Reincarnation

“It is no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once.” ~ Voltaire Reincarnation: The Basic Idea

(R1) Some aspect A of the human person (construed as a psycho-physical organism) persists after biological death at time t1 and is united at time t2 with a new body B of some sort.

(R2) For any time tn+2, when B ceases to exist, A is united to a subsequent body B* of some sort.

The conjunction of (R1) and (R2) constitutes the basic idea of reincarnation, roughly, the idea that human persons live a succession of multiple embodied lives. What exactly persists?

Negatively: not the physical body or material components of the human person.

Possibility 1: The Psychological Self

The Psychological Self refers to a distinct center of self- consciousness that (a) exhibits various beliefs, feelings, memories, intentions, and desires, (b) has the capacity to develop a distinctive character and sense of self-identity, and (c) operate causally on the world. Possibility 2: The Soul The soul refers to a non-physical substratum (or immaterial substance) that grounds the psychological self. The psychological self is a function of the soul.

What Persists? Positively: Either the human person’s complete psychological package OR aspects of a person’s psychological package OR the soul. (R1) is a permissive or neutral account of reincarnation. It allows a range of options for what gets reincarnated, from a person’s complete psychological package to the soul of a person.

Corollary of (R1). . . .

(R3) Every human person is continuous in some manner and to some degree with some formerly living human person or life form. Reincarnation Beliefs

Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Taoism

Various Some Christian Theosophy Ancient Greek Modern Western and Jewish Philosophers and & Philosophy Sects Scientists New Age

Reincarnation beliefs have been widespread in both eastern and western intellectual and religious thought. Five Fundamental Questions

What is reborn?

What drives the process of death and rebirth?

What is the purpose of human persons?

What is the nature and identity of human persons?

What is the nature of ultimate reality? Hinduism and Reincarnation Vedanta Metaphysics

Brahman is the one, eternal, unchanging, and wholly transcendent reality.

The creative power of Brahman expresses itself in the existence of the universe and all life forms within the universe. The universe is a finite manifestation of Brahman. It is designated Maya (illusion or appearance) to signify its mutable and dependent nature. Vedanta Philosophy of the Human Person

Vedanta distinguishes between an eternal and unchanging self (atman) and a temporary, mutable self (jiva).

Atman is the eternal, unchanging Self, identical with Brahman. This transcendental self is Atman beyond the subject-object duality implied by all individuality. It is infinite consciousness. The Supreme Soul.

Jiva is the individual, finite consciousness whose life begins in the womb and ends at physical death. It is the embodied self, soul, or psychophysical entity. In contrast to the Jiva Atman, the transcendental self, Jiva is the empirical self of the realm of maya. Relation between Atman and Jiva Jiva is a finite, temporary manifestation of Atman, the eternal, infinite consciousness.

Analogy: Atman is to Jiva what the space around a jar is to the space within the jar.

Space Outside Jar

Space Within Jar

As the space within the jar is space bounded and limited by the edges of the jar, Jiva is Atman bounded and limited by individuality. The Psycho-Physical Composition of the Empirical Self

The Upanishads describe the true self (Atman) as enveloped in five sheaths. They enclose the self in much the same way that a sheath encloses a sword. (1) physical sheath, (2) vitality sheath, (3) the mind sheath, (4) the intellect sheath, and (5) the bliss sheath. Each sheath is more subtle than the prior.

Later Hindu thought simplified this scheme and spoke of three bodies.

The gross body (sthula sharira) is equivalent to the physical and Gross vitality sheaths in the Upanishads. It is composed of the five Body elements (space, air, fire, water, and earth).

The subtle body (linga sharira) is equivalent to the mind and Subtle intellect sheath. It consists of five elements in uncompounded form Body embracing the perceptual, cognitive, deliberative, volitional, and vital powers of the human person.

Causal The causal body (karana sharira) is the dispositional state of the Body subtle body, or the subtle body at rest, in a seed like condition. Associated with the bliss sheath in the Upanishads. Subtle Body and Consciousness

The subtle/causal “body” is not material. “Body” refers to that which lacks consciousness (cit).

Consciousness Consciousness

MentalMental Events Substance

Thoughts, memories, and various mental dispositions linked to character must be capable of existence independent of a distinct center of consciousness. Individual consciousness emerges when atman is sheathed in the subtle, causal, and gross bodies. JivatmanAtman

Gross Causal Body Subtle Body Body What Happens at Death?

Detachment: at death, the causal and subtle bodies are separated from gross body.

Subtle Causal Body Body

Persistence: after death, the causal body and the subtle body persist because they have no inbuilt tendency toward corruption or decay.

Subtle Causal Body Body Rebirth: The subtle body and causal body of the former person transmigrate to a new gross body and form a new center of consciousness.

