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There is an universality of life -of consciousness which presupposes an unknown before birth. Likewise there is an "Inconclusiveness in death" (Ibid) that seems to point to an unknown hereafter. We try to appeal to our intellect which cannot answer as its data is only our physical consciousness and memory. We have to seek the answer in the cosmos, we have to explore the cosmic movement before we find a clue to the phenomena of birth and death.
What would be the nature of the being before or after birth? Would it be physical and vital or mental and spiritual? If Matter is the sine qua non of existence as proclaimed by Bhrigu, then no other query is admissible. We would then be prepared only by material energies, conditioned by heredity. And at death we would dissipate into material elements. There could be some survival of the effects of activity in the general mind of humanity but that would be an illusory survival of immortality. But since the universality of Matter cannot explain that and Mind and Matter can no longer in this cyber age be explained by Matter alone, we have to turn to other sources for answer.
Descent of spirit into matter
Religious myths do not give us a favourable answer. They speak of a God who creates constantly immortal souls out of his being or by his breath of life-power but there are two paradoxes in this account. It cannot justify the hourly creation of beings who have a beginning in time but no end in time as they are born by the birth of their body but do not end by death of the body. Secondly, their accruement of temperamental and other personality attributes are made for them not by themselves but by some arbitrary fiat and yet they are held responsible for the consequences by their Creator. (Ibid, pg.773)
Yet certain postulates of the religious paradigm can be taken up for the sake of argument. For that which has no end must have no beginning or the fact that all that begins must have an end. But if there is an exception to this latter law, "it must be by a descent of spirit into matter animating matter with divinity or giving matter its own immortality". (Ibid, pg.774) But the spirit which descends must be immortal, not made or created.
Repeated rebirth
If the soul was merely created to sustain the body, it would cease to exist when the body is no more there. But if it persists as an "immortal embodied being" (Ibid) there must be a subtle or psychic body in which it must continue and such a psychic body must be pre-existent to the material being. If the soul remains in a disembodied condition, it can have no dependence on the body, "it must have subsisted as an unembodied spirit before birth even as it persists in its disembodied spiritual entity after death". (Ibid)
If a personality is somewhat developed from the very beginning, it might be assumed that the soul has prepared that development in precedent lives. But there is also the option that the soul takes up a ready-made personality conditioned by heredity and therefore is quite independent of that personality. But whatever be the case, the soul is immortal and eternal-as such it is a changeless self or a timeless Purusha, an eternally spiritual person manifesting in time a stream of changing personality. "If it is such a Person, it can only manifest this stream of personality in a world of birth and death by the assumption of successive bodies, -- in a word, by constant or repeated rebirth into the forms of Nature."
Conventional views of existence
In all the three conventional views of existence, one modern and two ancient, the immortality and eternity of the soul is not recognized and rebirth is unnecessary or illusory:
(a) Modern theories harp on a cosmic Inconscient creating a temporary soul which after a brief play returns to the Inconscient. Or they view an eternal Becoming which manifests as a cosmic Life-force that produces an objective Matter and a subjective Mind and with their interaction creating our human existence.
(b) There is the ancient theory of an eternal unmodifiable Being who creates by Maya an illusory soul in the world of phenomenal Mind and Matter, both unreal as the one unmodifiable Self is the only reality. So the solution is to go beyond the cycle of birth and death to identify with the Spirit but how the unreal soul escapes from the unreality of life is a mystery never explained.
(c) There is also the Buddhist theory which focuses on the unreality of the soul but the unmodifiable Self is also considered unreal -the only reality is the Great Void, Nihil or Nirvana. The energy of successive becoming, Karma, produces an illusory soul and salvation rests in escaping from the cycle of birth and death.
All these three explanations have a certain commonality. In all the three, rebirth is either unnecessary or illusory, the soul is not eternal or immortal and naturally a single birth may be preferable over rebirth though the phenomenon of rebirth is acceptable to the latter two theories.
The status of the soul has different connotations in the theories of existence described above. Pitted against an eternal Becoming or an one eternal Being or a continual stream of Energies, is the soul who is not eternal, not a real or always existent Person who enjoys the stream of phenomena. It is not indispensable that a psychic entity always the same should assume body after body, form after form until it is dissolved by some mysterious process. It is possible that as each form or body develops, a consciousness corresponding to the form also develops and dissolves along with the form when the latter dissolves while the One which forms the all endures forever. Or the body might be gathered out of Matter and a consciousness develop out of the mind to exist between birth and death. Sri Aurobindo opines that in none of these theories is rebirth an absolute necessity. He adds that in Buddhist theory rebirth exists because it is compelled by Karma and it is not the soul but Karma which is the link of an apparently continuing consciousness but there is no immortal soul taking birth to be reborn into another body.
