REINCARNATION/PART 9
CHAPTER IX.
The
Argument for Reincarnation.
In addition to the
consideration of Justice, there are many other advantages claimed by the
advocates of Reincarnation which are worthy of the careful consideration of
students of the problem of the soul. We shall give to each of these principal
points a brief consideration in this chapter, that you may acquaint yourself
with the several points of the argument.
It is argued that the
principle of analogy renders it more reasonable to believe that the present
life of the soul is but one link in a great chain of existences, which chain
stretches far back into the past on one side, and far out into the future on
the other, than to suppose that it has been specially created for this petty
term of a few years of earth life, and then projected for weal or woe into an
eternity of spiritual existence. It is argued that the principle of Evolution
on the Physical Plane points to an analogy of Evolution of the Spiritual Plane.
It is reasoned that just as birth on the next plane of life follows death on
the present one, so analogy would indicate that a death on past planes preceded
birth on this, and so on. It is argued that every form of life that we know of
has arisen from lower forms, which in turn arose from still lower forms, and so
on; and that following the same analogy the soul has risen from lower to
higher, and will mount on to still higher forms and planes. It is argued that
"special creation" is unknown in the universe, and that it is far
more reasonable to apply the principle of evolution to the soul than to
consider it as an exception and violation of the universal law.
It is also claimed by
some thinkers that the idea of future-existence presupposes past-existence, for
everything that is "begun" must "end" some time, and
therefore if we are to suppose that the soul is to continue its existence in
the future, we must think of it as having an existence in the past—being
eternal at both ends of the earth-life, as it were. Opponents of the idea of
immortality are fond of arguing that there was no more reason for supposing
that a soul would continue to exist after the death of the body, than there was
for supposing that it had existed previously. A well-known man once was asked
the question: "What becomes of a man's soul after death?" when he
evaded the question by answering: "It goes back to where it came from."
And to many this idea has seemed sufficient to make them doubt the idea of
immortality. The ancient Greek philosophers felt it logically necessary for
them to assert the eternal pre-existence of the soul in order to justify their
claim of future existence for it. They argued that if the soul is immortal, it
must have always existed, for an immortal thing could not have been created—if
it was not immortal by nature, it could never be made so, and if it was
immortal by nature, then it had always existed. The argument usually employed
is this: A thing is either mortal or immortal, one or the other; if it is
mortal it has been born and must die; if it is immortal, it cannot have been
born, neither can it die; mortality means subject to life and death—immortality
means immunity from both. The Greeks devoted much time and care to this
argument, and attached great importance to it. They reasoned that nothing that
possessed Reality could have emerged from nothingness, nor could it pass into
nothingness. If it were Real it was Eternal; if it was not Eternal it was not
Real, and would pass away even as it was born. They also claimed that the sense
of immortality possessed by the Ego, was an indication of its having
experienced life in the past, as well as anticipating life in the future—there
is a sense of "oldness" pervading every thought of the soul regarding
its own nature. It is claimed as an illogical assumption to hold that back of
the present there extends an eternity of non-existence for the soul, while
ahead of it there extends an eternity of being—it is held that it is far more
logical to regard the present life as merely a single point in an eternity
of existence.
It is argued,
further, that Reincarnation fits in with the known scientific principle of
conservation of energy—that is, that no energy is ever created or is lost, but
that all energy is but a form of the universal energy, which flows on from form
to form, from manifestation to manifestation, ever the same, and yet
manifesting in myriad forms—never born, never dying, but always moving on, and
on, and on to new manifestations. Therefore it is thought that it is reasonable
to suppose that the soul follows the same law of re-embodiment, rising higher
and higher, throughout time, until finally it re-enters the Universal Spirit
from which it emerged, and in which it will continue to exist, as it existed
before it emerged for the cycle of manifestation. It is also argued that
Reincarnation brings Life within the Law of Cause and Effect, just as is
everything else in the universe. The law of re-birth, according to the causes
generated during past lives, would bring the existence of the soul within
and in harmony with natural laws, instead of without and contrary to them.
It is further argued
that the feeling of "original sin" of which so many people assert a
consciousness, may be explained better by the theory of Reincarnation than by
any theological doctrine. The orthodox doctrine is that "original
sin" was something inherited from Adam by reason of our forefather's transgression,
but this jars upon the thought of today, as well it might, for what has the
"soul" to do with Adam—it did not descend from him, or from aught
else but the Source of Being—there is no line of descent for souls, though
there may be for bodies. What has Adam to do with your soul, if it came fresh
from the mint of the Maker, pure and unsullied—how could his sin taint your new
soul? Theology here asserts either arrant nonsense, or else grave injustice.
