Topic: reincarnation for an enlightened person?
Hi James,
A question if you don’t mind which came up once again while listening to you unfold the Mandukya Upanishad 3 states teaching. What happens to a Jivanmukta upon death of the physical body? Is there a “world” for them? Or what is the nature of their experience? I understand a non-liberated Jiva’s subtle body is reborn into a new physical body in order to carry on working out their karma but what of the subtle body of a Jivanmukti? If there is no re-birth in physical form then what happens next? I understand this is not essential knowledge for the pursuit of Moksha but my curiosity got the best of me. Hope I’m making sense.
Hi Tom,
A self-realized or self-actualized person has no reason to be reborn, since his or her desires/fears have been neutralized by the knowledge, “I am existence/awareness.” Like all bodies, his or her body drops off. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust returneth.” From the moment the knowledge is unshakable, he or she isn’t a he or a she, a doer/enjoyer entity, although it seems so from the worldly perspective. These people are empty vessels through which existence shines as it is. If there is no reason to be here, since this world only exists to work out karma, Isvara won’t provide a new body.
There are Pauranic ideas that they go to a dimension in the apparent reality called “siddha loka” and do what they do there waiting for Isvara to use them to solve a particular problem involving world dharma and then are reborn under the force of the total (samasthi) vasanas, not their personal karma, since they don’t have any.
It’s a nice story but it’s only a story. What are they going to do there if their doers have been negated? And why would they want to come back even if they were doers since they had been there and done that. Self realization means that you understand that you were never born in the first place, so how could you die? You are never doing anything when you think you are. It’s kind embarrassing for the jiva remnant because it feels like a fool for missing something so obvious so they cook up a nice story to make it feel like it has a virtuous future.
James
