Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00673)

April 24th 2004

Re: Reincarnation of MIND (EGO) in animal bodies ?

Dear Friend:


Briefly:

It is impossible in the progressive stream of evolution for the MIND
(EGO) , the ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS (or MONAD) of man, to retrogress and
reincarnate into an animal body that is not designed to contain a MIND
and provide adequate support for such an entity as MIND is.

So where does the idea arise?

It lies in the ancient teaching about the transfer of life-atoms
(skandhas, samskaras) that goes on perpetually in all of nature. 

In other words, the atoms and molecules we receive from food, air,
water, and contact with others are temporarily used in our physical
bodies and then, when that use is over, they are passed on, and some of
those go into the animal forms, others to the plants, and still others
to air, water, etc... 

There is an old aphorism: Once a Man, always a man.

The capacity to think and choose independently makes the mind-entity
(our Real Self) responsible. Some say that we may be influenced in our
choices. True, but the final thing is actually -- we make a choice to
allow such an influence to modify our choices, or, we refuse to let that
happen. In ultimate court WE CHOOSE. The animal lacks that facility at
the MIND-level. It is a creature of instinct. It cannot reason as we
can -- abstractly.


Dallas

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Here a couple of artcles to read andthnink over.

REINCARNATION OF ANIMALS

VERY little has been said on the question whether or not the theory of
Reincarnation applies to animals in the same way as to man. 

Doubtless, if Brahman members well acquainted with Sanscrit works on the
general subject were to publish their views, we should at least have a
large mass of material for thought and find many clues to the matter in
the Hindu theories and allegories. Even Hindu folk-lore would suggest
much. 

Under all popular "superstitions" a large element of truth can be found
hidden away when the vulgar notion is examined in the light of the
Wisdom-Religion. ... In the same way the folk-lore of such an ancient
people as the Hindu deserves scrutiny with the object of discovering the
buried truth. If they are possessed of such notions regarding the fate
of animals, careful analysis might give valuable suggestion.

Looking at the question in the light of Theosophical theories, we see
that a wide distinction exists between man and animals. 

Man reincarnates as man because he has got to the top of the present
scale of evolution. He cannot go back, for Manas is too much developed.
He has a Devachan because he is a conscious thinker. 

Animals cannot have Manas so much developed, and so cannot be
self-conscious in the sense that man is. Besides all this, the animal
kingdom, being lower, has the impulse still to rise to higher forms. But
here we have the distinct statement by the Adepts through H.P.B. that
while possibly animals may rise higher in their own kingdom, they cannot
in this evolution rise to the human stage, as we have reached the middle
or turning-point in the fourth round.

On this point H.P.B. has, in the second volume of the SECRET DOCTRINE
(first ed., Vol., II.) at p. 196, a foot note as follows:

"In calling the animals "Soulless," it is not depriving the beast, from
the humblest to the highest species, of a "soul," but only of a
conscious surviving Ego-soul, i.e., that principle which survives after
a man and reincarnates in a like man.".

The animal has an astral body that survives the physical form for a
short period; but its (animal) Monad does not reincarnate in the same,
but in a higher species, and has no "Devachan" of course. It has the
seeds of all the human principles in itself, but they are latent
.
Here the distinction above adverted to is made. It is due to the
Ego-Soul, that is, to Manas with Buddhi and Atma. Those principles being
latent in the animal, and the door to the human kingdom being closed,
they may rise to higher species but not to the man stage. Of course also
it is not meant that no dog or other animal ever reincarnates as dog,
but that the monad has tendency to rise to a higher species, whatever
that be, whenever it has passed beyond the necessity for further
experience as "dog." Under the position the author assumes it would be
natural to suppose that the astral form of the animal did not last long,
as she says, and hence that astral appearances or apparitions of animals
were not common. Such is the fact. I have heard of a few, but very few,
cases where a favorite animal made an apparitional appearance after
death, but even the prolific field of spiritualism has not many
instances of the kind. And those who have learned about the astral world
know that human beings assume in that world the form of animal or other
things which they in character most resemble, and that this sort of
apparition is not confined to the dead but is more common among the
living. It is by such signs that clairvoyants know the very life and
thought of the person before them. It was under the operation of this
law that Swedenborg saw so many curious things in his time.

The objection based on the immense number of animals both alive and dead
as calling for a supply of monads in that stage can be met in this way.
While it is stated that no more animal monads can enter on the
man-stage, it is not said nor inferred that the incoming supply of
monads for the animal kingdom has stopped. They may still be coming in
from other worlds for evolution among the animals of this globe. There
is nothing impossible in it, and it will supply the answer to the
question, Where do the new animal monads come from, supposing that all
the present ones have exhausted the whole number of higher species
possible here? It is quite possible also that the animal monads may be
carried on to other members of the earth-chain in advance of man for the
purpose of necessary development, and this would lessen the number of
their appearances here. 

