All Vasanas Are Eternal and Impersonal
Dear Sundari, it’s so nice to have satsang with you. It’s a brilliant idea to not lose the continuity of the sessions when Ramji is out.
Sundari: Thank you Lia, it has always been in the cards that I would also teach ‘live’, and Isvara decided the timing. I will continue to do so even when Ramji is back. Thank you for your feedback, I am so glad that you could attend the satsang last Sunday. Your presence is always welcome and a benefit to all.
Lia: Last satsang I asked this question about the vasana: “I’ve heard that the vasanas from previous lives can be inherited in this life. But if the vasanas belong to the temporally incarnated jiva which is only a tool for experiencing the material world, how can happen this kind of “transference” from a no longer jiva to an incoming jiva, if they have a beginning and an end?” I answered my question properly I but asked to write you an email so you can share more information about that topic. However, I am surrendering to Ishwara, but I’d appreciate all your help and answers.
Sundari: The question of reincarnation comes up regularly, and you will see that we have answered it many times if you use the search function in the satsang section on our website. Here is a slightly longer answer than I gave you on Sunday:
The whole idea behind reincarnation is dualistic, implying that the apparent reality is real and has continuity, meaning that time exists, So let’s inquire into what time is. If reality is non-dual Awareness, which we know it is, then there is nothing other than Awareness. Time is a construct, an uphadi or limiting adjunct, created by Maya, beginningless ignorance or duality so that we can make sense of experience. It is mithya, meaning not real, because it is not always present (as in deep sleep) and is always changing. If you are identified with time, you are looking at the changeless through a changing instrument, the mind. This is bondage. Though the jiva is called the experiencing entity, who is the jiva, really, and what is it experiencing? The whole point of self-inquiry is to negate the reality of the finite personal jiva and to realize that you are only ever experiencing your non-dual Self, who never ‘incarnates’ because you are unborn and undying. If the Self did incarnate, that would mean you, Awareness, begin and end with the birth and death of the body.
Nonetheless, the apparent jiva exists because you can experience it, and it can only experience thanks to the presence of the Self. When you know you are the Self and not the jiva (body/mind entity) how you relate to experience changes but experiencing continues. You just no longer identify with it. Though life (experience) seems linear, we never experience anything in the past or the future, only the present. There is no real continuity to anything in the apparent reality. Just the constant recycling of the eternal and universal vasanas. How long is the present? A lifetime, a year, a month, a minute, a millisecond? The moment you try to categorize time, it has already passed. Time, therefore, isn’t any specific measurement. What is it, then? This question has plagued humans for a long time; it still does. Einstein stated that time and space are the same thing and form the fifth dimension, space-time. That insight made a difference in how humans relate to and harness the power of the field of existence. But it made no difference to human bondage or suffering.
From a personal human perspective, time is the space between events or experiences. Imagine if everything happened simultaneously; it would not be possible to make sense of the world. The essence of the experience of events is stored in and by the mind. Memory is simply catalogued and categorized events. Could you say an event took place previously if your mind didn’t record that event? You could not, which is why memory is such an important function of mental well-being. People with dementia who lose their memory also lose their sense of self (small s).
Time is the distance between the memory of an event and another memory or current experience. It is an illusion. If time is the space between memories formed by the mind, what or who sees the presence of the memories and ‘time’? Awareness is the witness to time/memories. Is Awareness affected by any function of the mind? Does Awareness actually have anything to do with the mental illusion called time? Would time exist if Awareness weren’t there to see it? No to all these questions.
This is precisely what we mean when we say that Awareness is ‘out of time’ or ‘timeless’. Vedanta says that Awareness isn’t a factor in the production of time; only experience and memory are. Yet, as stated, Awareness must be there for time to exist and memories to form. That is why time depends on you, the Self, but you don’t depend on time. You see time, it doesn’t see you. You are the seer unaffected by time. You are free of time. Nothing ever happened. So, what difference does it make if the vasanas are experienced in this life or an apparent ‘past’ life? Without Self-knowledge, the vasanas cannot be dissolved, remain binding and the doer cannot be negated.
