Reincarnation: An Overview

Observing Rebirth in Nature

The philosophy of reincarnation and cyclical life is deeply ingrained and historically well documented in the literature of Eastern cultures. From Yoga to Buddhism to Taoism, all the great monoliths of Eastern thought have always relied on the philosophy of rebirth to explain the rest of their theories and postulations about Reality and the purpose of life.

Eastern cultures typically view the Universe as undergoing endlessly repeating cycles. This emphasis on cyclical rather than linear progress is what most differentiates Eastern from Western thought. This emphasis on time being more like a circle than a line resulted not so much from the rigorous experiments common to Western science, but instead from the simple observation of Mother Nature in action: a task that requires no instruments beyond those inherent to the human body.

All around us we are witness to Nature’s endless cycles. The 365 day revolution of the Earth around the Sun – and our resulting experience of shifting seasons, hibernating animals, and entire species dying off for half the year and their offspring “reincarnating” for the other half – is one of the most obvious and dramatic environmental cycles we observe. The 29 day revolution of the Moon around the Earth, and our resulting experience of an endlessly waxing and waning orb in the sky, has provided generation after generation of humanity with a nightly reminder of cyclical change.

Then there is the 25,765 year precession of the equinoxes. This massive cycle, though easily ignored due to the fact that its observable movement happens very slowly in comparison to the quicker cycles already mentioned, had great influence on the theory of rebirth. Masters of astronomy, the ancients were well aware of this cycle and made the astute observation that during the course of one single round of the 25,765 year precession of the equinoxes, many civilizations would rise and fall as if they had never existed in the first place.

From this observation, the ancients of the East developed the idea that Time is a hierarchy of nested cycles. The implication of this is that the entire Universe is undergoing its own smaller cycle within a larger cosmic cycle. Because Time and everything in Nature is observed to transform and move in cycles, the future death of our universe must in reality be the birth of our universe in a new form. This is the theory of universal reincarnation. From this theory and its logic follows the more personal theory of individual reincarnation: the future death of our individual self must in reality be the birth of our individual self in a new form.

The West & Scientific Skepticism

For those born in the West, the theory of reincarnation can be a bit hard to swallow. We Westerners have been trained to view life not as a cycle, but more as a line with a definite starting point and a definite ending point. Life absolutely begins at birth. Life absolutely ends at death.

The Western linear perspective on time is a direct result of the Scientific Method. According to this great paradigm of evidence-based research, the reason reincarnation does not exist is because there is absolutely no evidence that would even slightly suggest that rebirth exists. There is no evidence that life preceded birth and there is no evidence that life survives death. Lacking this necessary evidence to prove reincarnation, the obvious conclusion is that life absolutely begins at birth, and life absolutely ends at death.

So then, to the Western scientific mentality rebirth is the result of magical thinking. It is an indulgence of the imagination, a fanciful mental creation that clearly results from a fear of death and more specifically from the innate human confusion about how our experience of being an individual existence can possibly be reconciled with the mystery of non-existence before birth and the equally disturbing and much more relevant and pressing mystery of non-existence after death.

We thus are left with what would appear to be an irreconcilable rift between the observations and theories of Eastern and Western culture. How can reincarnation exist if there is no evidence to back up its lofty claims? How can reincarnation not exist if everywhere we look we see evidence of Nature bound to endless rounds of cyclical evolution?

Is there any way to bridge this gap of disagreement?

The Ocean and Its Waves

Just as the waves on the face of the ocean are different, so each individual is unique. However, in the depths of our nature, in the ocean itself, all individual existences are equal. (Roshi Yasutani)

The Binding Web of Identification

In order to settle the debate on reincarnation there is only one question that needs answering: Who am I?

Without much analysis we can state with confidence that who we are is a combination of four general experiences:

1. Physical Body
2. Emotional Body
3. Mental Body/Consciousness
4. Desire Body/Will Power.

These four categories of experience, taken together, constitute all of our existence on Earth. And yet, this aggregate, this collection of experiences that we call our “self” comes to our awareness via our external and internal senses. Therefore, what we normally consider to be our “self” is actually nothing more than the collective sum of sensory experience in the present moment, memories of sensory experience in the past and fanciful imaginations of what sensory experience will be like in the future. We base our entire sense of self on the information we receive through our senses.

