Transmigration
Understanding Transmigration
At the time of death, the
individuality does not get dissolved, though the physical constituents may be
separated and dissolved. What is it that takes rebirth? It cannot be the body,
because it is discarded and it is dissolved into the physical elements of which
it is composed. It cannot also be the essential Self, the Atman, because the
Atman is a Universal Presence which cannot be said to be subject to
transformation of any kind, such as transmigration. What else transmigrates?
The peculiar thing called the
individual is neither the body nor the Atman. It is a strange admixture of localized
self-affirmation in terms of space and time, and this principle of
self-affirmation is impossible to define except as a peculiar pressure-point or
force which is generated by the influence of space-time upon consciousness
which by itself is indivisible. This point of pressure spatio-temporally
occasioned is in fact the center of what is known as the psyche, often called
the mind, sometimes known as the Chitta or the Antahkarana in the Sanskrit
language.
Desire and Rebirth
This pressure of consciousness
causing the individual self-sense has three levels of empirical expression,
viz., the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious. Only the conscious
level operates when a person is awake, the sub-conscious operates in dream, and
the unconscious in deep sleep. The conscious impulses and activities of the
individual are limited expressions of the desires which seek to fulfil
themselves by way of contact with sense-objects. When the pressure of desires
is too much and they cannot be easily fulfilled under conditions prevailing in
the waking state, they operate as reveries in dream. But the desires of an
individual are so immense and complicated that their satisfaction cannot be
really achieved in a single life. Such unfulfilled longings get wound up in
unconscious states, a specimen of which is deep sleep. It is the power of
unfulfilled desires that manufactures a new apparatus for their fulfilment,
under expected conditions, called the newly formed body. Here is the
interesting background of what is known as rebirth.
As a realized soul has no
desires, it has no rebirth. They merge into Universal Being. Hence the passing
of an ordinary person and the disappearance of a person like Lord Krishna have
nothing in common. A mysterious admixture of consciousness and desire, acts as
the link between the here and the hereafter, which is the causative factor
behind rebirth or reincarnation. It is neither the physical body formed of the
five elements, nor the Atman which is all-pervading. It is not true that in
death the apparatus through which thinking and feeling act is destroyed; it
continues in spite of the body being destroyed. The screen of the television
which projects the picture of individuality is the point of
consciousness-desire, explained above, and it is not destroyed when the body is
destroyed. In a way, our waking life is also a reflection of some anterior
existence, which we do not remember now, since we are now in this world in a different space-time
continuum, totally different from the space-time complex of the previous life.
It has to be reiterated that death does not destroy the link between this life
and the other life, because death is only of the physical body, and everyone
knows well that a person is not exhausted by the physical frame only. There is
something more in man than what appears to the eyes or to any sense-organ.
Evolution and The Principle of Karma
The modern theory of evolution
from matter to plant, plant to life, life to mind and from mind to intellect is
nothing but a corroboration of there being a continuous link from one state of
life to another. Else, there would be no evolution and there would be no
meaning in any form of ‘related’ life at all. All this requires deep study, and
a mere cursory reading of one or two textbooks may not be adequate.
The principle of karma, or the
principle of reaction which conditions the notions of good and bad etc., is not
supposed to apply to the sub-human species since they do not have the
self-consciousness of personal agency in action and are just guided by the
natural forces of evolution. Nemesis cannot be attributed to an individual as
long as it is free from personal agency in action. The sub-human species evolve
in the same way as there is rise of life from matter to the vegetable kingdom,
etc., as mentioned. This is not caused by karma, but by the very pressure of
universal evolution.
If there is no transcendent
meaning of the human being beyond the present life, no one would lift a finger
or do anything in this life, knowing well that the next moment death may
overtake anyone and no one can be sure that one can be alive after a few
minutes more. Who, on earth, will try to do anything in this world if the next
moment is uncertain, unless it is to be accounted for by an unconscious pull of
the transcendent ‘Beyond’ which speaks in a language of ‘Eternity’ that there
is life further to this medley of uncertainties, anxieties and insecurities
here on earth? The point that man is to be restrained from undesirable behavior
and action can have meaning only if there is something more than the meaning
seen in earthly life. Else, what is the point of being good or exhibiting good behavior?
Why should there be morality, why should there be anything at all, since
everything is going to be devoured by death the next moment?
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