Question on Karma / Re-incarnation

[Guest guest]

Dear Advaitins,

 

This is another perpetual question that I have been having. Is

Karma /Re-birth for real? I mean if there is only one Eternal

Spirit/Soul/Consciousness, i.e. no individual souls, what then re-

incarnates?

 

And karma is supposed to be the cause for re-incarnation. But

whatever is being done, is only being done by the BMI and that cannot

at all affect the Soul/Consciousness. Then how can Karma cause re-

birth of Soul? ( i.e If something re-incarnates it should be the one

that did Karma. In this case this is BMI. Then why should soul re-

incarnate? )

 

I would like to think that karma itself is illusory just like

anything else in the universe. But the perplexing thing is that

Upanishads and other Advaita texts themselves have a mention about

Karma/Vasanas/Re-birth etc. Could anyone please clarify?

 

Thanks a lot and have a nice day!

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Sowmy" <nsowmy> wrote:

> Dear Advaitins,

>

> This is another perpetual question that I have been having. Is

> Karma /Re-birth for real? I mean if there is only one Eternal

> Spirit/Soul/Consciousness, i.e. no individual souls, what then re-

> incarnates?

> And karma is supposed to be the cause for re-incarnation. But

> whatever is being done, is only being done by the BMI and that

cannot

> at all affect the Soul/Consciousness. Then how can Karma cause re-

> birth of Soul? ( i.e If something re-incarnates it should be the

one

> that did Karma. In this case this is BMI. Then why should soul re-

> incarnate? )

> I would like to think that karma itself is illusory just like

> anything else in the universe. But the perplexing thing is that

> Upanishads and other Advaita texts themselves have a mention about

> Karma/Vasanas/Re-birth etc. Could anyone please clarify?

 

Namaste, Sowmy-ji,

 

You have asked too many questions and you are mixing up too many

things. Many have these questions in their mind but they don't ask

and they continue to remain in doubt. In order that every reader of

this post may understand the context right, I have reproduced your

mail above in full. Thank you for asking these questions. Below I am

trying to recast your questions and my answer in the form of a

dialogue rather long; but please bear with the length of the

dialogue. `S' stands for Sowmy and `VK' stands for me. I have

myself interpolated statements and questions under your name as if I

have read your mind. If something is wrong you are free to take

exception in your response to this mail.

 

VK: What is your first question?

S: Is Karma/Rebirth for real?

VK: Who is asking this question – a jnAni or an ordinary seeker of

Truth?

S: A jnAni would not have asked this question. Take it that I am

asking the question as an ordinary seeker.

VK: Then what is the problem? Karma and Rebirth are real. They are

as real as you and I are.

S: But the Upanishads are saying that there is only One Eternal

Spirit/Soul/ Consciousness. So what is it that reincarnates.?

VK: This is where I would say you are mixing up concepts and issues.

S: I don't understand you.

 

VK: When you are talking of reincarnation, Karma, etc. you are

talking in the phenomenal level of our universe. When you are

talking of the One Eternal/Spirit /Consciousness, you are talking

at the Absolute level. The Absolute level is called pAramArthika

level in Vedanta. The two levels should not be mixed up. It is like

mixing up of what happens in the dream state and what happens in the

waking state. Having borrowed money in the waking state, the return

of this borrowed money in the dream would not settle the issue in

the waking state. When Upanishads says there is only One Absolute

Reality, that is at the Absolute level. In the mundane level, all

multiplicity is true for mundane transactional or operational

purposes.

 

S: But if something reincarnates, either it reincarnates or it

does not. You cannot have it both ways. So you have not yet answered

me whether there is reincarnation and what reincarnates.

 

VK: There is no reincarnation at the pAramArthika level. Because at

that level, there is no activity or change. There is no question of

time and space – without which we cannot talk of reincarnation. At

the vyAvaharika level, there are souls which reincarnate.

 

S: But karma is the cause for reincarnation. It is only the BMI

that does karma. How can it affect the soul and make it reincarnate?

 

VK: Very good question. This is the subtlest point in Hindu

philosophy. You said that BMI does karma. But do you know that body,

mind and intellect -- all three of them – are inert? You will

certainly accept that body is inert. Body cannot act by itself.

