Instant Expert Kit - Reincarnation
Published 05 February 1999
Ah! The eternal process by which the powers of the universe impel a man continually to relive his story on earth until he reaches that inevitable pinnacle of conscious human expression . . .
You mean resignation?
I mean nirvana, oh foolish student - although the British press may have indeed attained divine control of public life.
Hoddle had it coming, though. Call me a puritan snob, but the moment the term "pick'n'mix" leaves the confectionery counter and enters the realm of spirituality, you're always going to sound silly. So tell me, oh guru, how did it really start?
The ancient belief in the transmigration of souls is found in many indigenous groups throughout the world (although without any moral judgements). The basic idea is usually that the soul has a divine element which leaves the body after death, and often just during sleep - the journeys of this spirit accounting for the experience of dreams. The soul can be represented as a small animal or bird, such as a wasp in Assam or a hawk in Egypt, and inevitably this suggests that the soul can return to another human body. A beautiful example of this is the Australian aboriginal concept of reincarnation, which involves a totem group, represented by an animal or plant, called a "dreaming".
So reincarnation provides an explanation for complex, primal questions?
Things like dreams and death, yes. But the really interesting part comes in around the seventh or sixth century BC. Suddenly, reincarnation was used as part of a formal framework to account for the existence of good and evil, in Europe and India.
But I thought it was just an Asian idea?
Whether it had an indigenous European basis or came from India, around 530BC Pythagoras was certainly discussing the importance of leading a pure life, so the soul could escape the prison of the body and the painful cycle of continual rebirth to ascend to the heavens. This belief flourished for a while and came to influence much of Plato's writing, but it had little impact on Roman thinking and limped into the first millennium AD with a few heretical Christian sects such as the Manichaeans, and later the Cathars.
Who were they, exactly?
The European Manichaeans were a 4th-century sect who believed that darkness itself was pure evil and light was good, and lots of other very odd things. The Cathars thought that all matter was evil. The appeal of both groups was based on the principle that Christianity could not adequately explain the degree of suffering in the world. Reincarnation imposes a moral load - karma in Asia - that can be good or bad on a person's life experience to reward or punish for their conduct in previous lives, creating a much more understandable system of justice for the ordinary religious follower.
So what's the Indian side of things?
Hinduism had existed for centuries and produced its most holy literature by the time that the doctrines of samsara (the flowing of the soul) and karma were first described in the 5th-century Upanishads. The Bhagavad Gita explained these new concepts: "For certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the dead." The ideas, similar in outline to those believed by Plato, were rapidly accepted and incorporated into Hindu thought, and also Buddhism as it began to appear as a distinct religious movement. Inevitably, this powerful ethical system became part of the adaptive faiths of the east, but was stamped out by the more dogmatic value systems to develop later in the west.
A question of the dogma chasing the karma down the street, I suppose. Was Hoddle right, then?
That's a tough one. His phrase "What you sow, you have to reap" is straight from the sacred texts. But the Christian tradition loads his sound-bite with too great a sense of punishment and just deserts. We will all have to deal with ever-changing burdens of karma in the long journey of our souls.
See you in the next life, guru.
Duncan Parrish
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