by Bholanath
(begun: 17 September 2002; last revision: 18 September 2002)
The following only presents the research and views of Bholanath. It does not necessarily reflect the views of any other member in the House of the Dreaming.
There have been many ideas of what becomes of that part of us that we identify as our "Self" when the physical aspect of our being ceases to function. Although it is truly impossible for the living to _know_ (knowledge being a matter of believing that which is true whereupon the belief is not founded upon a guess), most of us have some beliefs, even if we believe "merely" that the "Self" ceases to exist in any meaningful fashion.
I am such a skeptic as I would claim no knowledge upon the subject. To affirm or deny any supposion of an afterlife as correct or impossible would be to impart more knowledge than I believe I can ever have until I cross those fateful gates. But this is not to imply that I do not speculate and find some solutions more likely than others. There are two sets of beliefs, neither being exclusive of the other that I feel instinctively feel, and intellectually comprehend as being most likely to be true. One is the Buddhist idea of reincarnation. The other is the "Splinter Theory" of Reincarnation. A third belief, promoted by some Qabalistic Jews, whereupon a male "half-soul" seeks a specific female counterpart, that they may then merge and rejoin the abyss appeals to me on an emotional level and if I am unable to simply accept such romantic notions as true, I am similarly incapable to reject it is "unlikely" or mere "wish fulfillment fantasy" -- never mind that the holding of all three herein presented beliefs is a matter of paradox.
When in the first rendition Buddha says, "Due to the existence of this, that arises,"
he indicates that the phenomena of cyclic existence arise not through the force of
supervision by a permanent deity but due to specific conditions. Merely due to the
presence of certain causes and conditions, specific effects arise. – the Dalai Lama
I learned of the Buddhist belief while studying the works of Aliester Crowley. Aliester Crowley believed himself the reincarnation of "Elivas Levi" who was considered to be an important magician during the 1800s. But, Crowley elaborated upon this belief that by "reincarnation" he did not refer to the simple transmutation from one body to the next. In other words, it would be incorrect to say “Aliester Crowley was Elivas Levi in a past life”. Rather, he believed "Elivas Levi did certain things in the past life that caused Crowley to come into being".
The Buddhist tradition does not believe in an underlying soul or self.
. . . Since the underlying nature of everything is emptiness, an eternal soul
would violate this idea by claiming the existence of something eternal outside
this spiritual emptiness or Void. . . . The soul in Buddhist tradition is only a
collection of karma (skandhas), which is bound together to form the person.
This collection is said to transmigrate going from life to life, taking on new
bodies until correct action leads to its dissolution. At this point, the individual
becomes enlightened.
In accord with this Buddhist tradition, it has been my observation that everything changes. Though the changes have been slow and subtle, I would be hard pressed to identify myself as who I was just a few years ago and I don't believe even my mother could perceive many traces of the child she gave birth to: not just physically, but in the ways I think, act, and feel about most everything in life. If we can not identify any permanent "Self" while we are trapped in a body, even the cells of which are all changed every seven years, how can we hope to outlast our body and transmit some permanent Self unto a next body, and the next, and the next, ad infinitum?
For a proper understanding of Buddhist ideas of “reincarnation”, it is essential to understand Buddhist ideas of “karma”:
Contrary to what is accepted in contemporary society, the Buddhist
interpretation of karma does not refer to preordained fate. Karma refers to
good or bad actions a person takes during her lifetime. Good actions, which
involve either the absence of bad actions, or actual positive acts, such as
generosity, righteousness, and meditation, bring about happiness in the long
run. Bad actions, such as lying, stealing or killing, bring about unhappiness
in the long run. The weight that actions carry is determined by five
conditions: frequent, repetitive action; determined, intentional action; action
performed without regret; action against extraordinary persons; and action
toward those who have helped one in the past. Finally, there is also neutral
karma, which derives from acts such as breathing, eating or sleeping. Neutral
karma has no benefits or costs.
I should add, that Buddhism, like many Eastern philosophies, does not attach a moral weight to “good” or “bad” karma. The ultimate goal is to have no karma so the individual can be dissolved. The different between “good” and “bad” karma is how much karma needs to be worked off towards that end. Therefore, even “good” karma is ultimately to a degree bad, because it too must be negated before the soul can be liberated.
