Theory of Re-birth

[Gregory Goode]

At 09:02 PM 2/11/98 +0100, Miguel Angel Carrasco wrote:

>Sorry, Greg, but I beg to disagree.
>
>One of two: either you speak as a non-Advaitist Vedic philosopher, or as an
>Advaitist. If as the first, then the chart is a interesting theory, which I
>don^Òt share. If you speak as an Advaitist, then I don^Òt understand what you
>say at all.

I'm not speaking "as" anything, actually I'm not really even speaking :-)

>For example: ^ÓIsvara (Brahman qualified by Maya; rules over all causal
>bodies; omniscient)^Ô . Whether you admit it or not, that is a personal God,
>one with personal attributes, not very different from Zeus or Ra. I can^Òt
>accept that the Absolute is ever qualified by Maya. There is nothing but
>Brahman, how then could It be qualified by anything, or rule over anything,
>or be omniscient of anything? What else is there?

There's more than one way to look at it.  In the practice of Vedanta, one
can adopt various standpoints:

-that of the jiva who thinks he's the conter of the universe
    (the normal person's way to look at it)
-that of Brahman qualified by Maya (this is the way most Vedantic
    discussion is carried on, in this list and elsewhere)
-and that of Brahman unqualified by anything (this is
    Nisargadatta's way of looking it, this is the way the sage
    sees things)

There is no conflict among these ways of looking at things, and most
teachers go from one to the other on a moments' notice, depending on who
they are talking to.  A good answer to Gummuluru's question (about why the
"same" memories continued after waking from sleep) seemed like a "Brahman
qualified by Maya" approach, but it could have been anything.

In the textual tradition of Vedanta, different stories are told.  On the
level of Brahman qualified by Maya, and even from the level of the jiva
itself, the story of Isvara, Hiranyagarbha, Virat, Prajna, Taijasa and
Visva is told.  There are other stories in Hinduism and other religions,
and as you stated, from the highest level no story is true, because
everything with name or form is an appearance in the Absolute.

BTW, here's another answer to Gummuluru's question, more on the level of
Nisargadatta:  There's no proof that there IS continuity between sleep
states.  There is only NOW.  There's no proof that there is a past or
future, or any past or future thoughts or appearances.  One non-dualist
teacher I know says "Everything in the past is a lie."  Catchy, no?

--Greg