Blavatsky H.P. - Theories About Reincarnation and Spirits: Difference between revisions

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Over and over again the abstruse and mooted question of Rebirth or Reincarnation has crept out during the first ten years of the Theosophical Society’s existence. It has been alleged on prima facie evidence, that a notable discrepancy was found between statements made in Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, pp. 351-52, and later teachings from the same pen and under the inspiration of the same master.<ref>See charge and answer in The Theosophist, Vol. III, August, 1882, pp. 288-89.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[H.P.B.’s article entitled “Isis Unveiled and The Theosophist on Re-Incarnation,” published chronologically in the present series.—<br>

{{Style P-Align right|Compiler.]}}}}</ref>

In Isis, it was held,—reincarnation is denied. An occasional return only of “depraved spirits” is allowed. “Exclusive of that rare and doubtful possibility, then, Isis. . . . allows only three cases—abortion, very early death, and idiocy—in which re-incarnation on this earth occurs.” (“C.C.M.” in Light, July 8, 1882.)

The charge was answered then and there as every one who will turn to The Theosophist of August, 1882, can see for himself. Nevertheless, the answer either failed to satisfy some readers or passed unnoticed. Leaving aside the strangeness of the assertion that reincarnation—i.e., the serial and periodical rebirth of every individual monad from pralaya to pralaya <ref>The cycle of existence during the manvantara—period before and after the beginning and completion of which every such “monad” is absorbed and reabsorbed in the ONE soul, anima mundi.</ref> is denied in the face of the fact that the doctrine is part and parcel and one of the fundamental features of Hinduism and Buddhism, the charge amounted virtually to this: the writer of the present, a professed admirer and student of Hindu philosophy, and as professed a follower of Buddhism years before Isis was

<center>Reproduced from Col. H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves,</center>

<center>Vol. IV, p. 548.</center>

{{Style P-No indent|written, by rejecting reincarnation must necessarily reject KARMA likewise! For the latter is the very corner-stone of Esoteric philosophy and Eastern religions; it is the grand and one pillar on which hangs the whole philosophy of rebirths, and once the latter is denied, the whole doctrine of Karma falls into meaningless verbiage.}}

Nevertheless, the opponents without stopping to think of the evident “discrepancy” between charge and fact, accused a Buddhist by profession of faith of denying reincarnation hence also by implication—Karma. Adverse to wrangling with one who was a friend and undesirous at the time to enter upon a defence of details and internal evidence—a loss of time indeed—the writer answered merely with a few sentences. But it now becomes necessary to well define the doctrine. Other critics have taken the same line, and by misunderstanding the passages to that effect in Isis they have reached the same rather extraordinary conclusions.

Although, in view of the later more minute renderings of the esoteric doctrines, it is quite immaterial what may have been written in Isis—an encyclopedia of occult subjects in which each of these is hardly sketched—let it be known at once, that the writer maintains the correctness of every word given out upon the subject in my earlier volumes. What was said in The Theosophist of August, 1882, may now be repeated here. The passage quoted from it may be, and is, most likely “incomplete, chaotic, vague, perhaps—clumsy, as many more passages in that work, the first literary production of a foreigner who even now can hardly boast of her knowledge of the English language.” Nevertheless it is quite correct so far as that collateral feature of reincarnation is therein concerned.

I will now give extracts from Isis and proceed to explain every passage criticised, wherein it was said that “a few fragments of this mysterious doctrine of {{Page aside|178}}reincarnation as distinct from metempsychosis”—would be then presented. Sentences now explained are in italics.

{{Style P-Quote|Reincarnation, i.e., the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet, is not a rule in nature; it is an exception, like the teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant. It is preceded by a violation of the laws of harmony of nature, and happens only when the latter, seeking to restore its disturbed equilibrium, violently throws back into earth-life the astral monad which had been tossed out of the circle of necessity by crime or accident. Thus, in cases of abortion, of infants dying before a certain age, and of congenital and incurable idiocy, nature’s original design to produce a perfect human being, has been interrupted. Therefore, while the gross matter of each of these several entities is suffered to disperse itself at death, through the vast realm of being, the immortal spirit and astral monad of the individual—the latter having been set apart to animate a frame and the former to shed its divine light on the corporeal organization—must try a second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence. (Vol. I, p. 351.)}}

