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Re: Question about Hinduism


In article <4l8qte$ad6@babbage.ece.uc.edu> M Suresh  <msuresh@india.ti.com> writes:

   christine.mucke@mch.sni.de (Christine Mucke) wrote:

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   > >Rebirth is a fact of life, unfortunately, some people do not choose to
   > >accept it.  Yes, there are many people who can remember their past lives,
   > >and these people are called 'jAtismara'.
   >
   > In my view (an ignorant one) rebirth is a great and plausible
   > idea of the indian religions. But a fact ? Are other religions
   > then wrong ?

You have to be careful what you consider rebirth ?  As the Buddha
said, Hinduism supports rebirth but quite a different kind than what
most people expect.  Rebirth has been described as a flame being
transferred to a different candle.  Buddha actually warned his
followers against ever believing that his person was somehow
transferred to another, quite as the Tibetans believe today.

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     Moreover I  feel it is  not strictly correct to  say "I will  be reborn".
     Sri Krishna in  SBG says that just  as a person discards  old clothes and
     wears new ones the soul discards a body and acquires a new one.  For most
     of us when  we say "I" it pertains  to the body and the  brain which will
     perish on  death and not be  reborn.  Thus "I will be reborn" will  be an
     incorrect statement.

Interesting question.  Krishna says that there was never a time when
he or Arjuna were not and there will never be a time when they will
not be.  Materially, this is quite true.  As our experience tells us
that the material body is simply absorbed into other material cycles
and continues to assume other forms.  Your body decomposes, and its
various entities unravel, and many of the individual souls continue
their journey as either flesh or atoms etc.  However, what happens to
your sense of soul or YOUR consciousness ?  The answer to this depends
on your view of the soul.  The materialist would answer that the soul
being a result of material motion, then either ceases to exist or is
transformed into an altogether different soul, quite continuously, as
matter itself transforms.  But those who believe in a supreme
consciousness would say that the supreme consciousness has itself
caused the material transformation.  In short both would acknowledge
the continual change, but would not agree on the driving force.  But
in either case, continuity is assured.  And it is not at all certain
that a man gets up one day and finds out that he was another man in a
previous life, though certainly it is not declared an impossibility.  

     What are reborn  are the habits and tendencies called  samskaras which we
     acquire  over the  births  and which  are stored  in  the soul.  Heredity
     provides  the  appropriate  circumstances  for the  expression  of  these
     tendencies of previous births through the medium of a new body.

This seems highly controversial.

   > As far as I understood right, there are a few high spiritual
   > persons who can remember their previous life. What about
   > the lot of other people ? Maybe the aspect of remembering is
   > not so an important aspect of Hinduism.
   > Really, I just wish to learn!

     If  we have  to remember  something,  it must  come from  the brain.  The
     memory of  previous lives are in  deeper recesses of the  person than his
     exterior mind and  brain.  Though it might be possible for some people to
     bring these  memories to the brain,  it is the exception  rather than the
     rule.

But then again, it could just be a trick played by the consciousness.
It could just be more maya.

     It is said that the soul usually spends hundreds of years in other worlds
     before being reborn.  So the time elapsed from death  to another birth is
     quite high,  which would make  it difficult to remember  previous births.
     This could  be another  explanation of  why we  do not  remember previous
     births.  Maybe in some rare  cases if the soul  takes a birth  soon after
     death the person may remember his past life.

Interesting theory of memory.

     Swami Vivekananda has  given an example of why our  inability to remember
     past lives  is not a  proof against rebirth.  Most of us do  not remember
     anything about our  existence before the time  when we were 3  or 4 years
     old.  That does not  mean we  did not  exist at  that time.  Similarly it
     does not mean that we did not have a previous life just because we cannot
     remember it.

True, particularly in light of the fact that you may have been a rock
in your previous life which was not capable of memory quite like human
beings are.  

In general, I think these issues require a more detailed examination,
and that it is important that this examination be free from wishful
thinking.
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