Does reincarnation exist in Advaita?

[DanielR]

Hello all,

traditional Advaita I think believes in reincarnation on the relative plane, but since only Brahman exists really, does reincarnation really happen??

I stumbled upon this site on the interent, here an Advaitin discusses reincarnation, and he's not too fancy about the idea: Reincarnation and its negation : A discussion on reincarnation and its impossibility in modern Advaita

This guy says at the end that according to the Upanishads we shouldn't believe in reincarnation, since eventually we all will merge with the Absolute.

Doesn't Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj talk about consciousness as well, and not about a soul that transmigrates??

What is your stance on this matter?? Would love to read some comments from fellow Advaitins and the rest too of course

Edit: sorry for opening that many threads , I'm just curious.

regards

 

[DanielR]

I think Nisargadatta wrote something like that from I am that

I do not say that the same person is reborn. It dies and dies for good. But its memories remain and their desires and fears. They supply the energy for the new person.

So basically, once you're dead you're dead, you merge with the Absolute Consciousness?

Is it true that Nisargadatta believed in rebirth but not in reincarnation??

Or did he discard the idea of rebirth/reincarnation completely??

 

[Maya3]

The body and soul has seven sheets (layers), our body is one of these sheets and the inner most one is our real Self and it is the same as The Self/God/Supreme consciousness. It always is and does not reincarnate.

The outer body dies, and I believe that the Mana Maya Kosha reincarnates (please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Here is a link that describes more about the different sheets of the body.

Pancha kosha: Five layers of the human existence and the GOD

Maya

 

[Madhuri]

My understanding is that the merging occurs once realisation is reached. Until then the soul reincarnates.

I think if you take away reincarnation from Hinduism, a lot of other aspects stop making sense (like the meaning or purpose of life).

 

[Pleroma]

Ishvara builds the spiritual bodies and controls them and Jiva is entangled with the spiritual body with the help of Prana, the life force and rebirths life after life.

 

[DanielR]

Apparently Nisargadatta Maharaj really didn't believe reincarnation/rebirth occured? What do you all think about that?

and thanks for the replies

 

[Shuddhasattva]

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is expressing the default position. One's personality and sense of selfhood is a result of the occlusions, the veils or sheathes called koshas which make up the phenomenal mind, rather than the noumenal mind which is atman. When one dies, residual seeds of these koshas seem to adhere to the atman, which recirculated into another body by force and trajectory of its karma, come to build a new personality influenced by the deeds, words and thoughts of the previous ones.

 

[Pleroma]

Apparently Nisargadatta Maharaj really didn't believe reincarnation/rebirth occured? What do you all think about that?

and thanks for the replies

Yes when viewed from the point of Advaita, sin doesn't exist, it exists as long as ignorance exists or as long as duality exists in you. This is reason we have karma yoga as espoused in Gita to give us at least some relief from the binding jaws of sin and after life.

 

[DanielR]

Was Sri Nisargadatta considered a Neo-Advaitin or a traditional Advaitin?

 

[DanielR]

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is expressing the default position. One's personality and sense of selfhood is a result of the occlusions, the veils or sheathes called koshas which make up the phenomenal mind, rather than the noumenal mind which is atman. When one dies, residual seeds of these koshas seem to adhere to the atman, which recirculated into another body by force and trajectory of its karma, come to build a new personality influenced by the deeds, words and thoughts of the previous ones.

But Nisargadatta didn't believe in Karma either ^^

 

[Shuddhasattva]

But Nisargadatta didn't believe in Karma either ^^

On what basis are you saying this?

Thus spake Nisargadatta Maharaj - Quotes from 'I am That'

 

[DanielR]

But what I've read on the internet, he changed his position since 'I am that'? In 'i am that' he explained rebirth but later he rejected the idea completely.

hmm, like here for example where he calls, karma, rebirth, Soul, concepts etc. And according to him concepts are not real and we should not believe in them.

http://prahlad.org/gallery/nisargadatta/books/Nisargadatta%20Maharaj%20-%20ebook%20-%20Pointers%20from%20Nisargadatta%20-%20searchable.pdf

Edit:

Or in this interview with Jean Dunn - See Question: Nisargadatta doesn't believe in karma and reincarnation? A: Correct. Etc...

http://itisnotreal.com/jean-dunn-interview.html

 

[Shuddhasattva]

But what I've read on the internet, he changed his position since 'I am that'? In 'i am that' he explained rebirth but later he rejected the idea completely.

hmm, like here for example where he calls, karma, rebirth, Soul, concepts etc. And according to him concepts are not real and we should not believe in them.

http://prahlad.org/gallery/nisargadatta/books/Nisargadatta%20Maharaj%20-%20ebook%20-%20Pointers%20from%20Nisargadatta%20-%20searchable.pdf

I read this as him using more nuanced terms, true to advaita tradition.

For example:

"In case of the ignorant person the pseudo-entity (itself an illusion) continues to go through the dream-world, that manifestation is, as an independent entity with apparent volition. And it suffers because it involves itself in the notion of causality, known as Karma, including the concept of re- birth."