Here the “astral monad” or body of the deceased personality say of John or Thomas—is meant. It is that which, in the teachings of the Esoteric philosophy of Hinduism, is known under its name of bhoot; in the Greek philosophy is called the simulacrum or umbra, and in all other philosophies worthy of the name is said, as taught in the former, to disappear after a certain period more or less prolonged in Kama-loka—the Limbus of the Roman Catholics, or Hades of the Greeks.<ref>Hades has surely never been meant for Hell. It was always the abode of the sorrowing shadows or astral bodies of the dead personalities. Western readers should remember Kama-loka is not Karma-loka, for Kama means desire, and Karma does not.</ref> It is “a violation of the laws of harmony of nature,” though it be so decreed by those of Karma—every time that the astral monad, or the simulacrum of the personality—of John or Thomas—instead of running down to the end of its natural period of time in a body—finds itself (a) violently thrown out of it by either early death or accident or (b) is compelled in consequence of its unfinished task to reappear (i.e., the same astral body wedded to the same immortal monad) on earth again, in order to complete the unfinished {{Page aside|179}}task. Thus it “must try a second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence” or law.

{{Style P-Quote|If reason has been so far developed as to become active and discriminative there is no <ref>Had this word “immediate” been put at the time of publishing Isis between the two words “no” and “reincarnation” there would have been less room for dispute and controversy.</ref> [immediate] reincarnation on this earth, for the three parts of the triune man have been united together, and he is capable of running the race. But when the new being has not passed beyond the condition of Monad, or when, as in the idiot, the trinity has not been completed [on earth and therefore cannot be so after death], the immortal spark which illuminates it, has to re-enter on the earthly plane as it was frustrated in its first attempt. Otherwise, the mortal or astral, and the immortal or divine, souls, could not progress in unison and pass onward to the-sphere above [Devachan].<ref>“By sphere above,” of course “Devachan” was meant.</ref> Spirit follows a line parallel with that of matter; and the spiritual evolution goes hand in hand with the physical. [Vol. I, pp. 351-52.]}}

(1) There is no immediate reincarnation on Earth for the Monad, as falsely taught by the Reincarnationist-Spiritists; nor is there any second incarnation at all for the “personal” or false Ego—the périsprit—save the exceptional cases mentioned. But that

(a) there are re-births, or periodical reincarnations for the immortal Ego—(“Ego” during the cycle of re-births, and non-Ego, in Nirvana or Moksha when it becomes impersonal and absolute); for that Ego is the root of every new incarnation, the string on which are threaded, one after the other, the false personalities or illusive bodies called men, in which the Monad-Ego incarnates itself during the cycle of births; and (b) that such reincarnations take place not before 1,500, 2,000, and even 3,000 years of Devachanic life.

(2) That Manas—the seat of Jiv, that spark which runs the round of the cycle of births and rebirths with the Monad, from the beginning to the end of a Manvantara—is the real Ego. That (a) the Jiv follows the divine monad that gives it spiritual life and immortality into {{Page aside|180}}Devachan—that therefore, it can neither be reborn before its appointed period, nor reappear on Earth visibly or invisibly in the interim; and (b) that, unless the fruition, the spiritual aroma of the Manas—or all these highest aspirations and spiritual qualities and attributes that constitute the higher SELF of man become united to its monad, the latter becomes as Non-existent; since it is in esse “impersonal” and per se Ego-less, so to say, and gets its spiritual colouring or flavour of Ego-tism only from each Manas during incarnation and after it is disembodied, and separated from all its lower principles.

(3) That the remaining four principles, or rather the—21—as they are composed of the terrestrial portion of Manas, of its Vehicle Kama-Rupa and Linga Sarira—the body dissolving immediately, and prana or the life principle along with it—that these principles having belonged to the false personality are unfit for Devachan. The latter is the state of Bliss, the reward for all the undeserved miseries of life,<ref>The reader must bear in mind that the esoteric teaching maintains that save in cases of wickedness when man’s nature attains the acme of Evil, and human terrestrial sin reaches Satanic universal character, so to say, as some Sorcerers do—there is no punishment for the majority of mankind after death. The law of retribution as Karma, waits man at the threshold of his new incarnation. Man is at best a wretched tool of evil, unceasingly forming new causes and circumstances. He is not always (if ever) responsible. Hence a period of rest and bliss in Devachan, with an utter temporary oblivion of all the miseries and sorrows of life. Avitchi is a spiritual state of the greatest misery and is only in store for those who have devoted consciously their lives to doing injury to others and have thus reached its highest spirituality of EVIL.</ref> and that which prompted man to sin, namely his terrestrial passionate nature can have no room in it.

Therefore the [non]-reincarnating principles <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[See H.P.B.’s own correction of this part of the sentence in “An Important Correction” immediately following this article.—Compiler.]}}</ref> are left behind in Kama-loka, firstly as a material residue, then later on as a reflection on the mirror of Astral light. Endowed with illusive action, to the day when having {{Page aside|181}}gradually faded out they disappear, what is it but the Greek Eidôlon and the simulacrum of the Greek and Latin poets and classics?