Reincarnation and Advaita

[Guest guest]

Dear Shri Carlo Frua,

 

Thank you for asking such wonderful questions. At least, they can

help me brush up my commonsense.

 

My answer is general. I don't want to refer to any scriptures, as

they are a big ocean where we may get hopelessly drowned.

 

What I apprehend is that there is a gap between our basic visions.

My attempt here is to unravel mine in my own personal manner based

purely on my understanding of advaita. Think about it before

accepting or rejecting. Of course, if your choice is rejection,

kindly let me know why. I look for unending education.

 

In his book, "Roots of Coincidence" (The title may not be quite right

as I am recalling.), Arthur Koestler sums up our situation. There is

a locked room. All that you can do is to peep through the keyhole

and guess what is there inside. Asking questions about just

reincarnation is like looking through a keyhole. Our room is

infinite and your questions are a small keyhole to it. Why don't we

try to open the room? When we do that, I hope your dooubts will be

automatically answered. I am doing that in my own small way.

 

We are confronted with the universe of diversity and have reached the

conclusion that trying to shape it up to our understanding by giving

it an understandable form is just beyond us because even if we

interpret it according to any multi-dimensional model that we have or

may have in future, there will still be a beyond to it challenging

our intelligence. So, our scientific quest is an unending

endeavour. We can't have the right answer looking up there at the

stars, galaxies, blackholes etc. through even our best radio

telescopes. So, what do we do?

 

There is a solution offered by the scriptures. It classifies the

universe into two basic categories. All that you see as objects fall

into one category. These include all matter, your body, its

functions, your mind which is nothing but a stream of thoughts

(Please remember when you think of your brother, you `see' him on

your `mind's screen'. Hence, thoughts and, therefore, mind are

objects), similarly concepts, ideas, dreams, nightmares, your

intellect and ego, as you know that you have them both, i.e. you

possess them, and even the unknown like the beyond I mentioned above,

as you `know' there is an unknown. Then what is left for the second

category? Nothing but YOU and this you is not the you you think you

are or hithertofore understood as the you you were because in your

thinking and erstwhile understanding you have/had yourself

unfortunately included with the rest of the lot in the first category.

 

Now, there can be an objection to this sort of thinking. It is that

our knowing or objectification can regress back interminably. This

is known as the objection of infinite regression. There is a

solution to it. We have to ask who is aware of this infinite

regression. We will then be convinced that we cannot go

interminably. The issue clinches there indicating the existence of a

substratum (YOU) as the ultimate answer. Let us call It

Consciousness with capital "C".

 

Please don't equate this Consciousness with our pedestrian

understanding of consciousness, which is obliterated in sleep and

under anaesthesia. Why? For the simple reason that after both these

states we evince a continuity, i.e. the same person who went into

sleep or unconsciousness returns intact.

 

You may now argue that this continuity is dependent on the brain and

the memories embedded in it, which were intact throughout these

states. But, brain falls into the first category detailed above as

we know that we have a brain. So, there of course is a `knower' of

the brain. Secondly, as a helpful aside, our Michael Reidy has

recently quoted experiments which prove that even the brain stuff get

replaced and that cells that existed sometime back are no more there

now. How can something that keeps changing or replacing itself

assure continuity? So, our continuity cannot be due to a mass of

mortal cells called the brain, but due to something that `knows' it.

 

The doubt now arises: "What happens in death?".

 

Was I born and do I die? My birth was not my experience. I have only

somebody else's report that I was born at a particular time on a

particular day at a particular place. Then, there is psychiatric

regression where people under hypnosis have reportedly narrated their

birth pangs. Well, that narration is something happening at the time

of the hypnotic session and, therefore, an experience occurring at

that moment whatever its nature – just a lighting up of consciousness

at that particular time. It is, therefore, safe and logical for us

to conclude that there is only a blank before our first memory. That

blank also belongs to the first category (as an unknown) as it is

objectified.

 

Now to come death, we see people dying all around us and take it for

granted that we also will die on a future date. The changes that our

bodies undergo like the other dying bodies confirm our fear. But,

the fact is that death cannot be our experience like our dozing off

last night was not our experience. We don't remember the exact time

we switched off because we didn't experience it. However, we spend

time and money designing our coffins and burial details!

 

Besides all this, it is not due to our choice that we were allegedly

born? Neither the time of final switch off is our choice. If at all

it happens, it just happens.

 

In conclusion, therefore, we only have a stretch of consciousness,

over the contents of which we have no choice, flanked by two blanks

which we call birth and death. Here, the two blanks are objects

which we visualize and, therefore, fall into the first category.

 

Where do both the blanks and the intervening strip of experiences we

call life appear to be projected. In the present. This effectively

demolishes our pedestrian sense of a present flanked by a past and

future because both past and future exist in the present. When you

recall your childhood experiences, the recall of the so-called past

is happening in a PRESENT. When those experiences `really' occurred,

they occurred in a PRESENT. When you dream of a joyful experience

that you anticipate, that thought is also in a PRESENT. So, in

effect, there is only the PRESENT existing and that PRESENT

(capitalized) is entirely different from our notion of a present with

the past and future at either end.

