary.

So if it is not the ring (the individual) that reincarnates, it can only be

the gold. But can we call that RE-incarnation? No. The gold (Brahman) is all

there is. It appears to become incarnate in the many forms and shapes. But

that is only a mirage, like the snake in the rope, or the man in the tree

trunk. Phenomena are not real objects. They are only appearances in

Consciousness.

 

Miguel-Angel

[Guest guest]

Hari Om!

We often say so and so is born on that day/year etc., We even

say we are born in last century! Do we really experience

birth?? There is no experience if there is no memory! Right?

What presidential experience does Reagan possess now?

No doubt, I am born, but I have absolutely no memory or

experience whatsoever of being born! And how can there be

any experience of death either? For, there cannot be memory

after death anyway! It is really fascinating that the most

important events or exits of earthly sojourn are not

in the realms of ones experiences! I know that some people wrote

about "near death" experiences, but it is only "near death" and

never the "final death experience" right?! As saints say

it is so true, that we do not know how we came, and we certainly

do not know when and where we will go!! This puts a profound

focus on the importance and preciousness of the life lived in

between, and heightens the utter divine privilege of each breath!

Needless to say, it even prompts with a sense of urgency to invest

the life of each breath into some really worthwhile endeavor!

Forgetfulness may blur the clarity sometimes and leads one to lose

focus of the vision! Then it leads to more stumbling until again

suddenly the awareness or the remembrance hits hard! This seems to

me a cycle of life and death amidst so many breaths and the so

called "single life"! Just my 0.00002 cents worth on this

"re-incarnation".

With best regards

-Srinivas

[Guest guest]

>"Miguel Angel Carrasco" <macf12

>If re-incarnation is from the jiva's perspective, then it is an illusion.

>Because the jiva itself is an illusion. What is a jiva anyway? According to

>Sankara, a jiva is Brahman seemingly (but falsely) appearing as a

>body-mind.

 

Blessed self - If we understand jiiva is illusion the problem is already

solved and no question of reincornation even arises. If we start with the

problem that jiiva is illusion becuase Shankara says so - we have a big

problem - we live in the state where jiiva appears to be real and we

understand that Shankara says jiiva is illusion. As the statement goes there

is big gap between the cup and the lip - understanding as an understanding

as a fact is different from understanding as understanding as a thought.

 

Hence it is to make less confusing - referred to two different reference

states - vyavahaara state or transactional state and paramaarthika state.

What Nisargadatta maharaj statement is from the absolute point - If we are

in that state the statements are absolutely valid. But when we talk about

illusions - we are still in the vyavahaara state - and my pay check is

different from yours and my temporal problems are differnt from yours. The

differences are real only in the realm of vyavahaara. Please read my

statement again - from the ring point there is reincornaton from the gold

point no. Hence what reference one is talking one should be clear. There

there is no confusion.

 

Hari OM!

Sadananda

>

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[Guest guest]

>"Miguel Angel Carrasco" <macf12

>If re-incarnation is from the jiva's perspective, then it is an illusion.

>Because the jiva itself is an illusion. What is a jiva anyway? According to

>Sankara, a jiva is Brahman seemingly (but falsely) appearing as a

>body-mind.

 

Blessed self - If we understand jiiva as an illusion the problem is already

solved and no question of reincornation even arises. If we start with the

problem that jiiva is an illusion becuase Shankara says so - we have a big

problem - we live in the state where jiiva appears to be real and we

understand that Shankara says jiiva is illusion. As the statement goes there

is big gap between the cup and the lip - understanding as an understanding

as a fact is different from understanding as understanding as a thought.

 

Hence it is to make less confusing - referred to two different reference

states - vyavahaara state or transactional state and paramaarthika state or

absolute state. The Nisargadatta maharaj statement is from the absolute

point - If we are in that state the statements are absolutely valid. But

when we talk about illusions - we are still in the vyavahaara state - and in

that state my pay check is different from yours and your pay check is

different from mine. my house is different and your house is different and

my temporal problems are differnt from yours. The differences are real only

in the realm of vyavahaara.

 

Please read my statement again - from the ring point there is reincornaton

from the gold point no. Hence what reference one is talking one should be

clear. Hence my yes or no answer depends on the reference from which we are

discussing these issues.

 

Hari OM!

Sadananda

>

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[Guest guest]

namaste.

 

Dennis and Miguel say that there is no re-incarnation.

Let me express my understanding on this.

 

We agree that in paramArtha (the Absolute), there is

no rebirth. We also agree that there are jIvanmuktAs,

i.e., realized souls while being in their physical body,

a very well-known example of this being shri RamaNa maharShi.

We also agree that jIvanmuktas - who have no death and

no rebirth - also discard their bodies, i.e., we agree that

falling out of body of jIvanmuktas is not death.

 

We differ in that, before realization, i.e., in vyavahArika,

Dennis and Miguel say there is no reincarnation, while

I think it is a very acceptable and viable model. While

fully recognizing that what we believe in vyavahArika are

concepts only, let me analyze Dennis' and Miguel's logic.

 

They say there is no reincarnation, but there is moksha.

