Reincarnation and Advaita

[Guest guest]

Hello All,

Could determined scepticism resist the doctrine of

 

reincarnation? Yes I think so. You could hold that the

 

information which only the deceased was privy to is known to

 

the putative reincarnee by means of retroactive clairvoyance.

 

No less marvellous but sustainable. Then given that I have a

 

view of identity informed by avidya ie. based on bodily and

 

mental characteristics, it would make no sense at all to say

 

that I was the same person as someone deceased of a different

 

sex speaking a different language. O.K. you might say it's not

 

the same in that sense what is continous is the psychic bundle

 

of desires, merit and demerit working itself out through

 

another life. A subtle body at the time of death bears this

 

pack on to the next locus. Well says the sceptic suppose that

 

by some wormhole wonder I am contemporary with my own

 

reincarnation on the other side of the world. {Ramana allowed

 

a varient of this paradox - 'the upadhis are different' he

 

said} In avidya I have no feeling that what they are up to has

 

an individual impact on me or vice versa. In jnana nobody came

 

or went.

 

To detach any doctrine from the main philosophical body of

 

which it is a part is an artifical procedure. The force that a

 

doctrine has is due to its coherence with our here and now

 

world view. Any one strand of the net is easily broken but the

 

whole could support an elephant. The picture is continuous,

 

all the lines join up, the curves are faired in; it's a living

 

whole. With faith it is a reality.

 

Ciao and Blessings, Michael

[Guest guest]

Namaste Michael and all.

 

I went up the thread and found out that my mail 15677 elicited your

post.

 

Well, then the following comments are warranted:

 

No attempt was made to detach the `doctrine of reincarnation' from

its main philosophical body.

 

My attempt was to place the 'doctrine' where it rightly belongs and

show that such doctrines are not absolutely necessary for us to

appreciate our wholeness.

 

What does it matter to an advaitin if he takes hundreds of thousands

of births as long as his eyes are fixed on the Light that shines on.

NirvAna or mukti can wait for him. The one who is so firmly-rooted

knows that the Light keeps shining on and is not bothered by the

things that shine after, may they be reincarnations, subtle body and

other bodies, bundles of desires and vAsanas and their alleged

mechanics. Personally, I would like to belong to such blessed lot

freed by the logic of advaita from the fears of isolation, separation

and limitations. This, I believe, is the `faith' you hinted at in

the concluding sentence of your mail.

 

The possibility of a `wormhole wonder of simultaneous, contemporary

(If the upAdhis are different as Bhagwan pointed out, why impart a

temporal sense?) existence is quite on the cards. However, it may

not be possible to comfortably present details of it to a skeptic

audience as in the case of reincarnation where we have many alleged

reports for verification.

 

All said and done, all such cases are again in category one, i.e. in

the `here and now world view' you mentioned, and they are things that

shine after and, therefore, matters for an advaitin to smile away. We

may accept them. That is another matter. But, by elaborately going

into such issues or doctrines, we may at best only have our audience

raise eyebrows. To an aspiring advaitin, there also is the danger of

getting waylaid. Am I right?

 

PranAms.

 

Madathil Nair

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Madathil Rajendran Nair <madathilnair>"

<madathilnair> wrote:

> Namaste Michael and all.

>

> I went up the thread and found out that my mail 15677 elicited your

> post.

>

>

Hello Madathil and advaitins generally,

I was off on a tangent of my own on the lower slopes of Advaita. My point was

the really mundane one that in the case of reincarnation the concept of evidence

is not the same as in scientific investigation. To that end I offered you that

contrary fellow the determined sceptic. Reincarnation is the sort of thing that

people accept on authority. Shankara speaking of Brahman as being the material

and efficent cause of the universe he says of reasoning which concerns the

supersensible - "Although reasoning may be noticed to have finality in some

contexts, still in the present context it cannot possibly get any immunity from

the charge of being inconclusive; for this extremely sublime subject-matter,

concerned with the reality of the cause of the Universe and leading to the goal

of liberation, cannot even be guessed without the help of the Vedas. And we

said that It cannot be known either through perception, being devoid of form

etc., or through inference etc., being devoid of the grounds of inference etc."

B.S.B.II.i.11.

 

In II.i.27 also speaking of authority he says "The nature of a thing beyond

thought consists in its being other than the things within Nature." To those

supernatural things he adds worldly things with occult properties eg.gems,

incantations, herbs and so on... And even those powers can be known not from

mere reasoning but from such instruction as, "Such a thing has such kinds of

potency with the aid of such things, on such things and for such purposes."

 

I suppose the significant word here is 'inconclusive'. Let the stories support

your faith but not to the extent that if they turn out to be frauds your faith

will then be shattered. As to whether they are a distraction from the ascent to

the airier regions of Advaita Mountain I feel that one's present view of

identity naturally leads to the consideration of posthumous adventures in the

event that Moksha is not attained.

 

The upadhis not being the same for Bhagavan Ramana was his explanation for the

case of a person who was the reincarnation of someone who had not died yet.

pg.215 Talks: The boy is 7 years now. He recalls his past births. Enquiries

go to show that the previous body was given up 10 months ago.....Did the soul

occupy two bodies at the same time? Sri Bhagavan pointed out that the

seven years is according to the boy; ten months is according to the observer.

The difference is due to these two different upadhis.

On page 114 he states: Not only can one be reborn, one may be twenty or forty or

even seventy years old in the new body though only two years after death.

 

He also says: But in fact there is neither birth nor death. One remains as what

one really is. That is the only Truth. (531)

 

Ciao and Blessings, Michael.