Download PDF - Stillness Speaks

here, however, the subtle part, the soul, 30 does not miraculously dematerializewhen the physical body gives up the ghost.The theory of reincarnation suggests that when the physical body dies,the conscious mind separates and, propelled by the momentum of all previousactivities, seeks out and takes up residence in the fertilized egg implanted inthe uterine wall a short time after conception. Before this marvelous event,experienced by the mother as “quickening,” no separate being lives in themother’s body. Now that the individual has secured a point of entry into thematerial world it gestates until it’s capable of living outside the womb whereit can work out unfilled samskaras.The samskaras, like seeds, carry a sort of psychic DNA, thepotentialities and proclivities built up in previous births. Exceedinglydynamic, they supply both the blueprint for the new life and the energynecessary to translate it into living reality, the so-called "will to live." On thephysical level they program the DNA, the determinant of physicalcharacteristics, and on the psychological, the information that will outpictureas the subtle body (mind, intellect, ego), the character or personality that willdevelop. Their technical Sanskritic term is “vasanas,” fragrances, or“samskaras,” 31 formations, and their psychological address is the karanasharira, the Causal Body, or in western terminology, the Unconscious. Theseseedlike energy "waves" of consciousness, being subtler than physical matterare unaffected by the death and rebirth of the body. When a new physicalentity is established in the uterine wall they propel the subtle body to enterthe physical. The parent's samskaras are instrumental in attracting aparticular individual to the womb. Though there are apparently exceptions,nature, through the agency of the macrocosmic mind, matches reincarnatingsouls with parents who can supply them with the situation necessary tocontinue their spiritual evolution. Thus matter, from the reincarnationperspective, is thought to be a creation of Consciousness for the purpose ofIt's spiritual evolution.How do we know of this hidden process? Obviously the senses areuseless because they cease to function at death and are incapable ofperceiving the vasanas which are even subtler than subatomic wave/particles.Inference, a valid means of knowledge, suggests that reincarnation happensbut doesn't reveal how seeds of past activity manifest in the present.Reincarnationists claim that this knowledge is obtained directly from yogis30 I’ve used the word “soul” in these commentaries to refer to the Subtle Body.31 A vasana is the trace left in the sub or unconscious by an individual action or thought. When a number ofvasanas accumulate they become a samskara, a fomation, or complex.26