But if for "Adam" we substitute our past existences and the thoughts
and deeds thereof, we may understand that feeling of conscious recognition of
past wrong-doing and remorse, which so many testify to, though they be
reasonably free from the same in the present life. The butterfly dimly
remembers its worm state, and although it now soars, it feels the slime of the
mud in which it once crawled.
It is also argued
that in one life the soul would fail to acquire the varied experience which is
necessary to form a well rounded mentality of understanding. Dwarfed by its
limited experience in the narrow sphere occupied by many human beings, it would
be far from acquiring the knowledge which would seem to be necessary for a
developed and advanced soul. Besides this there would be as great an inequality
on the part of souls after death, as there is before death—some would pass into
the future state as ignorant beings, while others would possess a full nature
of understanding. As a leading authority has said: "A perfected man must
have experienced every type of earthly relation and duty, every phase of
desire, affection and passion, every form of temptation and every variety of
conflict. No one life can possibly furnish the material for more than a
minute section of such experience." Along this same line it is urged that
the soul's development must come largely from contact and relationship with
other souls, in a variety of phases and forms. It must experience pain and
happiness, love, pity, failure, success—it must know the discipline of
sympathy, toleration, patience, energy, fortitude, foresight, gratitude, pity,
benevolence, and love in all of its phases. This, it is urged, is possible only
through repeated incarnations, as the span of one life is too small and its
limit too narrow to embrace but a small fraction of the necessary experiences
of the soul on its journey toward development and attainment. One must feel the
sorrows and joys of all forms of life before "understanding" may
come. Narrowness, lack of tolerance, prejudice, and similar forms of
undeveloped consciousness must be wiped out by the broad understanding and
sympathy that come only from experience.
It is argued that
only by repeated incarnations the soul is able to realize the futility of the
search for happiness and satisfaction in material things. One, while
dissatisfied and disappointed at his own condition, is apt to imagine that in
some other earthly condition he would find satisfaction and happiness now
denied him, and dying carries with him the subsconcious desire to enjoy those
conditions, which desire attracts him back to earth-life in search of those
conditions. So long as the soul desires anything that earth can offer, it is
earth-bound and drawn back into the vortex. But after repeated incarnations the
soul learns well its lesson that only in itself may be found happiness—and that
only when it learns its real nature, source, and destiny—and then it passes on
to higher planes. As an authority says: "In time, the soul sees that a
spiritual being cannot be nourished on inferior food, and that any joy short of
union with the Divine must be illusionary."
It is also argued
that but few people, as we see them in earth-life, have realized the existence
of a higher part of their being, and still fewer have asserted
the supremacy of the higher, and subordinated the lower part of the self
to that higher. Were they to pass on to a final state of being after death,
they would carry with them all of their lower propensities and attributes, and
would be utterly incapable of manifesting the spiritual part of their nature
which alone would be satisfied and happy in the spiritual realms. Therefore, it
needs repeated lives in order to evolve from the lower conditions and to
develop and unfold the higher.
Touching upon the
question of unextinguished desire, mentioned a moment ago, the following
quotation from a writer on the subject, gives clearly and briefly the
Reincarnationist argument regarding this point. The writer says: "Desire
for other forms of earthly experience can only be extinguished by undergoing
them. It is obvious that any one of us, if now translated to the unseen world,
would feel regret that he had not tasted existence in some other situation or
surroundings. He would wish to have known what it was to possess wealth and
rank, or beauty, or to live in a different race or climate, or to see more
of the world and society. No spiritual ascent could progress while earthly
longings were dragging back the soul, and so it frees itself from them by
successively securing them and dropping them. When the round of such knowledge
has been traversed, regret for ignorance has died out." This idea of
"Living-Out and Out-Living" is urged by a number of writers and
thinkers on the subject. J. Wm. Lloyd says, in his "Dawn Thought," on
this subject: "You rise and overcome simply by the natural process of
living fully and thus outliving, as a child its milk-teeth, a serpent his
slough. Living and Outliving, that expresses it. Until you have learned the one
lesson fully you are never ready for a new one." The same writer, in the
same book, also says: "By sin, shame, joy, virtue and sorrow, action and
reaction, attraction and repulsion, the soul, like a barbed arrow, ever goes
on. It cannot go back, or return through the valves of its coming. But this
must not be understood to be fulfilled in one and every earth-visit. It is
true only of the whole circle-voyage of the soul. In one earth-trip, one
'life,' as we say, it may be that there would nothing be but a standing still
or a turning back, nothing but sin. But the whole course of all is on."
