Theory of Re-birth

[Miguel Angel Carrasco]

Gummuluru Murthy wrote : ^ÓI wonder if Greg can give me the exact reference
to Shri RamaNa's statement,^Ô ["death and sleep are the same, but the sleep
is short and the death is long"]

And Greg Goode answered: ^ÓRamana said "Dream is short, waking state is
long."  So I think I mis-remembered and mis-quoted Ramana. ^Ó

This quote comes from Sri Ramana Maharshi^Òs  Who Am I? - Nan Yar?, question
22:

22. Is there no difference between waking and dream?

Waking is long and a dream short; other than this there is no difference.
Just as waking happenings seem real while awake. so do those in a dream
while dreaming. In dream the mind takes on another body. In both waking and
dream states thoughts. Names and forms occur simultaneously.

-----

I^Òd like to quote these excerpts from 'Conscious Immortality: Conversations
with Ramana Maharshi',  by Paul Brunton :

Q. Why is there no meditation during dreaming? Is such possible?

A. Ask it in the dream. You are told to meditate now and ask who you are.
Instead of doing it you ask such question. Dream and sleep are for the same
person as waking. You are the witness of both - they pass before you.
Because you are out of meditation now, such questions arise.

Q. What happens to the consciousness of a Realized one is sleep?

A.Such a question arises only in the minds of unrealized beholders. He [who
is realised] has but One state, which is unbroken throughout all 24 hours,
whether in what you call sleeping, or in waking. As a matter of fact the
majority of people are all asleep, because they are not awake to the Self.

[...]

Q. If sleep be such a good state, why does one not like to be always in it?


A. One is always in sleep only. The present waking state is no more that a
dream. A dream can take place only in sleep. Sleep unders these states. The
appearance of a state is again a dream which is in its turn, in another
sleep. In this way, these states of dream and sleep are endless. Similar to
these states, birth and death are also dreams in a sleep.

-----------------

^ÓBirth and death are also dreams in a sleep. ^Ó ... So you were not that
wrong in your quote after all, Greg.

But I don^Òt quite follow you when you say:

^ÓAccording to this teaching, upon death the mind dissolves into the ocean
of consciousness, where it gets mixed up with all the other elements of
other minds.  Future beings might seem to be reborn, depending on the
cause-and-effect relations and what is destined to come in the future. So
there might be inherited these elements of mind from the ocean of
consciousness, but not from any ONE person -- basically out of the soup
itself. Therefore there is no REbirth, just births.

As I understand:

Both birth, death, body and mind are all elements in the Lila play, mental
objects turning up in Consciousness. They just appear and disappear within
it. They don^Òt go anywhere. They vanish into the next stage. Like a candle
disappearing into fire. There is no permanent soup out of which re-editions
or sequels of past lives might pop up. There is only the Witness (which is
empty) and the stream of seeming events. Nothing else.

-- Miguel Angel