Modern thought denies rebirth and the existence of a soul. What was before birth is that which is transmitted by heredity; what is after death is that which is going to be transmitted by heredity. True, there is "a universal Life of which we are individualised, evolutionary and phenomenal becomings". (Ibid, pg.778) This universal Life creates a real world and real beings but the consciousness they support might not be eternal and might have no place for a supraphysical Person or a psychic entity that outlasts the life-span.
But what would happen if science itself admits that the human personality survives death and moves in subtle realms? The prevalent idea of Life has then to broaden itself and also admit a personal individuality not dependent on the material body. A psychic or soul entity has to be then acknowledged or if there is no soul, the persistence of a mental individual in subtle form, either created before birth or at birth or during life. "For either a psychic entity pre-exists in other worlds in a subtle form and comes from there with it to its briefly earthly sojourn, or the soul develops here in the material world itself, and with it a psychic body is developed in the course of Nature and persists after death in other worlds or by reincarnation here. These would be the two possible alternatives." (Ibid, pg.778)
Repeated rebirth
How do we develop our personality? Has it been developed by an universal Life which then enters a human body? Was it that the soul evolved through many lower life-shapes before man appeared? In that case, the personality has previously inhabited many animal forms and the subtle body might be carried along to suit whatever physical form the soul inhabits. Or the evolving Life builds a personality in the human form when it is created. If so, a sheath of subtle mind-substance might develop to individualise this mental consciousness.
If we take the former view of the personality inhabiting many animal forms then we have to suppose that the animal too survives death and has some soul-formation which is born repeatedly until finally it assumes a human body. However if we take the second view of evolving life building a personality only in the human form, then we have to surmise that the power to survive the dissolution of the physical body would only arrive at the human stage of evolution.
If the soul is not such a constructed personality evolved by Life but always a persistent unevolving reality, then the theory of rebirth as a Pythagorean transmigration would have to be admitted. But if the soul is a persistent evolving entity capable of passing through the terrestrial phase, then the Indian standpoint of a passage to other worlds with a return to terrestrial birth becomes highly probable. But there could be a second option available to the soul-of not returning back -if it had finished the terrestrial phase of life-evolution. But if it returned back to the earth, the admission of a repeated rebirth in human forms becomes inevitable. (Ibid, pg.779-780)
The possibility of a law of rebirth
However a scientific theory would not necessarily spiritualise itself and could deny the existence of a soul. Or it would accept a vitalistic Buddhism and admit Karma as the action of a universal life-force but might deny any real self or being other than an ever=active Becoming. On the other hand there is a possibility that it could admit a universal Self or cosmic Spirit as the main reality with Life as its power to arrive at a sort of "spiritualised vital Monism". (Ibid, pg.780) A law of rebirth would then be possible but not inevitable.
Adwaita of Mayavada accepted a supraphysical consciousness as the primary phenomenon and the physical being as a secondary phenomenon. Around these data the nature of the eternal Reality and the origin of phenomenal being were determined. They admitted the passage of the personality from this to other worlds and return via rebirth into earth but the Buddhists considered this was not a real rebirth of a real spiritual Person. In the latter Advaita, the theory of cosmic illusion gained ground and birth and rebirth were thus considered to be "a deceptive but effective construction of universal Maya". (Ibid, pg.781)
Advaita Mayavada accepted a Jivatman or Self which was one, not multiple and thus not a true individual, at most an omnipresent Self animating each mind with the idea of "I". Buddhism denied the Self and rebirth meant a continuity of ideas, sensations and actions. Birth, life and death become illusory -- they point out to the illusory ego. The cessation of the consciousness into the Superconsciousness was the only possibility and this had nothing to do with Time.
The scientific theory which is vitalistic in nature admits a real universe and a temporary though real life but no enduring Purusha. In the Mayavada theory, life is like a dream-consequence, the individual mind and body are occurrences in a cosmic dream. Sri Aurobindo therefore argues that even liberation from mind and body is therefore illusory and "in reality, there is no one bound and no one released, for the sole-existent Self is untouched by these illusions of the ego". (Ibid, pg.782) Everything reels under "the tyrannous falsehood of Maya". (Ibid)
This however is a too extremist view as a result of the monistic thesis but the older Adwaita Vedantism of the Upanishads is somewhat flexible. It admits the actuality of a real universe and an individual for each individual is a personified form of the Eternal, supported by a wheel of birth in the manifestation. The wheel is motivated by desire of the individual which becomes the effective cause of rebirth. When that desire and its supporting ignorance ceases, the Eternal draws back to its "timeless, impersonal and immutable being". (Ibid)
Date of Update:
31-Mar-26
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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