Doubts regarding the advaithic view of reincarnation.

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Revered Members,

 

I am in the process of gaining intectual understanding of the non-

dualistic view of life/reality. As I did some atma-vichara a lot of

questions/doubts clotted my understanding. Some of those questions

related to reincarnation I am posting here. I humbly request the

knowledgable members of this forum to clarify my doubts.

 

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Questions:

 

1. What is an advaithin's position on reincarnation or

transmigration? What is it that is migrating from one life to

another? What is the medium through which our vasanas or the

impressions of good and bad deeds, thougts etc. or our unfinished

sadhana migrate from one life to other life. I mean, when a iological

life is created and Self manifests in it we call that a birth. In

this, the biological life (body,mind,intellect,prana etc) is

insentient and forms as a result of pure biochemical reactions. And

Self is alpervading and in it there are no vasanas what so ever. So

by what medium our samkaras (prarabha, sanchitha karma etc) in one

life can migrate to another? After a person dies where does these

samskara's reside so that they will be carried to next life?

 

2. What is the merit for me to attain realisation or advaitha-

anubhava and how is it better than killing myself at this moment ?

How can one guarantee eternal bliss (not falling back to ignorance)

when one achives realisation? Say for example Ramana Maharshi was a

realised soul and he left his material body. I say he reborned as

another person(the person, body, mind etc with ignorance) and now

caught in ignorance again. How can we deny the possibility of this?

After all, it is the Same Self that manifests in every body-mind. Let

me explain my question by an example. Say person A kills himself at

this moment and person B is a realised soul and left his body at this

moment. In theory, Person A will reincarnate as say person C. Now

how can we relate the ignorence of person C to past life of person

A and not person B.

 

3. If we agree that a birth occurs because of reincarnation or

transmigration of Self, then the human population should be more or

less uniform through out the years/decades/centuries. This is because

every living person in this world should have had a past life too.

Then how come the world population is exploding over the centuries.

>From where all these new persons are coming?

 

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Here is my current understanding of a few concepts I am basing my

questions on. Please correct me if there are mistakes in my

understanding.

 

 

Atman/Self: The conscious principle by virtue of which everything

else is known, Eternal Subject - all pervading and infinite - the

core of beingness/existance - that which can't be negated and can't

be known/reasoned/understood, as the very faculty of intellect or

reasoning presupposes this beingness/consciousness.

 

Birth/Life: When the Self is manifested in a specific body, mind and

intellect (BMI) we can say there is a birth or (conscious)life. In

other words when we refer a birth (say a human birth or human life)

we understand that there is a BMI and the Self that animates or gives

vitality to that BMI.

 

Jiva/Individual: When the Self which is boundless by nature is

thought to be bounded in a specific BMI, a Jiva comes into picture.

In other word when the attributes of BMI (or objective world) are

superimposed on the Self, the Self appears to be limited itself to a

specific BMI, then that BMI is thought to be an individual or jiva.

The reason for this is ignorance or false knowledge or Avidya or

mithya-jnana or by what ever name we call it.

 

Death: When the BMI decomposes into the elements it is composed of

then its the death. Or when the BMI is no longer animated by the

Self, the conscious principle that vitalizes BMI then BMI becomes

inert and this can be considered as death. The Self remains but the

BMI falls.

 

Diversity of Jivas: When the Self manifests in different BMIs and

when these different BMIs are superimposed on the Self different

jivas arise. That means in each Jiva, the Self is mistakenly be

limited by the corresponding BMI (like when the space is limited by

different posts, then different 'pot spaces' can be seen).My

understanding of the Diversity of Jivas is in the lines of Ghata-

Akaasa and Maha-Akkasa approach.

 

Brahman: The Self, when it is not thought to be bounded by anything

(like BMI or anything). The all pervading conscousness. The absolute

existance, knowledge principle. As there is no question of birth or

death here (as there is no superimposition) Brahman is considered as

eternal. The changeless entity which witnesses all objective changes.

 

World/Jagat: The objective entities that are felt/known/experianced

by the BMI when it is vitalised by the Self. That which can be known

or classified as "That" including the BMI itself, can be categorised

as world.

 

 

May the Self lead us to be established in Self!

 

Regards

 

Kanakaraju