There is a life-force within to make it act. But that is also true

of the mind and intellect. They cannot act without the life-force

behind it. This life-force is the spiritual spark said to

be `within', but actually pervading the entire body, mind and

intellect. When this spiritual spark is thus pervading the BMI, we

call it the jIva. The English usage is the word `soul' which is only

an apology for a translation. Now we have to consider the body as

distinct from the mind and intellect. For the purpose of this

discussion we may safely put the mind and intellect together and

talk only of the mind. When the body meets with its death, the mind

does not die. It clings to the jIva which leaves the body. In due

time the jIva goes to another body. The mind of the earlier birth

also goes along, but not as the same mind with all its memories. The

memories die with the brain. But the imprints of all the memories

and of the actions remain in the mind as vAsanAs (also called

samskAras) and they go along with the jIva to the other body. So in

the new incarnation the jIva has a new body, but the mind in it now

has the same stamp as what it was by the tendencies that it had

developed when it left the previous body. So all karma that was

done in the previous birth by that BMI, has a consequence in the

next birth also because the mind, in the above sense, is the same. A

jIva cannot express itself without a mind or body. And a mind cannot

express itself because it is inert. It is the mind that does

everything (in the presence of the life-force which the jIva gives

it) and it is the mind that gets the consequences of what it does –

either in the same birth or in future births. But the mind has to

act and react only through a body and it is the jIva that carries

the mind from body to body. This is the process of reincarnation.

 

S: But all this is illusory, isn't it?

 

VK. Yes. But, again, only at the pAramArthika level. When you use

the word illusory, you have to stand beyond the illusion to say it

is illusory. Staying within the illusion, you cannot say it is

illusory. When you are dreaming, you don't think or say you are

dreaming. Only when you wake up, you know you had been dreaming. So

also, when the Upanishads say that the universe is mAyA, they only

mean it from the pAramArthika level. In ordinary dreams nobody is

able to come in our dream and say : `My friend, you are now

dreaming'! But in the actual world, which Vedanta says is only

mAyA, the Vedantic teacher is able to come in the same mAyic world

and tell us that this is all mAyA.

 

S: But what is the purpose? Even if within my dream somebody says

it is a dream, would that wake me up?

 

VK: But in the actual world, the Vedanta teacher says -- in the

same actual world – that this actual world is a dream from the

Absolute level, and that we should wake up to realise that the BMI

which is clinging to us should be thrown off and we should remain at

the jIva/spirit/consciousness/Absolute level .

 

S: What does it mean to live so?

 

VK: It means the unhappiness or otherwise that the BMI claims it is

going through, will not affect us.

 

S: I think I need time to think about it all. Thank you.

 

PraNAms to all advaitins

profvk

[Guest guest]

Professor VK

The answers are beautiful and to the point. Thanks.

As you rightly pointed out the central problem in all these doubts

arises due to mixing up of the reference states - paaramaarthika state

and vyavahaarika state.

 

Absolte homogenous undifferntiable consciousness is the paaramaarthika

state - where consciousness alone is there.

 

Differentiable with sajaati, vijaati and swagata bhedaas where the

difference between kartaa, karma and kriya are inherent is the

vyavahaara state. karma, and kartRitva bhaava exists at the vyavahaara

state and question that how can that be is asked from a paaramaarthika

state of understanding. It is all illusion is only looking at the

vyvahaara from the point of paaramaarthika.

 

All long as these questions arise we are in the vyavahaara? As you

rightly pointed that all these questions automatically dissolve once one

understands the paarmaarthika not as thought but as a fact.

 

'akartaaham abhoktaaham aham evaahamavyayaH ' says Shankara in

Brahmaavali -'I am neither doer nor enjoyer, I am one without a second,

inexhaustible and undifferentiated', and that is the state to be

understood. Till then it is state to be contemplated upon at the seat of

meditation.

 

AS one advaitin remarked, 'I am never born, and what is meaning in

asking me about re-incornation?' - but that is from factual

understanding, that I am one without a second.

 

Hari OM!

Sadananda

 

 

 

--- "V. Krishnamurthy" <profvk wrote:

.. I have

> myself interpolated statements and questions under your name as if I

> have read your mind. If something is wrong you are free to take

> exception in your response to this mail.

>

 

What you have is destiny and what you do with what you have is self-effort.

Future destiny is post destiny modified by your present action. You are not only

the prisoner of your past but master of your future. - Swami Chinmayananda

[Guest guest]

Thanks a lot profvk-ji for pointing out the flaw in my reference

point and also for all the clarifications given.

 

But now, I have questions about the souls in the phenomenal

level. ) . I cant help it and hence i request all to please bear

with me.

 

What are these souls? Why do they act as carriers of mind ? Can

the "jiva and mind-with-vasana" exist without entering a new body?