 

That PRESENT is EXISTENCE or CONSCIOUSNESS and, since It is not

afflicted by a past or future, is ever-existent. In summary, It is

not conditioned by time. It is the YOU of the second category.

 

What you call life with the notion of a birth and death and all

experiences during a life-time are a big bunch that seem to "sprout"

from IT like the snake in Sankara's rope-snake analogy. A nuclear

explosion or even a universal catastrophe like a greedy blackhole

devouring all matter up cannot affect IT as all such `dangerous'

eventualities are `supported' by IT.

 

This `bunch' includes your reincarnation issue too with the five

specific questions you asked in your latest post. So, before we

answer the question "Who reincarnates?", let us ask who asked these

questions and to which of the two category the asker and the

questions belong. The obvious answer is the first category even if

you ask "Who? Who?" interminably. Naturally, therefore, the one who

reincarnates as also the one who eats his evening meal or play tennis

fall in the same category. They are all in the `deluded' list. Why

then vainly ask was it my body or reflection of consciousness or jiva

or atman within the `vase' that reincarnated? You verily know them

all as objectified objects, ideas or notions. Anything can,

therefore, happen to them as long as they are in the first category.

Please remember we are here dealing exclusively with your `notion' of

Atman or soul as an individual entity. If Atman is understood as

CONSCIOUSNESS, then the rules of category one do not apply.

 

This first category has no independent existence of it own. It owes

its apparent existence to the second category, i.e. CONSCIOUSNESS,

EXISTENCE or the ever-present PRESENT which is beyond affliction by a

past or future. To sum up, therefore, the first category is because

CONSCIOUSNESS IS. It is even wrong to understand It as a continuity

as the term continuity is pregnant with past and future implications.

Since CONSCIOUSNESS is the only reality and can't have anything

outside It (It has no outside being limitless and not conditioned by

space!), it is also known as FULLNESS. It is, therefore, EXISTENCE,

CONSCIOUSNESS (KNOWLEDGE) and FULLNESS. As fullness is without

wants, it is happiness or absolute contentment too, popularly

translated as BLISS. This is sat-chit-Ananda. Call it nirguna, if

you so desire, as it is attributeless unlike the objects of the first

category. Since CONSCIOUSNESS has no outside, it cannot have any

inside either as the latter has no meaning without the former. So,

the `sprout' and the objects that it encompasses cannot be within

CONSCIOUSNESS. How can there be something inside when there is no

inside at all. The subjects of category one, which are conditioned

by space-time, cannot be parts of Consciousness as Consciousness

cannot be compartmentalized within space-time limits. It cannot

reflect too as there is no `where' aside from it where it can

reflect. Lastly, since category one is because CONSCIOUSNESS IS,

CONSCIOUSNESS is considered as pervading it. Please note that our

recent discussion on the initial verses of Bhagwat Geeta (Chapter 9)

covered these aspects well.

 

Then, where are they – you, me, the hell of a lot of other beings,

reincarnation, the one who reincarnates, your questions etc.? The

only logical answer – in the snake on the rope. It is due to an

obvious error or misconception that they seem to exist. Whose error?

The asker's who is in category one. When the error is undone just

like the false snake is removed from the rope, CONSCIOUSNESS remains

and "shines forth" as the seeker or asker. He realizes that there

has never been any creation or projection at all! That, I hope,

answers those who persistently ask questions like "Why does

Consciousness project? Where is the projection occurring?" etc.

 

I don't want to take recourse to any similes available aplenty in the

advaitic armoury because they all belong to category one and have

their own limitations. The truth I summed up is an intuitive quantum

jump that each one of us has to take through contemplation. The

lingering doubts will then be removed.

 

It is very important that, in this interpretation, we don't have to

reject category one at all , i.e. this diverse universe. We just

need to avoid subjective involvement with it and perceive the

fullness of it. Anyone who looks at the glory of the night sky can

feel the fullness of the universe. It should be infinite as its

continuous beyondness poses unceasing challenges to our limited

intellects. An infinite `thing' (that includes the limited you) is

full too. Only the feeling of separation from it makes you feel that

it is outside there and apart from you. When the separation is

removed, like the basic error or misconception we discussed above,

you become the infinite universe of everything in category

one 'projecting and withdrawing' it. There is then no diversity as

fullness connotes indivisibility. The unity is seen. Advaitic truth

is appreciated with the eyes open without going into samAdhi!

CONSCIOUSNESS – YOU – pervade(s) everything and nothing is apart or

different from you!

 

This is my basic advaitic vision. We have to live this truth and it

is possible to do so only if we relinquish our subjective involvement

with the first category and dwell constantly upon the advaitic

reality. Scriptures say that this is very much possible now and

here. To such a realized one, even a blackhole that stares on his

face, is a matter to be smiled away. What to speak then of our mortal

worries!

 

Sorry for my sloppy language with the inevitable capitals, brackets

etc. and if I have indulged in a long post. I thought this was

necessary as no purposeful dialogue is possible unless we share a

basic vision. If you find the answers to your very pertinent

questions in this rambling interpretation, I will be more than happy.

 

Lastly, I am subject to correction either by you or the other

members. As I said above, I like to learn more.

 

Pranams.

 

Madathil Nair