I’ve seen the idea of reincarnation popping up here and there on ILP lately. Reincarnation, as I understand it, is the process by which some part of a living being (esp. a person) endures after death and is “reborn” to another life, perhaps as a different sort of being than was enjoyed in the previous life. For example, a man could die and some part of him would be reborn as a monkey or a carrot, and vice versa. Implicitly I think it is usually assumed that this rebirth happens in our world; that is, if you die in our world you come back in our world.
What confuses me about this understanding of reincarnation is that virtually no one seems to tell us about their previous lives unless they have already been coached and immersed in the idea of reincarnation to begin with. Even in cultures where the idea of reincarnation is common, it is a rare and celebrated event when someone seems to “remember” aspects of their past life. I’ll be generous and suspend judgment on the truth of these accounts. Either way, it seems rare that anyone remembers anything about their past life.
My question: if we take it as given that reincarnation occurs, and that most of the time people don’t remember anything about their past lives, then in what sense does any part of a reincarnated person’s past life “endure” and affect that person’s current life? If it is the “soul”, what do you mean by the soul? If we were to compare the past life to the current life, what differences or similarities does the soul account for?
My opinion is that if a person does not remember their previous life in any respect, there is no sensible way to say that some part of that person “is” the enduring part of a person from a previous life. The two are completely different people.
In particular, there is no reason to fear reincarnation into a bad, suffering lot because “you” will not be around to experience the badness and the suffering. Therefore the Eastern religions’ threat of karma affecting one’s rebirth experience has no teeth.
Pure Conciousness. (without knowledge or awareness)
You are completely right. This conciousness or life force has possessed two completely different people. But are they really different? The same thing flows through both of them.
The truth of reincarnation is that you don’t become Murdoc, die, and then become Murdoc again. You become Murdoc, die, then become aporia. In fact, whether you want to belive it or not, I am you right now and vice-versa. Our knowledge or awareness that we have gathered over the years is what creates the illusion of difference.
So let me say that I had one of these ‘past life experiences’ as Murdoc. I am not going back to the previous Murdoc. I could just be going back and remembering some random Joe and this is still considered a ‘past life’. Remember, the past and future don’t exist. It is just a way of talking. I am everyone that has ever existed and will ever exist at this very moment. I am everyone. Every life is my ‘past life’.
First of all, you should thoroughly study the concept of reincarnation as it appears in different cultures, because you are wrong in several points.
I will not attempt to make an exhaustive thesis on reincarnation now, but I stress that the concept is present in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, most african cultures and European pagan societies.
In asian beliefs, reincarnation is closely linked to karma, and does not occur chaotically.
At the time of death (anta-kale), what we think of determines what body our soul will transmigrate to in the next life. Our subtle body’s programming is what determines our thoughts at the time of death.
This begs the question of what the purpose of human life is. The answer is given in the Vedic scripture, the Vedanta Sutra, that the aim is brahma or self-realisation. In other words, the human form of life is given so that we may connect with God through service. If we cultivate this purpose then we are at least guaranteed to again receive a human form. Reincanation is done, thus, with a purpose.
In Plato’s view the number of souls was fixed; birth therefore is never the creation of a soul, but only a transmigration from one body to another. Plato’s acceptance of the doctrine is characteristic of his sympathy with popular beliefs and desire to incorporate them in a purified form into his system. This opinion persists later on, with Neoplatonists.
It is true what you said about forgetfulness. In Pato’s myths, the spirit of the dead chose his sole, and after that drank out of the river Lethe, the river that brought oblivion to his mind.
However, in the religious or philosophical approaches to methempsychosis (hope I got it right) of the world, forgetting is not indelibly linked with tearing the bond with the afterlife. This memory of past lives accumulates somewhere at a level of experience, and undoubtedly, all stages through which one’s soul passess are strictly connected, just like the clothes one chooses to wear- they represen his style.
It takes more than that to please you, I’m sure, but I trust you will carry on from here and study the matter more carefully.
First, I am assuming this was addressed towards aporia. Therefor, I will back you up on one of your claims towards aporia …
Good point. When we die and meld back with Pure Conciousness we lose all knowledge of the experience that we had from that life. Because the river is pure conciousness and nothing more. Experience doesn’t exist there. When we are born again, we start over and gain new knowledge or new experiences. So it is impossible to jump the gap or remember knowledge or experience that you lost from previous lives. Unless you were to revisit previous knowledge in this life through meditation. Hence, past life experiences.
This is really difficult to answer because there is yet to be any way of affirming reincarnation. But, in considering your questions I believe I can provide an answer.
We bring many things with us from our previous lives, the majority of this is karma. There are laws set in place that allow for our karma to be exhausted in the best ways possible. Considering the unique nature of every individual, the positions we are propelled to when an incarnation occurs are seemingly the best available to be able to allow the new incarnated soul to extinguish its remaining karma. We are placed in a position in which those souls we have remaining karma with are still in our lives, or will be when they are reincarnated as well.
Besides karma, there is particular knowledge from previous lives carried along as well. These present themselves in the form of mental faculties that an individual has an affinity for. The formulation of these faculties also plays a role in the positioning of an incarnated soul. For instance, an individual who has lived a life and has gained an affinity for music, will ultimately be placed in a musical familiy so these affinities can be nurtured in the best ways possible. The same goes with various other abilities and talents. When individuals are “older souls”, it is apparent that they should have many talents, and only the most salient or possibly the most important in terms of evolutionary growth are taken into consideration most when the positioning of the soul occurs. We can only be placed in the best circumstances possible for extinguishing our karma and nurturing our faculties.
