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Rebirth is a progression
This interaction between what has to be discarded and what new has to be accepted is logically continued after death before a new birth for each birth is a new beginning -it is not a mechanical continuation from the past though it arises from the past: "rebirth is not a constant reiteration but a progression, it is the machinery of an evolutionary process." This discarding of the previously held strong physical, vital, mental motives after death occurs in the proper planes -- in the subtle physical, subtle vital and subtle mental worlds through which the soul, after death of the being, progresses until it reaches its plane of psychic repose, its natural habitat for assimilation of experiences, before it returns to its terrestrial pilgrimage. The new birth that follows is a new "spiral curve in the individual evolution of the embodied Spirit". (Ibid, pg.803)
Higher origin of the Subliminal
The soul manifests the frontal personality in physical Nature under conditions of that Nature. Actually the soul projects the inner or subliminal being into the terms and conditions of the frontal personality. After all, the architecture of the being is very complex for each human being carries a soul, a vital, a mental, a psychic, a supramental, a supreme spiritual being and the greater presence of them is concealed in the subliminal though their origin is in the Superconscience where they lie unformulated. Sri Aurobindo traces their origin before birth in the internatal resort of the psychic being. We are initially not conscious that our subliminal being is influenced from above but we can become more and more conscious as we develop. "All is a closely woven web, an evolution and an interaction whose links have been forged by a Conscious-Force following out the truth of its own motives according to a dynamic logic of these finite workings of the Infinite". (Ibid, pg.803-804)
Law of Karma
Sri Aurobindo's concept of rebirth stands in sharp contrast to the popular theories of reincarnation which seem not to be based on experiential spirituality but on myths buoyed up by fantasy. Reincarnation commonly has a metaphysical perspective of spiritual necessity and a moral perspective of cosmic justice and ethical discipline. The soul is on earth as a result of desire and ignorance which compels its repetitive return in a new body each time till it is enlightened and liberated. It does not always remain on earth but alternates with other worlds and even in earth it can take up an animal body or the body of a vegetable. The nature of the new incarnation is determined by the Law of Karma which takes tooth for a tooth as a principle, "for this Law is an arithmetician with his abacus as well as a judge with his code of penalties for long-past crimes and misdemeanours." (Ibid, pg.805) It gives rewards and punishments but at times there is a double punishment and double reward for sin and virtue: "for the sinner is first tortured in hell and afterwards afflicted for the same sins in another life here and the righteous or the puritan is rewarded with celestial joys and afterwards again pampered for the same virtues and good deeds in a new terrestrial existence." (Ibid)
These are summary notions that need not be taken seriously. For the world-system running on the wheel of Ignorance to end up stepping out of it or serving as a school for rewards and punishments for virtues and sins cannot appeal to our reasonable judgment. The soul if divine cannot exist here for these childish stuff but has entered the Ignorance for some larger possibility to be worked out. Or it might be a being from the Infinite which has plunged into the matrix of Matter and Ignorance to grow up into the spiritual effulgence. For if the soul has to grow into immortality, it must be by a vaster schemata of growth and not by the crude idea of Karma which "is a construction of the smaller part of the human vital mind" (Ibid) with petty rules of desires and prejudices which are an index of human Ignorance.
But this problem has a solution from a higher level. Each being reaps the harvests of one's acts and deeds and the returns, if not available in the present life might be available in some future life. It is true that the result of energies in one life might be shared by others after one's demise. It is also very much true that even during one's lifetime, the results of one's energies might be enjoyed not by oneself but by others -this happens because there is a solidarity, commonality and continuity with others in Nature and the individual cannot live for oneself alone. But if there is a continuity of one's own life through rebirth, then it is inevitable that at some point in future life, one will bear the consequence of one's actions. For, "the past man is the father of the man that now is, the present man is the father of the man that will be. Each being reaps what he sows; from what he does he profits, for what he does he suffers. This is the law and chain of Karma, of Action, of the work of Nature-Energy". (Ibid, pg.806) In fact, the law of Karma is part of cosmic machinery. One's Karma in one life is a determinant of future life. "Man is the creator of himself; he is the creator also of his fate." (Ibid, pg.807)
Cosmic justice
There are two perspectives of this proposition which are overstated and convey a wrong impression of the whole sense of Karma:
(a) "The first is that as is the nature of the energies so much be the nature of the results, -- the good must bring good results, the evil must bring evil results":
(b) "the second is that the master work of Karma is justice and therefore good deeds must bear the fruit of happiness and good fortune and evil deeds must bear the fruit of sorrow, misery and ill-fortune." (Ibid)
