Rebirth and Karma - Note 2

The Problem of Rebirth……. Sri Aurobindo Section 1 : Rebirth and Karma …. contd................. Shrikant Soman .............. Pg 261-263 …. Contd from earlier note

Let us for the sake of arguments assume that we can have the physical memory of past lives or of such a psychical awakening. Will then the theory of rebirth be taken as ‘proved’ ? I doubt very much. We now hear of many such instances of very confidently proclaiming the memory of past lives. We do not have any ‘verification’ of such an evidence with the aid of any instrument which can only give credence to the results of psychical research. In these circumstances, the sceptic can always challenge these claims as a mere fiction and imagination unless and until they are placed on a firm basis of evidence.

Next, even if we are able to verify the facts, the conclusions derived from these facts can also be challenged. The sceptic can say that they are not really the memories of the past lives. They were already known to the person alleging them by ordinary physical means. They may also have been suggested to him by other people. These are then converted into reincarnate memory. This could have been done either by conscious deception or by a process of self-deception and self-hallucination.

Further next, let us assume that we are somehow able to surmount these challenges with very strong and exceptionable evidence which could not be smashed by the earlier skepticism. Even in these circumstances, the memory of past life may still not be accepted as a proof of rebirth. The mind can discover a hundred theoretical explanations for a single group of facts.

The skepticism of modern speculation and research is casting its shadow on all psychical theory and generalisation. The theory or rebirth is no exception to it.

Take for example the case of automatic writing or of communication from the dead. The scientists have disputed as to whether the phenomena indeed proceed from outside – from disembodied minds. It is possible that it originated from within, from the subliminal consciousness. We also do not know for sure as to whether the communication is actual and immediate from the dead person. It is possible that it is the uprising to the surface of a telepathic impression. This impression came from the mind of the then living man but has since remained submerged in our subliminal mentality.

Similar objections can also be raised to the evidences of reincarnate memory. It can be said that there is a power of a certain mysterious faculty in us. It is a consciousness that can have some inexplicable knowledge of past events. But that these events may belong to other personalities than ours. Our attribution of them to our own personality in past lives is an imagination, a hallucination. It could also be an example of a mental error arising out of the self-appropriation of things and experiences perceived as ours but which are not of our own.

We can have ample evidence to prove the theory. But these may not be enough to the sceptic – at least for the theory of rebirth. It is likely that we are able to have sufficiently ample, exact, profuse and intimate details of the memory of past lives. In such circumstances these evidences will create an atmosphere which would lead in the end to a general acceptance of the theory of rebirth by the human race as a moral certitude. However, even if it were so, the PROOF of the THEORY to the SCEPTICS may still not be adequate as a convincing argument. Acceptance by the human race is one thing and acceptance as a proof by the skeptics is another.

Let us understand that most of the things that today we generally assume to be truth are actually no more than moral certitudes. Take for example the theory that the earth revolves on its own axis. We have the profoundest unshakable faith in this theory. But as has been pointed out by a great French mathematician, the fact has never been conclusively proved. We can at most say that this theory ‘fits’ well into certain observable facts – that’s all. Who knows whether this theory may get replaced by another theory over a period of time. We should not forget that all observed astronomical phenomena (like the movement of planetary bodies in the cosmos) were admirably accounted for by the ancient theories of spheres. And then came Galileo with his “And yet it moves” statement which disturbed the infallibility of Popes and Bibles and the science and logic of the so called learned experts.

Even the Newtonian laws could one day get challenged by yet another set of theories (When Sri Aurobindo made this statement, the theories of Einstein have not yet arisen on the horizon. Einstein proved the postulation of Sri Aurobindo in later years) – which actually happened later on when Einstein proposed his now famous and landmark theories of relativity and other theories. This exactly is the ever-perplexing and inherent plague of our reason. It starts by knowing nothing. It has then to deal with infinite possibilities. This has to go on until we actually know what is behind them. Till that time we have to give infinite number of possible explanations of any given set of facts. This makes a full circle and in the end we really know only what we observe. And even this is subject to a haunting question. We may say that ‘green is green and white is white, although it appears that colour is not colour but something else that creates the appearance of colour’.

We have to understand that beyond the observable facts we need to be satisfied with reasonable logical satisfaction, dominating probability and moral certitude. This is so when we get ourselves confined in the sense dependent reason. However, when we realise that we have faculties in us which are higher than the sense dependent reason and which are awaiting development and full manifestation in us, then we can arrive at greater certainties and realise the higher truths.