Just as I qualified my previous statement:

When one dies, residual seeds of these koshas seem to adhere to the atman

 

[DanielR]

In other words, concluded Maharaj, over the natural process of the manifestation of phenomena
gets superimposed a phantom-self with a supposed autonomous, independent existence, and on
this/phantom-self is loaded the concept of the resultant effects of the imagined volitional actions —
i.e. Karma, bondage and re-birth!
Do you understand now why I debunk the theory of re-birth?

Imagined volitional actions!

Karma, bondage and rebirth are concepts which we are taught to believe. How I understand it.

"If you die with concepts these concepts take another form; but they will not be you — you don’t know what that form will be. Concepts will come again and again until they are exhausted."

Though I don't want to discredit your knowledge Shuddhasattva, you certainly know more than me, a beginner.

Have you read any books by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj?

 

[DanielR]

Or here this whole part!

"The Question of Re-birth

Maharaj rejects the idea of re-birth or re-incarnation out of hand, and the basis for such
rejection is so simple that it humbles us: the entity which is supposed to be re-born does not exist,
except as a mere concept! How can a concept be re-born?

Maharaj in all innocence asks the protagonist of re-birth: "Please, I want to know, who is it that
would be re-born?" The body 'dies' and, after death, is demolished — buried or cremated—as
quickly as possible. The body, in other words, has been irreparably, irretrievably, irrevocably
destroyed. That body, therefore, which was an objective thing cannot be re-born. How then can
anything non-objective like the life-force (the breath), which, on the death of the body, merged with
the air outside, or the consciousness which merged with the Impersonal Consciousness, be re-born
either?

Perhaps, says Maharaj, you will say that the entity concerned will be re-born. But that would
be utterly ridiculous. You do know that the 'entity' is nothing but a concept, a hallucination which
arises when consciousness mistakenly identifies itself with the particular form.

How did the idea of re-birth arise at all? It was perhaps conceived as some sort of an acceptable
working theory to satisfy the simpler people who were not intelligent enough to think beyond the
parameters of the manifested world."

 

[Shuddhasattva]

He is speaking in terms of paramarthika rather than vyavaharika as I read it.

 

[DanielR]

I mean even in 'I AM THAT' he didn't really talk about classical Reincarnation, doesN't this sound more Buddhist??

"The memory of the past, unfulfilled desires traps energy [the energy of the Absolute or Source], which manifests itself as a person. When its charge gets exhausted, the person dies. Unfulfilled desires are carried over into the next birth."

"I do not say that the same person is reborn. It dies and dies for good. But its memories remain and their desires and fears. They supply the energy for the new person."

Or is this what Traditional Advaita Vedanta believes in?

 

[Shuddhasattva]

That's standard advaita as I read it, and explained above in my comment on the koshas viz. the core of self-awareness, the atman which is without personality or [discrete] identity.

 

[Pleroma]

Or here this whole part!

"The Question of Re-birth

Maharaj rejects the idea of re-birth or re-incarnation out of hand, and the basis for such
rejection is so simple that it humbles us: the entity which is supposed to be re-born does not exist,
except as a mere concept! How can a concept be re-born?

Maharaj in all innocence asks the protagonist of re-birth: "Please, I want to know, who is it that
would be re-born?" The body 'dies' and, after death, is demolished — buried or cremated—as
quickly as possible. The body, in other words, has been irreparably, irretrievably, irrevocably
destroyed. That body, therefore, which was an objective thing cannot be re-born. How then can
anything non-objective like the life-force (the breath), which, on the death of the body, merged with
the air outside, or the consciousness which merged with the Impersonal Consciousness, be re-born
either?

Perhaps, says Maharaj, you will say that the entity concerned will be re-born. But that would
be utterly ridiculous. You do know that the 'entity' is nothing but a concept, a hallucination which
arises when consciousness mistakenly identifies itself with the particular form.

How did the idea of re-birth arise at all? It was perhaps conceived as some sort of an acceptable
working theory to satisfy the simpler people who were not intelligent enough to think beyond the
parameters of the manifested world."

Well, it is a fact that Ishvara builds the spiritual body in the mother's womb and then jiva enters into it taking that new body and the prana identifies the self to its new body.

"Narada Muni continued: What I referred to as the chariot was in actuality the body. The senses are the horses that pull that chariot. As time passes, year after year, these horses run without obstruction, but in fact they make no progress. Pious and impious activities are the two wheels of the chariot. The three modes of material nature are the chariot's flags. The five types of life air constitute the living entity's bondage, and the mind is considered to be the rope. Intelligence is the chariot driver. The heart is the sitting place in the chariot, and the dualities of life, such as pleasure and pain, are the knotting place. The seven elements are the coverings of the chariot, and the working senses are the five external processes. The eleven senses are the soldiers. Being engrossed in sense enjoyment, the living entity, seated on the chariot, hankers after fulfillment of his false desires and runs after sense enjoyment life after life. (SB 4.29.18-20)"

If the Self was not in bondage then there was no point in attaining freedom or moksha and no point in having Self realisation.

 

[DanielR]

Okay Shuddhasattva,

I hope you can help me with that, the reason why I asked the question in my first post is, what happens according to Advaita when I die and I do NOT realize Brahman. Do I have to start everything from the beginning?? all the progress in this life is in vain??

Thank You =)