Once ignorance has been removed and the knowledge that your true identity is Awareness and not the jiva is firm, then you understand that the person is no more than a conglomeration of tendencies, likes and dislikes or vasanas given by Isvara. It creates a certain personality and a life story. Both Isvara and the jiva or the apparent person are objects known to you, Awareness. “Your” conditioning comes from Isvara, or the Causal body. There is only one Causal body and only one Subtle body. Therefore, all vasanas are universal and not personal, though they appear to be to the jiva identified with the body/mind and its story.
Thus, as Awareness, you do not claim anything. Nor do you set out to perfect the apparent person. What for if the person is not real? All you need to be free is to understand the jiva’s conditioning in the light of Self-knowledge so that you can be free of the limitation of identification with objects that the hypnosis of duality imposes on the mind. The apparent person will always be limited as they will never leave the apparent reality, meaning that the conceptual jiva is always subject to Isvara, even though as Awareness you are free of Isvara and the jiva, as you know. The eternal Jivatman is never in mithya and was never conditioned by anything because it is the Self. All things mithya are ‘within the scope of Atman, the Self’.
The subject of reincarnation is not such a big topic in Vedanta because self-inquiry is about negating the notion that you are the body/mind, the doer. The scripture says that you die and reincarnate which each thought. The whole idea of reincarnation depends on who you think you are. If you are religiously inclined and identified with being a person, then the ego will be attached to the idea of a future life ‘beyond this life’ wherever ‘heaven’ may be. If you are spiritually inclined the ego will be invested in the idea of a past life and reincarnation. As Vedantins we know that no life is real, and nor is time, as explained.
Once you understand that you are not the person, it is not terribly important to know what tendencies the jiva inherited from a ‘previous’ life, i.e., whether the person re-incarnates or not because you know that you, Awareness, are eternal. The person is just an idea that appears in you. Like time, the person is an uphadi; it is just a name for the Self apparently under the spell of ignorance. The person (personality) will never reincarnate because he/she is not real. Real is being defined by that which is always present and unchanging. Only Awareness fits that description. Why bother with who he/she was in the so-called “past” or will be in the so-called ‘future’ when this life is no more real than the ‘last’ one? As Awareness, you never had a life. You have no past and no future.
Though the Subtle body is an eternal principle in Awareness, like Isvara, it is not real, though it is relatively real with reference to the short-lived individual. The Subtle Body (vasana bundle) is called the “traveler” because it is that which may or may not reincarnate, i.e., find another vehicle in which to express, with a different set of life karma. But that particular person will not be the same and will have no memory of ever having been who they were in their last life. So, again, what difference does it make? Whether reincarnation happens or not has no bearing on your present life. The belief is nothing more than a false sense of security for the ego looking for continuity. What does have a bearing on your current life is whether the mind is under the spell of ignorance, or not.
The spiritual arena has built up a very elaborate fantasy around the belief in reincarnation because the ego is afraid of death. Some people do have ‘past’ life memories, it’s true—but what difference do they make in the here and now? As I said, knowledge of past lives will not help the mind render the binding vasanas non-binding. Only Self-knowledge has the power to do that.
Each apparent jiva incarnation is just a playing out of the gunas, which creates a story with a name and an address. It is no more than a holographic movie playing out on the movie screen of the Self. The main takeaway from the answer to your question on the topic of reincarnation (and it bears repeating because it is so important with reference to moksa), is that although the story of the jiva may seem personal, it is not. As there is really only one Self there is really only one mind or Subtle Body seemingly appearing as many. There is only one story with no past. It is the eternal story of ignorance and knowledge. If you understand the difference between satya/non-duality, and duality/mithya, you will not be concerned with so-called past lives, nor worry about the future.
Much love
Sundari
