REINCARNATION

[Jon Fergus]

This is part of an ongoing series of posts regarding specific concepts related to theosophy.

Other Resources: Evolution, Karma, Souls

The intention of these posts are to create a resource for inquiring students, so we'll approach it a little differently than we would a normal discussion.

Please read below for the intended format of this project.

Here's how we do this:

• Members are invited and encouraged to post their favorite quotes along with links to websites for further reading. If the quote is long (i.e. an entire chapter of a book), please select a couple sentences that stand out and then provide a link to the full chapter online (or if the book is not available online, please provide the title and author name). Anonymous quotes will be deleted, so be sure to source your info...

• Members are also invited and encouraged to share their own thoughts/interpretations on the concept. However, no rebuttals or counter arguments are to be made in regards to any member posts. As this will be a resource for students interested in learning about a topic, we're not looking for debates on its validity, but instead are looking for sincere attempts at interpretation of its meaning (whether by Plato, Buddha, Blavatsky or Mr. Average Joe Smith!).

• Each member will be allowed only ONE post of their own interpretation, but are encouraged to post as many quotes and links to other sources as they wish. So think carefully and take your time composing your own thoughts on the subject - there's no rush and no deadlines!

• Let's also set a 500 word maximum for any post (whether of a quote or member interpretation).

 

The main idea here is that when you come across something while reading and think to yourself: "wow, what a beautiful description of such and such!", you can come here and post the quote and/or link so that we may all share in the discovery! As this resource builds, when we say to ourselves: "Oh, now where did I hear that quote again? I know it was somewhere!?", we can come to Theosophy.Net, run a quick search, and viola! find the quote/link we were looking for!

 

 

Here we will post quotes, thoughts and links on the concept of Reincarnation.

I hope everyone will feel free to add to this ongoing resource. Don't be shy... share away! This is a "no debate zone". :)

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

There is some interesting view on Reincarnation from the other Krishnamurti (U G Krishnamurti) as he was popularly known.

[David Reigle]

Like with karma, its twin teaching of reincarnation seems to have been taken for granted in India. I do not know of any Sanskrit treatises that try to prove reincarnation. Of course, stories about it may be found in texts such as the Upanishads, and a few of these stories depict attempts to demonstrate it. A bigger question may be whether humans can be reborn as animals, as the Eastern religions generally teach, but Theosophy denies.

The teaching of reincarnation is also attributed to Pythagoras in Greece. He is often considered to have taught rebirth as animals. In one of the early Theosophical books on the subject, E. D. Walker's 1888 Reincarnation: A Study of Forgotten Truth, this topic is brought up. He writes on p. 201, about Pythagoras:

"Although his name is synonymous with the transmigration of human souls through animal bodies, the strong probabilities are that if this doctrine came from him it was entirely exoteric, concealing the inner truth of reincarnation. Some of his later disciples, especially the author of the work which is attributed to Timaeus the Locian, denied that he taught it in any literal sense, and said that by it he meant merely to emphasize the fact that men are assimilated in their vices to the beasts."

It would be worthwhile for someone to try to find this Greek text, and quote exactly what he says on this question.

[Joe Fulton]

From Diogenes Laertius "Biography of Pythagoras", the sage was quoted as telling this story:

Herclides Ponticus says that he was accustomed to speak of himself in this manner: that he had formerly been Aethalides, and had been accounted the son of Mercury; and that Mercury had desired him to select any gift he pleased except immortality. Accordingly he had requested that, whether living or dead, he might preserve the memory of what had happened to him. While, therefore, he was alive, he recollected everything; and when he was dead, he retained the same memory. At a subsequent period he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus. While he was Euphorbus, he used to say that he had formerly been Aethalides, and that he had received as a gift from Mercury, the perpetual transmigration of his soul; so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased; and he had also received the gift of knowing and recollecting all that his soul had suffered in hell, and what sufferings too are endured by the rest of the souls.

But after Euphorbus died, he said that his soul had passed into Hermotimus; and when he wished to convince people of this, he went into the territory of the Branchidas, and going into the temple of Apollo, he showed his shield which Menelaus had dedicated there as an offering. For he said that he, when he sailed from Troy, had offered up his shield which was already getting worn-out, to Apollo, and that nothing remained but the ivory face which was on it. He said that when Hermotimus died he had become Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos; and that he still recollected everything, how he had formerly been Aethalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. When Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still recollected all the circumstances I have been mentioning.

This is from the website www.thecompletepythagoras.net

[Joe Fulton]

In a sense I wonder if the concept of reincarnation is important at all.  Reincarnation takes place in time.  If time is an illusion of some sort, then so must be reincarnation.

So that leads to a reframing of the idea.  How can we account for the various stories and philosophies without time? 

Imagine a "one existence" where all possible combinations of all conceivable events exist as possibilities (a many-worlds theory).  Incarnation becomes pathways between possibilities.  Karma is what draws the specific probabilities into paths.  Does it imply a progression?  I can't see how such a thing can be guaranteed.  Based on what I see on the evening news some people act like they have the consciousness of small animals and probably shouldn't be inhabiting a human body.

The problem for me has always been one of time.  Any system that has time and tries to explain going backwards or forwards (i.e. via the Siddhis in the Yoga Sutras) implies at some level all exist simultaneously.  That being the case, time really can't exist. No time, no reincarnation.