If there is no reincarnation, moksha has to be attained

(or ignorance removed) in this life or in one life itself.

If the ignorance is not removed in that one life, what then?

What happens to the sancita and AgAmi karma? That karma has

to bear fruit sometime. And karma is not transferrable.

If karma is not accepted either, then, if ignorance is

not removed, what happens after death for such an

unrealized soul?

 

On the other hand, if we accept re-incarnation (which is only

in vyavahArika), things fall into place. Every good (or bad)

action has its result associated with it. The jIvA (or the

subtle aspect of the jIvA) carries the essence of this karma

forward, reincarnates, and keeps on doing it until the karma

is fully exhausted or the Knowledge dawns on the jIvA so that

no further karma is accumulated. The jIvA does not go through

reincarnations anymore then.

 

The advantage or beauty of this concept is: The good actions

done by us will have their result, may be not in this life,

but in future lives. Thus we do not have to act as if everything

has to be settled in this life itself. Further, it makes more

logical sense than the thinking that this is the only life

and moksha has to be attained in this one life itself.

 

I would even go to the extent of saying that acceptance of

something called moksha automatically means acceptance of

something called reincarnation.

 

If there is a better model than karma/reincarnation/moksha

for explaining the vyavahArika way of unfolding of things,

I would certainly like to know about it.

 

 

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

---------------------------

[Guest guest]

Namaste Gummuluru-ji!

 

I like what you say here, you found a good tug. Not directed at anyone in

particular, but in general: to accept the existence of things on the

physical plane but not on any subtle planes bespeaks the acceptance of

primarily materialist or Western-scientific rules of evidence. But then to

accept moksha?? According to the materialistic or ortho-scientific same

rules of evidence, what exactly would moksha be? Why would such a person

study or pursue a spiritual path at all? Or is it jst academic? Why not

just wait till death; wouldn't it come to the same thing, according to

these rules of evidence?

 

Harih OM!

 

--Greg

 

standards is a bit materialist, It reminds me of what a friend of mine

with a similarly materialist :

At 01:50 PM 4/6/01 -0230, Gummuluru Murthy wrote:

....

 

They say there is no reincarnation, but there is moksha.

If there is no reincarnation, moksha has to be attained

(or ignorance removed) in this life or in one life itself.

If the ignorance is not removed in that one life, what then?

 

....

 

I would even go to the extent of saying that acceptance of

something called moksha automatically means acceptance of

something called reincarnation.

[Guest guest]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2001, Gregory Goode wrote:

> Namaste Gummuluru-ji!

>

> I like what you say here, you found a good tug. Not directed at anyone in

> particular, but in general: to accept the existence of things on the

> physical plane but not on any subtle planes bespeaks the acceptance of

> primarily materialist or Western-scientific rules of evidence. But then to

> accept moksha?? According to the materialistic or ortho-scientific same

> rules of evidence, what exactly would moksha be? Why would such a person

> study or pursue a spiritual path at all? Or is it jst academic? Why not

> just wait till death; wouldn't it come to the same thing, according to

> these rules of evidence?

>

> Harih OM!

>

> --Greg

>

> standards is a bit materialist, It reminds me of what a friend of mine

> with a similarly materialist :

 

 

namaste Greg-ji,

 

I must confess that I could not get the point you are trying

to make. It is, no doubt, my intellectual inability. I wonder

if you can amplify/clarify.

 

 

--------

 

What I was trying to say in my post was: If moksha is accepted

or believed (as an intellectual end-point of the struggles of

the jIvA to understand him/herself), then it is quite likely

that SELF-realization (the ACTUAL removal of ignorance, not

an intellectual understanding of what SELF-realization is)

cannot be achieved in a single life-time. I am saying, then,

what of the results of the good deeds and purification-of-

-the-mind process that has taken place in this life-time?

Then if a jIvA's (I am sure you agree there is a jIvA)

ignorance is not completely removed by the time the physical

ailments had taken away the body, then what happens to that

soul (jIvAtma)?

 

I am saying the jIvAtma (the subtle body of the jIvA) continues

to reincarnate until SELF-realization and reaps the benefits of

the good deeds and the citta-shuddhi process that had taken place

in this life and the jIvA is that much closer to SELF-realization

in his/her 'journey' to moksha.

 

I hope I am clear now.

 

 

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

--------------------------------

[Guest guest]

It could be interesting to hear the following words. They are taken from an

article of Richard

Smoley, in Internet, "The Real and the Unreal"

http://www.lumen.org/intros/intro39.html

 

"All the same, Eastern religions, as they have been established

in the

West, often seem less like a carefully prepared feast than a

half-digested mass in the stomach of a ruminant. This is not

for lack

of fundamental knowledge or good will, but there are several

issues

that complicate the process.

 

In the first place, there is simply the problem of making the

tradition

understood. Any teaching is prone to oversimplification as it is

transmitted, and the problems are complicated when there are

enormous cultural distances to traverse. One example is

reincarnation, which, many people will tell you, is a central

doctrine

of both Hinduism and Buddhism.

