Sin death and beyond

SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN
WHO OR WHAT REINCARNATES IN HINDUISM?
(REINCARNATION Its meaning and consequences by Ernest Vale)
"According to the Upanishads and Vedanta philosophy, the entity that reincarnates is the
impersonal self (atman). Atman does not have a personal nature, and so the use of the
reflexive pronoun "self" is not suitable. Atman can be defined only through negating any
personal attributes. Although it constitutes the existential substrata of human
existence, atman cannot be the carrier of one’s "spiritual progress," because it cannot record
any data produced in the illusory domain of psycho-mental existence. The spiritual progress
one accumulates toward realizing the atman-Brahman identity is recorded by karma, or rather
by a minimal amount of karmic debt. The whole physical and mental complex a human being
consists of is reconstructed at (re)birth according to one’s karma. At this level, the newly
shaped person experiences the fruits of "his" or "her" actions from previous lives and has to do
his best to stop the vicious cycle avidya-karma-samsara.
As a necessary aid in explaining the reincarnation mechanism, Vedanta adopted the concept
of a subtle body (sukshma-sharira) which is attached to atman as long as its bondage lasts.
This is the actual carrier of karmic debts. However, this "subtle body" cannot be a form of
preserving one’s personal attributes, i.e., of any element of one's present conscious psychomental
life. The facts recorded by the subtle body are a sum of hidden tendencies or
impressions (samskara) imprinted by karma as seeds that will generate future behavior and
personal character. They will materialize unconsciously in the life of the individual, without
giving one any hint at understanding his or her actual condition. There can be no form of
transmitting conscious memory from one life to another, since it belongs to the world of illusion
and dissolves at death."
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