[Advaita-l] Concept of soul

[Mahesh Ursekar]

Pranams Ramesh-ji and all who helped clarify this concept for me:

On independent continued discussions with the aforementioned disciple of
Swami Parthasarthy, we seem to have come to same conclusion as Ramesh-ji.

My problem was w.r.t a group of cells that are removed from my body, grown
in a culture and replaced back in my body. In this case, the cells were
initially under the purview of a my subtle body, assumed independent subtle
bodies when in the culture and then again seemed to return to my own subtle
body. This seemed like an abberation of sorts. The merger/demerger that
Ramesh-ji talked about.

The disciple's example to solve this (she no longer thought it was time to
"switch theories") was a little easier to understand as compared to
Ramesh-ji's . Break a twig from a tree, plant it in soil till it grows for
some time and then regraft it back into the tree. If one can accept that
this does not violate the principle of subtle bodies then neither should the
cell example.

So from my side, this thread stands closed.

Thanks to all again for your kind help and patience, Mahesh




On 8/26/07, Ramesh Krishnamurthy <rkmurthy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
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