Sin death and beyond

SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN
of gilgul-incarnation because they are now hosting a new soul [or an aspect of their own soul
or a higher soul of which they are a part] in order to be a vehicle for that soul's rectification.
This is what occurs when a person is ready to advance in his soul evolution. This is why the
soul has five names, each higher than the other, nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah and
yechidah. [According to the Zohar, the four higher levels of the soul usually enter a person
during his lifetime in Ibur: First, a person receives nefesh when he or she is born; then, when
they merit it, they receive ruach; when they merit it, they receive neshamah; when they merit it,
they receive chayah. The higher the level, the rarer its occurrence. Very few have ever merited
to neshamah, let alone chayah. Nobody has ever received the highest level, yechidah. Adam
would have received it had he not sinned. " We thus see that the terms gilgul and gilgulim
(which mean cycle and cycles rather then reincarnation)is referring more to spiritual states and
graces that the soul attains to in the spiritual realm of the galgalim.
Eli Dahan writes:"..."Know, that no person on earth can escape from these Gilgulim". The Ari
claims that if a purified soul has neglected some religious duties on earth, it must return to the
earthly life, and attaching itself to the soul of a living man, unite with it in order to make good
such neglect. Further, the departed soul of a man freed from sin appears again on earth to
support a weak soul which feels unequal to its task..." Here the Ari (or rather his disciple
Chayyim Vidal) is not speaking about reincarnation in the Eastern sense but of souls coming
back and attaching themselves in some mystical way as a form of purgatorial penance (tikun).
Many similar accounts are found in Catholic writings of souls who cling to the living or who
come spiritually to people or places connected to their lives in order to do reparation in order to
purify the soul before the ascent to Heaven. Catholics also believe that the souls of purgatory
can visit and assist the living. Luisa Piccaretta's concepts of doing rounds in the Divine Will
clarify what the Jewish mystics glimpsed by 'running and returning' of these mysteries of
galgalim or gilgulim.
Saadia Gaon refers to the eastern concept of reincarnation of souls returning into physical
bodies as coming from avodah zara (foreign or alien worship). Many have read the Sava de
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