One can consider these faculties by comparing them to evolutionary growth in all species. Basically what happens is, a form of life, through the medium of energy interacts with its environment. The environment then vibrating back with its specific energy of that particular envionment sparks a new type of vibration in the life form. This is why we evolve. The life form receiving new vibrations reacts in a way similar to the vibrations produced from the environment, eventually creating a new organism with these vibrations or new knowledge already innate. Its the same way humans interact with the environment and gain knowledge from the environment as well. Its just a different type of mechanism being using, but considerably its all consciousness. But basically this process isnt lost in reincarnation. I mean look at the animal kingdom. Animals evolve and are still doing so. Each individual animal learns from its environment, and when it dies, the knowledge it has learned, if this knowledge is salient among the entire species, a slightly new species will be created with this new knowledge.
A common misconception about reincarnation is that humans can become plants and animals. This is false. Plants, animals, minerals etc., the whole gamut of life minus humans, have what could be referred to as group souls. These group souls reincarnate in the main root species of their particular life form. Human beings in this way are different, hence our huge role in nature. We, being fully dual natured individually, have individual souls. Soul here can be described as a division of pure consciousness that is of course as infinite as consciousness itself, or our divine nature that is a division of the infinite all, containing within it all knowledge or potential of knowledge through energy. Hence the reason why we evolve. The environment has to spark this energy into existence. Anyway, our individuality derives from our minds because we believe we are a separate being. This is a big step in evolution, for the soul also splits off individualy as a result, and the basis for further evolution not only depends on the species itself, but also on the individual him/herself. So instead of reincarnating as a group soul where there is no individuality amongst the species, we reincarnate as individual souls because there is individuality. We obtain our own knowledge of experience and we keep these faculties for evolutionary growth, whether they do or do not pertain to the growth in our relative terms. The innate principles in man were more so derived from our animal like nature back a long time ago. Any new innate principles are that of our individual learning. This does not stunt our growth however, for it would appear that if we continued to retain group knowledge all of us would grow faster. But instead of the group knowledge being retained in the form of an innate ability, it is retained in the form of a collective mind. Hence all this talk amongst early psychologist about the unconscious, subconscous, etc.
Keep in mind, all of this is speculation, and I am not stating this as a fact. Of course these are my beliefs, and what make since to me at this time. I have reason to believe this is truth, but I cannot prove it to be so. Your comments and suggestions are welcome.
Oh, I forgot to express my admiration for the subjec, although I wanted to do so in my last thread. I do believe it’s pretty attractive and picturesque, although I cannot say whether I deem it true or not. I am either too young, or too unexperienced. Or, rather, both.
There have been a couple of known cases that linked suspiciously with reincarnation. People speaking languages they had never had the oportunity to learn, remembering places they had never visited, so on… I can’t quite stress on a particular example now, but I know they exist.
I wonder if these facts are to be accounted for as true, and if they consist some sort of evidence. It’s not been scientifically demonstrated that such a thing is possible, but then science has a lot of things left to demonstrate.
We cannot rule reincarnation out just because we don’t like it, or because it interferes with any of our moral or religious beliefs. That would be like thinking with a condom strapped to your brain.
But the question is : can we accept it ?
Aporia, you’ve virtually given every “proof” I can think of to disprove the existence of re-incarnation — This does not make it very easy to provide you with a plausible response…
What I mean is: You haven’t even given the topic of re-incarnation much of a chance to begin with…if you catch my drift.
Of course, I suppose that, as with most religions, it is required that one have faith — specifically, a faith in something that cannot be necessarily proven by logic alone. In this sense, re-incarnation seems to have it’s only substance.
Perhaps a re-incarnated creature (as someone may have already stated) has no idea that it previously lived as different type creature. Perhaps you or I may be re-incarnated and do not realize it.
But this leaves us with a crucial question: Who were we originally?
First, I must say that I have no personal clue whether reincarnation exists or not.
If reincarnation exists, there will be “your” experience that is watching the world through that new individual’s senses. I mean, you are a different person today than you were 1 week ago (more or less), but there is still “you” that live as you today, if you see what I mean. You wake up in that same body every morning, even if you have changed.
An example: If someone is threatening you with a gun and say he will shoot you next week, you don’t think “It’s ok, because that will not be me anyway”.
So my answer must be: Your experience is the “part” (abstractly) that will reincarnate, IF reincarnation exists. Some people call the experience “the soul”.
It is simply impossible to respond to this question without a clear idea of “whose reincarnation” you’re talking about. Plato, Hindus, and Buddhists all have different conceptions of what reincarnation is, what it isn’t, and how it works. Even within Buddhism, there is disagreement between the different schools over what it means.
By some accounts of reincarnation, there isn’t even a “soul” or “past lives” that we can access, or even anything supernatural or paranormal in nature.
Also, the original poster is assuming that the function of Karma and reincarnation is a sort of carrot and stick threat/reward system of why we should be good, along similar lines as the authoritative aspects of Christianity. It is nothing of the sort, nor does it seek to fulfill that role.