An interesting thing to do with any philosophic or scientific proposition is to work out the consequences...play "what if".  If nothing else some very dry subjects can become at least somewhat interesting.

[Jon Fergus]

In The Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians by Magus Incognito (William..., there's a chapter called "Metempsychosis" that does a good job in presenting arguments for reincarnation.

PART X: METEMPSYCHOSIS

Quote: "The Rosicrucians’ teachings hold that the Evolution of Man has been accomplished not alone by the general evolutionary trend of the race by which it moves forward from generation to generation, but also by the advance and ascent caused by the improvement in the reincarnating individual soul, each step of rebirth tending upward and onward. As a writer has said: "The teachings hold that Evolution is caused by the soul striving, struggling, and pressing forward toward fuller and still fuller expression, using Matter as a material, and yet always struggling to free itself from the confining and retarding influence of the latter. The struggle results in an unfoldment, causing sheath after sheath of the confining material bonds to be thrown off and discarded, as the spirit moulds matter to serve its higher purposes. Evolution is but the process of birth of the imprisoned spirit, unfolding and extricating itself from the web of matter in which it has been involved and infolded. And the pains and struggles are but incidents of the spiritual parturition.""

Similar as to what is found in ancient India, where little to no effort was made to prove reincarnation, as it was accepted as fact, the author here says:

"... the Rosicrucian teachers make no attempt to argue the question with the student; but, rather, present the teaching as it comes to them, backed up by the wealth of authority on the part of the ancient schools, and fortified by the innumerable personal recollections on the part of individuals—in most cases the student himself has an intuition of the truth of the doctrine..."

Also, in regards to evidence for reincarnation, the author says:

"If evidence of the truth of Metempsychosis other than personal intuition and glimpses of memory of past lives were needed, we would find such evidence in the phenomena of the infant prodigies, and cases of childhood genius, instance of which abound on all sides. Children at a very early age manifest evidences of a deep knowledge of mathematics, music, art, etc., even in cases where the explanation of heredity fails to fit the case. The case of Mozart gives us a typical case of this kind. The child, Mozart, at the age of four was able not only to perform difficult pieces of music on the piano, but also to compose original works of merit. Not only did he manifest the highest faculty of sound and note, but also an instinctive ability to compose and arrange music, which ability was far superior to that of many men who had devoted years of their life to the study and practice of music. The laws of harmony, the science of commingling tones, was to this wonderful child not the work of years, but a faculty born in him."

[Jon Fergus]

William Quan Judge addresses reincarnation in his work titled: The Ocean of Theosophy. In addition to providing his understanding of the subject, Judge also discusses two opposing notions: 1. that it is possible for a human being to reincarnation into animal forms (as is commonly taught in several eastern traditions), and 2. that once incarnated as a human being it is impossible to reincarnate into animal form.

Link: The Ocean of Theosophy, Chapter 8: Of Reincarnation

See also: The Ocean of Theosophy, Chapter 9: Reincarnation Continued

Quote:

"Reincarnation does not mean that we go into animal forms after death, as is believed by some Eastern peoples. "Once a man always a man" is the saying in the Great Lodge. But it would not be too much punishment for some men were it possible to condemn them to rebirth in brute bodies; however nature does not go by sentiment but by law, and we, not being able to see all, cannot say that the brutal man is brute all through his nature. And evolution having brought Manas the Thinker and Immortal Person on to this plane, cannot send him back to the brute which has not Manas.

... the present-day students know that once Manas the Thinker has arrived on the scene he does not return to baser forms; first, because he does not wish to, and second, because he cannot. For just as the blood in the body is prevented by valves from rushing back and engorging the heart, so in this greater system of universal circulation the door is shut behind the Thinker and prevents his retrocession. Reincarnation as a doctrine applying to the real man does not teach transmigration into kingdoms of nature below the human."

[Joe Fulton]

What are the implications either way?

[Jon Fergus]

Let's discuss this in a separate post. Feel free to start that up :)

[Jon Fergus]

See Joe's discussion on the consequences of reincarnation here:

http://theosnet.ning.com/forum/topics/consequences-of-reincarnation

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

Those interested in Advaita Vedanta's view on reincarnation may like to read the simpler explanation offered here.

[Jon Fergus]

Here's a book that seems quite interesting. I'm just beginning to delve into it. The author attempts to approach the theory of reincarnation from a modern, scientific perspective, seeking to develop testable hypothesis around the concept.

Link: The Soul Genome, Science and Reincarnation, by Paul Von Ward

The author also has a website, devoted to this merger of science and reincarnation theory:

http://www.reincarnationexperiment.org/home.html

http://www.reincarnationexperiment.org/reincarnationhistory.html

[Jon Fergus]

Of course, any compilation of texts relating to Reincarnation is incomplete without the famous words of the Bhagavad Gita, here given in Edwin Arnold's beautiful prose.

Link: The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold

Quote:

"Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;
Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for
ever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it
seems!
Who knoweth it exhaustless, self-sustained,
Immortal, indestructible,- shall such
Say, "I have killed a man, or caused to kill?"

Nay, but as when one layeth
His worn-out robes away,
And, taking new ones, sayeth,
"These will I wear to-day!"
So putteth by the spirit
Lightly its garb of flesh,
And passeth to inherit
A residence afresh.