Can they possess another body which doesnt belong to them?

 

I have heard about an incident in Shri Adi Shankara's life, in which

he transmigrates to a dead-body of that of a King, to answer a

question raised by a woman during a debate. Then can souls enter

dead bodies as well ???

 

And what is the logic behind doing death anniversary ceremonies?

 

Well, I know, all these questions are at vyAvaharika level, and they

have no locus standi at the absolute level, but still im tempted to

ask them.

 

Thanks again for your time and patience.

 

Best Regards,

sowmy

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Sowmy" <nsowmy> wrote:

>

> What are these souls? Why do they act as carriers of mind ? Can

> the "jiva and mind-with-vasana" exist without entering a new body?

> Can they possess another body which doesnt belong to them?

>

> I have heard about an incident in Shri Adi Shankara's life, in

which

> he transmigrates to a dead-body of that of a King, to answer a

> question raised by a woman during a debate. Then can souls enter

> dead bodies as well ???

 

Namaste,IMHO,

 

As Jesus said all power come to he/she that overcomes.

 

These jivas are just whirlpools in the ocean of samasar, that have

forgotten they are in fact the ocean. They are not carriers of mind

but composites of the mind. This is how the mind is made up-Jivas.

 

Of course within illusion all is possible for it is illusion. A Jiva

is a construct and can exist in any form in the three worlds. Ramana

said for the unliberated there is always a type of body.

 

Yes there is a Yogic technique for those who have overcome and even

others to occupy dead bodies. Usually they are recently dead, and I

remember a story of a yogi entering a younger body already on the

funeral pyre and then walking away. To save time growing up in a new

body I suppose.

 

The Liberated Jesus also re-entered a dead body and re-energised it,

although it was one that he had already occupied.

 

Then we have the story of Indra becoming a pig for a while, and

Krishna creating multiple bodies for the Gopis to dance with.

 

Once we realise that the Jiva is just constructs then it disappears,

and on dropping the body it all collapses as never having happened

at all............ONS...Tony

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sowmy,

 

you have interesting qustions....

 

you write about a body....in which there is life again....after

death....

about the power of some people to enter in a death body...

 

indead ...for a mind attached to the body-mind-intellect this sounds

mysterious.....

such a mind....depending on the spirituality,can be witness of such

happening one day

 

maybe it's the Self who express by this occasion on how deep in

reality is the "attachment" or "detachment" to the world....means, to

body mind intellect.

 

are you sure that there are seperated "bodies" existing...?

are you sure that you are this body-mind-intellect?...

 

all have the same "soul".....the source of all mind(s) is from

same "soul".....this "soul" is reflected in endless forms....and all

this endless forms are at all the times directly connected to

this "soul".....they are One....can't be seperated at any time

 

all This is existance....

 

hope that the few words and thoughts don't cause more confusion on

the subject...

 

Regards

 

Peace and love

 

Marc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

advaitin, "Sowmy" <nsowmy> wrote:

> Thanks a lot profvk-ji for pointing out the flaw in my reference

> point and also for all the clarifications given.

>

> But now, I have questions about the souls in the phenomenal

> level. ) . I cant help it and hence i request all to please bear

> with me.

>

> What are these souls? Why do they act as carriers of mind ? Can

> the "jiva and mind-with-vasana" exist without entering a new body?

> Can they possess another body which doesnt belong to them?

>

> I have heard about an incident in Shri Adi Shankara's life, in

which

> he transmigrates to a dead-body of that of a King, to answer a

> question raised by a woman during a debate. Then can souls enter

> dead bodies as well ???

>

> And what is the logic behind doing death anniversary ceremonies?

>

> Well, I know, all these questions are at vyAvaharika level, and

they

> have no locus standi at the absolute level, but still im tempted to

> ask them.

>

> Thanks again for your time and patience.

>

> Best Regards,

> sowmy

[Guest guest]

Thanks Tony & Dennis for your thoughts on this. Like i said in my

earlier mail, these questions came to me since Shri Profvk-ji mentioned

that in this transactional/operational world, there are individual

souls that re-incarnate. We know, in this phenomenal world, what a body

or a mind means, their nature and their attributes. I was just

wondering what is the nature of an individual soul in this vyAvaharika

state and raised some questions about it.

 

But I do understand that, once the illusion of vyAvaharika state is

seen through, then all there is Consciousness, no individual body, mind

or soul, and no creation in the first place...Only absolute Bliss...

 

Thanks for your time and Have a Nice Day!