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Reincarnation? Karma?
>From: jgraham@lbs.lon.ac.uk (John Graham)
-I have a lot of trouble accepting karma and reincarnation; as well as the
-Eastern versus Western concept of the soul.
-As for karma, if the point of karma is that I should pay for my enjoyment by
-suffering, and vice-versa, through false attachment to material desires, what
-is the point if I do not know what I am being punished for, or what in past
-lives occurred that I should have to live through this life? If I commit a
-crime in the usual sense, the court makes it very clear to me what my crime
-was, and how much prison-time I have to serve to pay my debt to society. It
-does not make sense to keep this hidden from us in the karmic sense.
This would be true only if you didn't have a clear idea
what you should do NOW to get out of your predicament.
But if you do, ( and the scriptures and your guru are
there to help you find it out ), what more info do you need ?
No matter what you did to get here, what is pertinent now
is that you now strive to get out of the karmic bonds
that envelop you here. Supposing you became aware that
you committed murders in your past life, how will
this knowledge alter your current life ? You already
know murder is wrong, so this additional knowledge of
your past karma is of no value at all.
I think it is a great mercy that we are not burdened with
all this useless info about our innumerable past lives;
since this info is completely useless, it is a load
on our mind and will only distract and confuse us in
our task ahead. The imporrtant thing is not to waste
our current life and strive towards liberation with all
the means at our command.
-As for reincarnation, the Judao-Christain view of the soul is, generally that
-the soul expands or evolves from the parents with the new body, from the
-point of conception. Thence comes the idea of original sin. The view that
-the sould existed before this life, indeed that it was never created at a
-point in time, would seem to eliminate the need for reincarnation or sexual
-reproduction. Should my body just not continue to evolve, as it does from
-infancy to old age, into a different type of body? The same body can evolve
-into a radically different shape, witness the metamorphisis or caterpillars
-into butterflies, or tadpoles into frogs. Surely if the soul evolved through
-different material bodies, it would be in this way for all living beings. Why
-couldn't a butterfly go back into a cocoon and come out as a spider, cat, dog,
-or human? The fact of sexual reproduction would indicate that my soul "spins
-off" from my parents.
If I may be permitted to use technical words, these
are merely implementation details, and do not affect
the philosophical concepts at all. If your Karma of
your past dictates that you are now worthy of human
birth, why, then, your soul finds accomodation in
the human embryo in your mother's womb. The soul is the
main agent, in this view, and how it gets itself into
an animal body or human body are merely implementation
details.
If the butterfly has to take the life of a cat, well,
it sheds the butterfly body and then gets born as a
cat. I don't see how this presents any metaphysical
difficulties.
RS
Any comments gratefully received