Subtle Body

Gross Body

Causal Body

What is reborn is not the individual consciousness or personality of the former person, but the intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic dispositions of the former personality. The former self has not survived death, only an aspect of the former self. Sri Aurobindo (Hindu Religious Philosopher, 1872-1950)

“They perceived indeed that there is a continuity, and they sought to discover what determines this continuity. . . .The Vedantist. . .admits an identical self, a persistent immutable reality – but other than my personality, other than this composite which I call myself.” “The old Indian thinkers. . .were not attached to the survival of the personality. . . .They saw that personality being what it is, a constantly changing composite, the survival of an identical personality was non-sense, a contradiction in terms.” “In the ordinary, the vulgar conception there is no birth of a soul at all but only the birth of a new body into the world occupied by an old personality unchanged from that which once left some now discarded physical frame. It is John Robinson who has gone out of the form of flesh he once occupied; it is John Robinson who tomorrow or some centuries later hence will reincarnate in another form of flesh and resume the course of his terrestrial experiences with another name and in another environment.” John Hick

Like Aurobindo, John Hick distinguishes between a popular conception of reincarnation and more sophisticated account articulated in Vedantic Hinduism.

Popular view: Transmigration of the conscious character and memory-bearing self.

Vedantic view: Transmigration of a cluster of non-conscious mental dispositions (possibly including memory). C.D. Broad’s “Psychic Factor”

Mental items (thoughts, emotions, desires, memories) minus “complete conscious personality”

Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887-1971) Rebirth and Memories

Hindu thinkers differ on the issue of whether the memories of the former personality can in principle pass to the new personality.

The practical knowledge of various skills acquired in a past life may pass to a new person, but not necessarily the recollection of having performed certain actions or having had certain experiences. The ability and skill of playing an instrument could be passed on to the new personality, even if the new personality does not remember playing the instrument in a past life. Some Hindu Some Hindu philosophers posit a philosophers hold transmission of memories to the that memories are next life, as well as behavioral erased at death and dispositions. do not pass to the But it is not next life. What guaranteed that passes to the next life a disposition to are the character recall past impressions left on experiences will the subtle body. be activated. The Force Behind Rebirth Avidya and Samsara

Every individual consciousness suffers from ignorance (avidya), ignorance of the nature of reality and one’s true self.

To be an individual means one perceives the world in terms of a subject-object duality, but this is error, for all is Brahman, all is one. Individuality is appearance only.

As long as a person continues to perceive himself as individual, as distinct from others, he remains in the realm of illusion (maya) and is caught in the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). Karma

Being uncompounded, the subtle body will continue to exist after death.

Avidya guarantees samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth.

Karma determines the character of the person, the kind of body (human or animal) into which the subtle body is incarnated, the initial circumstances of birth, and the life events.

Karma may be defined as the law of cosmic justice according to which every deed or action has an effect that is proportional to the moral quality of the deed. Good deeds produce good effects. Bad deeds produce bad effects. Motto: you reap what you sow. Karma: Punishment or Character Formation?

Karma is a teleological law. It is goal, end, or purpose directed.

The long-term purpose of karma is not to punish or reward but to shape character in the direction of enlightenment or – in the negative - freeing people from egoism and the correlated illusion of individuality.

There is punishment for bad karma and reward for good karma, but it takes place in other spheres of existence. Upanishads Moksha

Reward for good karma: Heavenly Realm and the World of World of the Creator the Creator

Heavenly Realm Punishment for bad Earthly karma Realm Moksha (liberation) is the ultimate state, higher than the world of the creator. While there is no rebirth from the world of the creator, there is Sub-Human gradual evolution from it to Moksha when one Realm comes to understand that Brahman transcends all definitions and descriptions and is identical with the true self (atman). Transmigration of the Soul

Does the soul transmigrate from body to body?

Atman is the Absolute Soul or Self, without beginning or end, the infinite consciousness.

Every human person is Atman sheathed in various “bodies” that generate the illusion of subject-object duality.

Atman is not actually incarnated. Rebirth takes place in the realm of Maya (illusion). Atman has no place in Maya. Atman is not born and does not die. Jiva is the relative soul or self, the finite expression of atman.

Jiva Jiva An Individual Embodied Self Soul

If JivaIf isJiva an isindividual identified soul with that the becomes embodied embodied self, then (not jiva the productcomes of subtle into existence body embodiment), at conception then and Jiva goes would out ofbe a substantialexistence entity at thatdeath. survives So we death, cannot something speak of Jivasimilar as to somethingthe that “soul” survives in western death philosophy.and transmigrates to a new body. To best capture the range of Hindu views about rebirth, we must say that in Hinduism the reincarnating entity is either the soul, some aspect of the psychological self, or - in its more popular forms - the complete psychological self.

Hindus agree that there is substantial continuity between lives (some thing transmigrates) but they disagree about the degree of psychological continuity between lives.