Some Buddhists engage in the practice of "Jivamala" to remember past lives in order to be free from the bondage of those lives. Their purpose for viewing past lives is generally different from that of the westerner:
Many people have used memories of past lives to bask in the reflected glory of their former selves, thus increasing egotism and ignorance, and even causing confusion of identity in the present life. Past lives have been treated like ancestors with the individual claiming glory and fame as a kind of inheritance from their previous selves. This use of past lives is unacceptable for the Jivamala practice, and is in direct opposition to the Buddhist notion that the individual's current life and problems are a direct result of mistakes in past lives. Had past lives been lived correctly, the individual would not have required another incarnation.
From a Buddhist perspective, we can ask the questions:
Why be proud of the mistakes, confusion, and ignorance of past selves that have led to the prison of one's current circumstances in life? Why take pride in a disability like spiritual blindness?
The purpose of remembering past lives is not to increase pride, but rather to
increase detachment and purify the individual of residual karma from those
past personalities (jivas). Knowledge of past lives should bring humility and
spiritual wisdom.
One might also want to keep in mind the fundamental holisticism of Buddhism (a butterfly flapping it's wings in China can cause a hurricane in New Jersey); when we take such holisticism into account, we are a product of the whole world that came before us and live on, even if in obscure or minute ways, in the whole world that comes after us. We may also wish to consider the Buddhist idea of reincarnation as affirming basic evolutionary principles: our parents caused us to come into being and live on through us. But this goes beyond the scope of most discussions upon Buddhist reincarnation.
Buddhist Information Service of New York, http://www.bodhiline.org/Directory/
Denosky J., The Jivamala: The Necklace of Souls – A Buddhist Practice of Purification Dealing with Reincarnation, (2002) http://www.many-lives.com/
The Living Edens: Thailand, Jewel of the Orient – Basics of Buddhism, (PBS Online) http://www.pbs.org/edens/thailand/buddhism.htm
The Meaning of Life, (Wisdom Publications) http://www.infinite.org/bodhiline/deparis1.html
The "Splinter Theory" of reincarnation is closer to Western ideas of reincarnation, whereupon a Self leaves a body and enters another. However, it did not claim for a permanent Self nor any exclusive relationships between incarnations of the past and the populace of the present or future. In this idea, the Soul was created of many "Splinters". They would combine before entering a body and split upon the death of the body and recombine with splinters from other bodies. Thus, many concurrent people can have splinters of Napolean and each might correctly believe that they were Napolean in a past life. Going beyond the scope of the initial article which acquainted me with this notion, this idea does not preclude the idea that some people may have a large group of splinters that previously inhabited a single person in a past life -- one many even speculate that a grouping might subsist over several lives or that a group may, for some reason (perhaps the Will of a Magician) or random chance, defy the splintering process and reincarnate in the traditional western sense.
The final idea of some interest to me is the Qabalistic idea that when a soul emerges from the "No Thing - that - Is All Things", it splits in half -- traditionally thought of as a male and female half, and by modern occultists not necessarily held to occupy a body of the same gender. Proponants of this idea suggest that these half-souls emerge so they might experience certain things through life and when these things have been accomplished or when the half-soul is weary of life, it must find it's mate so that they might recombine and exit this world. This idea reminds me of an idea of physics, whereupon negative and positve particals pop into existence in pairs and recombine with their mates in order to disappear. It suggests a certain balance to the universe wherein nothing is without an equal and opposite counterpart.
Although the idea of balance and an equation whereupon the sum is zero does tickle my fancy as a sometime-mathmatician, actually, I don't find any intellectual reasons to give credit to this theory. On the other hand, on an emotional level, there is something very real. My whole life has been slanted with a preoccupation towards finding someone to love and also escaping what the Buddhists describe as "this plane of sorrow". Somehow, I have always felt that if I could find the perfect mate with which to experience a perfect Love, it would be possible to transcend all the sorrows which this world heaps upon us. I'm not inclined to insist upon the point that there is only one perfect mate and if we screw things up with that mate in this life time, we might have to wait until the next life to meet him or her again and try again, although I sometimes feel as if I have found the perfect mate and when the relationship is at a low point, despair over the very issue. However, in some contrast to this belief, it is when I have found what seems a perfect Love (at least so long as the relationship seems that way) -- it is when I have found the perfect Love, that the idea of immortality (as opposed to reentering the abyss) appeals to me.
The above is not a polished research paper, nor conclusive essay. Just notes with a crude attempt at an introduction. This work should not be sited for research papers nor taken as any conclusive truths of the universe.