But who is it that is aware of sensory experience? Who is it that perceives the senses as they shift over time? When sensory experience arises at birth, who is it that becomes aware of experiencing? And when sensory experience is extinguished at death, what happens to that which had maintained awareness of the senses throughout life?

The Confusing Maze of Dualistic Experience

It should be recognized from the outset that the debate over reincarnation is only valid within the context of dualistic experience. Likewise, all of these existential questions are just so many twists and turns in the great maze that is dualistic experience.

The reason that these existential questions have no answers which truly satisfy and pacify the human mind is because dualism is not the entire truth of our existence. Our existential confusion can only be resolved when we begin to realize that although we experience ourselves as a separate individual existence living in a dualistic world, in the depth of our being we are actually all one and the same thing: the Universe. Like the countless unique waves of the one single Ocean, so are we the countless unique waves of the one single Universe. And though there be countless Universes in the course of endless time, these too are just so many waves and forms of one single Reality.

The theory of reincarnation is more like a test than it is a teaching. The skepticism of the West that declares that reincarnation cannot exist because there is no evidence to support such claims is absolutely valid. And yet, the observations of the East that Nature is in a constant state of cyclical evolution is also absolutely valid.

The only way to reconcile these two views is to completely abandon the belief that “I am.” This idea that you are some separate thing that persists throughout the mutations of space and time is the fundamental illusion that is inherited by all beings born into the Universe. Although the feeling that “I am” is valid, the intellectual justification and explanation for why you feel this way is what is the illusion. You most certainly are, but what you consider yourself to be is far from an accurate and precise account of what you actually are.

The Many Waves of the One Universe

Though one single Universe takes countless forms in the course of its evolution from cosmic birth to cosmic death, and though the birth of a multiplicity of individual forms over time is a necessity according to the law of evolution, and though we currently must struggle to experience our unity with that which appears separate to us in the presentation of our five senses…Still it is absolute fact that we are nothing more than the Universe observing Itself through Its own energy over the course of the time it takes the Universe to evolve from Its cosmic birth to Its cosmic death. The multiple variations in space and time that we experience to be separate existences are in reality just so many elastic manipulations of energy in the course of this one Universal life span.

Our own individual lives only gain meaning when seen within the context of that which exceeds us. Just as our individual lives in society only find meaning within the context of our greater collective culture and history, in the exact same way does our existential confusion – our inability to bridge the gap between birth and death – only find meaning, satisfaction, and reconciliation when we can rediscover that which is oh so obvious and yet oh so easy to dismiss: We do not exist separate from the Universe. Everything is always and forever integrally one existence, though always and forever appearing as many existences.

You are nothing more than a ripple of the cosmic ocean, a wave that soon will merge with that which it never left. Birth and death only exist in the context of a separative individual experience. To have an individual experience in a greater Universe is a given truth of existence in the Universe, but to believe that your individual experience is confined and absolutely separate from everything else that surrounds you is a false belief based on incomplete and inaccurate observations.

Our universal identity is fundamental. Our sensory identity is momentary and in constant flux. To cling to the sensory experience of individual identity without taking into account the greater universal identity is to live in an absolute self-created illusion.

The Unreal never is. The Real never is not. (Bhagavad Gita)

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References

Aurobindo, Sri. (1939). The Life Divine. Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.

Flood, G. (2001). An Introduction to Hinduism. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kaplau, K. (Eds.). (1971). The Wheel of Death. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

Vyasa (1962). The Bhagavad Gita. (J. Mascaro, Trans.) UK: Penguin Books (Original work composed between the 5th and 2nd Century BCE)

Images used in this Post

Rebirth photo courtesy of Flickr user James Jordan published under the CC license.

Forest in autumn photo courtesy of Flickr user cuellar published under the CC license.

The tube photo courtesy of Flickr user sub_lime79 published under the CC license.

Blue Marble (Planet Earth), photo courtesy of Flickr user woodlewonderworks published under the CC license.