But the justice of Karma is not like the human notion of justice; it is a "cosmic justice" which is not apparent to us, it is subtle and hardly visible on the surface but is a "strong and firm secret thread" (Ibid) that holds together the incoherence and chaos of human behaviour. And the most important part is that neither thoughts nor feelings but it is actions -deeds that alone matter. The human being is not always responsible for one's thoughts or feelings so that they are often involuntary. But one is responsible for one's acts as that is his voluntary choice -one's actions construct one's fate, they are the principal determinants of the future and that is "the whole law of Karma". (Ibid)
Law versus Spiritual freedom
There is a view that the universe exists only due to mechanical causation owing allegiance to Law and Process which produces a mathematically symmetrical perspective of things. But there exists also a Consciousness and Being, there is not merely machinery but also a Spirit in things, even a cosmic Spirit or else there would be no rebirth of the soul or a field for the expression of the Law of Karma. If the fundamental truth is not mechanical but spiritual, then we have to accept that our soul decides its own evolutionary trajectory and the law of Karma is only one of the means that serves the purpose for our Spirit or Self must be greater than Karma. "There is Law, but there is also spiritual freedom." (Ibid, pg.808)
Actually, Law and Process have control over our outer being, more so on the body and Matter for it becomes more plastic when Life manifests and more subtle when mind manifests. Already the freedom that begins to be palpable in the mind becomes stronger when one reaches the annals of the inner being and the more one travels within oneself, one can increasingly feel the soul's choice; "for Prakriti is the field of law and process, but the soul, the Purusha, is the giver of the sanction, anumanta, and even if ordinarily it chooses to remain a witness and concede an automatic sanction, it can be, if it wills, the master of its nature, Ishwara." (Ibid)
The Spirit within is not an automaton in the hands of Karma. And Sri Aurobindo gives a startling statement, "If a certain amount of results of past Karma is formulated in the present life, it must be with the consent of the psychic being which presides over the new formation of its earth-experience and assents not merely to an outward compulsory process, but to a secret Will and Guidance." (Ibid) That secret Will and Guidance is spiritual, derived from the Chit-Shakti of Sachchidananda. The soul seeks self-experience and self-expression and whether that is derived from past experience or is a free selection of results or a continuity or new development, that will be formulated for the aim is to grow out of Ignorance through cosmic experience. This therefore necessitates two elements, Karma as an instrument and Consciousness and Will - derivatives of Chit-Shakti working through the mind, life and body as the user. Fate, mechanical or created is only one factor, Being and its consciousness and Will are more important.
The complex nature of Destiny
Even Indian astrology which views all life-activities as part of Karma has allowances for the energy or force of the being which can cancel much of what is written except the powerful bindings of Karma, What is to be additionally noted is that "destiny is not simple but complex; the destiny which binds our physical being, binds it so long or in so far as a greater law does not intervene." (Ibid, pg.809) Behind our physical being is a freer Life-power and a freer Mind-power which can intervene and change destiny. And "when the soul and self emerges, when we become consciously spiritual beings, that change can cancel or wholly remodel the graph of our physical fate." (Ibid) Karma alone therefore cannot be the chief determinant of rebirth and of our future evolution.
Beyond ethics
Besides, the Consciousness-Force that drives the action of the human being operates through many avenues, many channels and not exclusively through the ethical mode or moral code. It manifests through myriad energies at every level of consciousness, through activities of mind, life, body, passions, impulses; through the pursuit of knowledge, pursuit of beauty, pursuit of health, pursuit of ethical good, a pursuit of power, love, happiness, fortune, success as well as pursuit of their opposite values. A complexity of manifold experience results and the variety cannot be sacrificed to promote the single ethical duality of good and evil. Ethics and morality cannot therefore be the sole preoccupation of the cosmic Law of Karma.
The pursuit of different things brings their own results. A pursuit of knowledge leads to a growth into Truth while a pursuit of falsehood ends in Ignorance. A pursuit of beauty gives rise to beauty and harmony in life and nature. A pursuit of health increases strength and capacity and promotes the athlete. A pursuit of ethical good consolidates virtues and emboldens purity while a plunge in the opposite direction leads to evil and disharmony and in cases of excess, "a great spiritual perdition, mahati vinastih." (Ibid, pg.810)
Fallacy of mere goodness
Apropos justice, the benefits are given to whosoever deserves it, the brave, strong and skilful win in war, the gift of knowledge is given to the capable intellect; these things are not given if the individual is simply a good guy but is lazy or skilless though he may be respectable -mere goodness cannot qualify for rewards unless one has cultivated attributes with the right kind of energy. This is the nature of cosmic justice for being merely good does not fetch a posh life in a new birth. "That cannot be the significance of rebirth or a sufficient basis for a cosmic law of Karma." (Ibid, pg.811)
Date of Update:
31-Aug-26
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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