[Advaita-l] Concept of soul

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

On 26/08/07, Mahesh Ursekar <mahesh.ursekar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pranams Ramesh-ji:
>
> This merger/demerger goes against the "traditional" understanding of
> "rebirth". By "traditional" understanding, I mean that when the subtle body
> has exhausted its prarabdha vasana in one gross body, it sheds it and then
> assumes a new one. With merger/demerger, the same gross body is switching
> subtle bodies dynamically! It is like saying that when I am in one room
> (cell in my body), I am Mahesh but when I go to another room (cell in
> culture), I become Ramesh. That seems to be violating the basic concept of
> "rebirth".
>

Not exactly. If Mahesh donates blood to Ramesh, Mahesh's blood cells
could presumably bring with them a small part of Mahesh's subtle body
and merge it with Ramesh's subtle body. This might result in a little
transfer of prarabdha also. However, the manifestation of personality
is through the association of the subtle body with the antahkarana, in
the sense that it is through this association that fresh karma is
created. So the individual personalities are retained.

Also, rebirth need not be thought of necessarily as a discrete
process. As long as one presumes that the subtle & gross bodies are
subject to change, one can also say that one is being reborn all the
time!

I might add here that if one thinks of subtle bodies as "partless",
they would end up becoming real in the strict vedantic sense, and that
would violate non-duality itself. Just as one could remove a wheel
from a car and put it in another car, I would presume that transfer of
"parts" of a subtle body is possible; hence transfer of karma,
vasana-s etc is also possible.

Anyway, all this is wild speculation, but once in a while, its good to
think wildly!

Ramesh