But there is the danger of a misunderstanding of this doctrine, and some have
misinterpreted it, and read it to advise a plunging into all kinds of sinful
experience in order to "live-out and out-live," which idea is wrong,
and cannot be entertained by any true student of the subjects, however much it
may be used by those who wish to avail themselves of an excuse for material
dissipation. Mabel Collins, in her notes to "Light on the Path," says
on this subject: "Seek it by testing all experience, and remember that,
when I say this, I do not say, 'Yield to the seduction of sense, in order to
know it.' Before you have become an occultist, you may do this, but not
afterwards. When you have chosen and entered the path, you cannot yield to
these seductions without shame. Yet you can experience them without horror; can
weigh, observe and test them, and wait with the patience of confidence for the
hour when they shall affect you no longer. But do not condemn a man that
yields; stretch out your hand to him as a brother pilgrim whose feet have
become heavy with mire. Remember, O disciple! that great though the gulf may be
between the good man and the sinner, it is greater between the good man and the
man who has attained knowledge; it is immeasurable between the good man and the
one on the threshold of divinity. Therefore, be wary, lest too soon you fancy
yourself a thing apart from the mass." And again, the same writer says:
"Before you can attain knowledge you must have passed through all places,
foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink
from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you
turn with horror from it when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling
the more closely to you. The self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of
mire. Abstain because it is right to abstain, not that yourself shall be
kept clean."
It is also argued
that Reincarnation is necessary in order to give the evolving races a chance to
perfect themselves—that is, not through their physical descendants, which would
not affect the souls of those living in the bodies of the races to-day, but by
perfection and growth of the souls themselves. It is pointed out that to usher
a savage or barbarian to the spiritual planes after death, no matter how true
to his duty and "his lights" the soul had been, would be to work an
absurd translation. Such a soul would not be fitted for the higher spiritual
planes, and would be most unhappy and miserable there. It will be seen that
Reincarnationists make quite a distinction between "goodness" and
"advancement"—while they recognize and urge the former, they regard
it as only one side of the question, the other being "spiritual growth and
unfoldment." It will be seen that Reincarnation provides for a Spiritual
Evolution with all of its advantages, as well as a material evolution such
as science holds to be correct.
Concluding this
chapter, let us quote once more from the authority on the subject before
mentioned, who writes anonymously in the pamphlet from which the quotation is
taken. He says: "Nature does nothing by leaps. She does not, in this case,
introduce into a region of spirit and spiritual life a being who has known
little else than matter and material life, with small comprehension even of
that. To do so would be analogous to transferring suddenly a ploughboy into a
company of metaphysicians. The pursuit of any topic implies some preliminary
acquaintance with its nature, aims, and mental requirements; and the more
elevated the topic, the more copious the preparation for it. It is inevitable
that a being who has before him an eternity of progress through zones of
knowledge and spiritual experience ever nearing the Central Sun, should be
fitted for it through long acquisition of the faculties which alone can deal
with it. Their delicacy, their vigor, their penetrativeness, their unlikeness
to those called for on the material plane, show the contrast of the earth-life
to the spirit-life. And they show, too, the inconceivability of a sudden
transition from one to the other, of a policy unknown in any other department
of Nature's workings, of a break in the law of uplifting through Evolution. A
man, before he can become a 'god,' must first become a perfect man; and he can
become a perfect man neither in seventy years of life on earth, nor in any
number of years of life from which human conditions are absent. * * * Re-birth
and re-life must go on till their purposes are accomplished. If, indeed, we
were mere victims of an evolutionary law, helpless atoms on which the machinery
of Nature pitilessly played, the prospect of a succession of incarnations, no
one of which gave satisfaction, might drive us to mad despair. But we have
thrust on us no such cheerless exposition. We are shown that Reincarnations are
the law for man, because they are the conditions of his progress, which is also
a law, but he may mould them and better them and lessen them. He cannot
rid himself of the machinery, but neither should wish to. Endowed with the
power to guide it for the best, prompted with the motive to use that power, he
may harmonize both his aspirations and his efforts with the system that
expressed the infinite wisdom of the supreme, and through the journey from the
temporal to the eternal tread the way with steady feet, braced with the
consciousness that he is one of an innumerable multitude, and with the
certainty that he and they alike, if they so will it, may attain finally to
that sphere where birth and death are but memories of the past."
In this chapter we
have given you a number of the arguments favorable to the doctrine of
Reincarnation, from a number of sources. Some of these arguments do not
specially appeal to us, personally, for the reason that they are rather more
theological than scientific, but we have included them that the argument may
appear as generally presented, and because we feel that in a work of this kind
we must not omit an argument which is used by many of the best
authorities, simply because it may not appeal to our particular temperament or
habit of thought. To some, the theological argument may appeal more strongly
than would the scientific, and it very properly is given here. The proper way
to present any subject is to give it in its many aspects, and as it may appear
from varied viewpoints.
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