 

Not quite. Buddhists don't even believe that there is a "self"

to

reincarnate. They view successive "incarnations" not so much as

an

individual identity choosing a sequence of bodies but more like

a

wave in the ocean whose momentum generates similar waves: the

actions of one life create a certain inertia that carries over

into

another.

 

Much the same is true of Hinduism, at least according to the

early

twentieth-century Traditionalist Ananda K. Coomaraswamy,

profiled in this issue. He went so far as to say that "no

doctrine of

reincarnation . . . has ever been taught in India." According to

Coomaraswamy, a man only "reincarnates" in the sense that he

lives

on in his descendants; otherwise the Hindu scriptures teach that

there is "one and only one transmigrant" - "the Lord . . . .the

Supreme and Solar Self, Atman, Brahman, Indra." who is one and

who lives in all beings perpetually.(3)"

 

" 3. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Selected Papers: Metaphysics,

ed. Roger Lipsey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977),

pp. 15, 66-67."

 

 

If the doctrine of reincarnation means something, it means that the

individuality of a man goes

from life to life from ever to ever until liberation.

 

But if we say that atman is equal to Brahman, then obviously atman can´t be the

group formed by

nama-rupa, the "individuality", the machine of associated elements called

usually our

individuality (including manas and the ahamkara).

 

That is the point as I see it. There can´t be any element of our individuality

that

reincarnates for ever and ever. There is no an "I" (manas and ahamkara) that

now figths,

loves, writes, and that in the future will return to love the ones he loved

before, to continue

the battles that here he began. This is the romantic but anti-methaphysical

idea taught by

Theosophism and New Age (so occidental but litle oriental).

 

There is no eternity in any element of the individuality.

 

So atman (as equal with Brahman, in the same way that a point of light is equal

with the Light)

(atman who does not fight, write, learn, or acts, atman so trascendental), atman

-I repeat-

transmigrates in the same trascendental way that (and because he is equal to)

Brahman

transmigrates.

 

So I think there is a great difference between the doctrine of reincarnation

(the idea of an

individuality turning back, the idea of the permanent existence of the ahamkara)

and the

doctrine of transmigration.

 

It could even be possible that we can think in indefinite individualities that

are the place of

manifestation of atman, all of them being grades of the existence, all produced

at the same

time in the eternal present of the eternity of atman. And if we had to see

those

individualities from the point of view of our physical loka (determined by space

and time,

altough it is just one loka among the indefinite ones), then we would "locate in

time" those

individualities, A before B, B before C and so on. But even in this case, it

wouldn´t mean

that there is a continuity of an "I" (as understood in reincarnation idea) in A,

B and C.

 

It would simply mean that there has been three individualities, three relative

"beings"

determined with manas and ahamkara, and just one atman (that is trascendent to

manas and

ahamkara, and every element of Pakriti). A, B and C could even be analog among

them, because

of karma, but never the same "I".

 

¿Are there people that remember past lives? They remember what they call their

past lives.

But in accordance with the doctrine of metempsicosis, as there is a physical

transmission from

a father to a son, after death there is also a psiquic transmission of the less

heavy elements

of nama-rupa (including memories).

 

So nothing of this means reincarnation.

 

I would like to hear opinions about this.

 

Friendly,

 

 

David Cueva

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Gummuluru is concerned that the views expressed by Miguel and myself

contradict the notion of individual karma. Fine! I believe the idea of

individual karma is equally a mistake. If I may also quote from the

Giitaa: - V.14 The Lord does not create agency or actions for the world; He

does not create union with the fruits of action. Nature does all this.

 

The Self does not act; only the guuNaa act. No individual self can assume

ownership over karma or sanskaara. The bondage is in thinking that we are

the doers of our action and reap its fruit. Moksha is release from this

erroneous belief.

 

Dennis

[Guest guest]

Yes, but knowledge is different in different states of consciousness. The

gun of the waking state doesn't shoot the tiger of the dream state. Those in

higher states of consciousness don't deny that the perspectives from lower

states don't seem real. If a man says he's suffering, they don't say "No,

you're not," or if a man robs a bank they don't say, "The Gunas did it. He

shouldn't be punished." So the points you quote below don't invalidate the

philosophy of karma. Here's a quote from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi I just came

across which pertains to this:

 

"The falling of the impression deep in the mind is the binding influence of

the karma, is the result of the karma. To meditate does not make a man free

from karma but free from the binding influence of karma. We don't get

freedom from karma, nor do we get freedom from the effects of karma (with

TM), but only the binding influence of karma is released. The law of

causation remains."

 

Maharishi

Meditation Guides Course

Hochgurgl, Austria

July 1962

 

 

 

--

Gummuluru is concerned that the views expressed by Miguel and myself

contradict the notion of individual karma. Fine! I believe the idea of

individual karma is equally a mistake. If I may also quote from the

Giitaa: - V.14 The Lord does not create agency or actions for the world; He

does not create union with the fruits of action. Nature does all this.

 

The Self does not act; only the guuNaa act. No individual self can assume

ownership over karma or sanskaara. The bondage is in thinking that we are

the doers of our action and reap its fruit. Moksha is release from this

erroneous belief.

 

Dennis