The Yoga of Truth by Peter Marchand

Author:Peter Marchand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Company
Published: 2011-05-12T16:00:00+00:00

REINCARNATION

Does the self die when the body dies, or does it have more lives to live? Can the self change bodies like we exchange old clothes for new ones? Most jnanis consider the question to be entirely irrelevant. When one is centered in the self, what happens to it is of no importance. All questions about next or former lives are in fact asked by the ego, not by the self. The self could not care less; it has no questions. However, some jnanis, when pressed for an answer, support the concept of reincarnation. Noteworthy, also, is the fact that Saint Vashishtha often discusses reincarnation in the ancient treatise on jnana yoga called Yoga Vāshiṣṭ.5

The Vedic tradition as a whole largely accepts the belief that the self travels from one body to the next, accompanied, or “embodied,” by the ego and intellect, both in seed form. The seed is said to contain certain memories, desires, and tendencies, which come in the form of a subtle energy body, called the jiva, soul, or causal body. There is usually no memory of past lives, but the lessons of past lives are said to be remembered, and as such, certain skills and some wisdom may travel from one life to the next. When one sees this universe as a learning experience, having more than one life to become wiser certainly makes sense. It would also explain why, even beyond genetics, people seem to have some sort of essential personality, talent, and objective from the moment they are born. People with children of their own can easily confirm that this is true.

In the game of life as seen by the jnani, the death of body and mind makes as perfect sense as the reset button on a computer, used whenever the computer gets stuck. Death and rebirth are the logical answers to the natural exhaustion of the form and its purpose. While man is a bio-electronic computer that is technically able to press the reset button of its own form, resetting the form will not bring an escape from the self’s purpose. Hence suicide is rather ridiculous, while death is not. To the jnani, life and death are one.

The question of past lives is a truly puzzling one because we have no memory of such lives. Some people do claim to remember their past lives and have even been able to provide some evidence. But such proof can always be doubted. And we will only have an experience of what really happens at death when our body actually dies, which thus should make it a truly enlightening moment. A jnani looks upon death fondly for that reason, seeing a great opportunity for learning. Quoting Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: “I cried when I was born and I will die laughing.”6

But if we do have past lives, why do we have no memory of them? For a start, the logical answer seems to be the same one we came up with earlier, when pondering the reasons for our delusion of separateness: it would spoil much of the fun.

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