For what keeps man here so long is that the power of his thought is so
great as to make a Devachan for all lasting some fifteen centuries--with
exceptions-- and for a number who desire "heaven" a Devachan of enormous
length. 

The animals, however, being devoid of developed Manas, have no Devachan
and must be forced onwards to the next planet in the chain. This would
be consistent and useful, as it gives them a chance for development in
readiness for the time when the monads of that kingdom shall begin to
rise to a new human kingdom. They will have lost nothing, but, on the
contrary, will be the gainers.

WILLIAM BREHON	Path, April, 1894

--------------------------------


THE PERSIAN STUDENT'S DOCTRINE


BEFORE the flashing diamond in the mysterious mountain behind the Temple
began to lose its brilliance, many foreigners had visited the Island.
Among them were students who came from Persia. Coming that great
distance they sought more knowledge, as in their own land the truth was
already beginning to be forgotten. It was hidden under a thick crust of
fanciful interpretations of the sayings of their sages which were fast
turning into superstitious notions. 

And these young men thought that in the Island, the fame of which had
spread over land and sea, they would find learning and wisdom and the
way to power. But yet while in such a frame of mind, they regarded some
things as settled even for sages. 

What they said did not have much influence on me until they began to
quote some of the old writings from the prophets of their country,
attempting to prove that men, though god-like and immortal,
transmigrated sometimes backwards into beasts and birds and insects. As
some old Buddhist monks had years before given out the same idea with
hints of mystery underneath, the sayings of these visitors began to
trouble me. They quoted these verses from the prophet the Great Abad:

Those who, in the season of prosperity, experience pain and grief,
suffer them on account of their words or deeds in a former body, for
which the Most Just now punisheth them.

Whosoever is an evil doer, on him He first inflicteth pain under the
human form; for sickness, the sufferings of children while in their
mothers womb, and after they are out of it, and suicide, and being hurt
by ravenous animals, and death, and being subjected to want from birth
till death, are all retributions for past actions; and in like manner as
to goodness.

The lion, the tiger, the leopard, the panther, . . . with all ravenous
animals, whether birds or quadrupeds or creeping things, have once
possessed authority: and every one whom they kill hath been their aider
or abetter, who did evil by supporting, or assisting, or by the orders
of, that exalted class; and having given pain to harmless animals are
now punished by their own masters.

The horse submits to be ridden on, and the ox, the camel, the mule, and
the ass bear burdens. And these in a former life were men who imposed
burdens on others unjustly.

Such persons as are foolish and evil doers, being enclosed in the body
of vegetables, meet with the reward of their stupidity and misdeeds. And
such as possess illaudable knowledge and do evil are enclosed in the
body of minerals until their sins be purified; after which they are
delivered from this suffering, and are once more united to a human body;
and according as they act in it they again meet with retribution.

These young men made such good arguments of these texts, and dwelt so
strongly upon the great attainments of Abad, who was beyond doubt a
prophet of insight, that doubts arose in my mind. While the verses did
not deny the old doctrine of man's reincarnation, they added a new view
to the matter that had never suggested itself to me before. 

The students pointed out that there was a very wise and consistent
doctrine in those verses wherein it was declared that murderers,
tyrants, and such men would be condemned to inhabit the bodies of such
murderous beasts as lions and tigers. They made out a strong case on the
other verses also, showing that those weak but vicious men who had aided
and abetted the stronger and more violent murderers should be condemned
to precipitation out of the human cycle into the bodies of defenseless
animals, in company with ferocious beasts, by the strength and ferocity
of which they would at last be destroyed themselves. 

And thus, said these visitors, they proceed in each other's company,
lower and lower in the scale of organized life, reaching at last those
kingdoms of nature like the mineral, where differentiation in the
direction of man is not yet visible. And from there the condemned beings
would be ground out into the great mass and slime at the very bottom of
nature's ladder.

Not wishing to admit or accept these doctrines from strangers, I engaged
in many arguments with them on the matter, until at last they left the
Island to continue their pilgrimage.

So one day, being troubled in mind about these sayings of Abad, which,
indeed, I heard from the students were accepted in many countries and
given by several other prophets, I sought out the old man who so often
before had solved problems for me. 

He was a man of sorrow, for although possessor of power and able to open
up the inner planes of nature, able to give to a questioner the inner
sight for a time so that one could see for himself the real truth of
material things, something ever went with him that spoke of a sorrow he
could not tell about. Perhaps he was suffering for a fault the magnitude
of which no one knew but himself; perhaps the final truths eluded him;
or maybe he had a material belief at bottom. But he was always kind, and
ever ready to give me the help I needed provided I had tried myself in
every way and failed to obtain it.

"Brother," I said, "do we go into animals when we die?"

"Who said that we do?" was his answer.

"It is declared by the old prophet Abad of the Worshippers of Fire that
we thus fall down from our high estate gained with pain and difficulty."

"Do you believe it; have you reasoned it out or accepted the doctrine?"

"No," I said, "I have not accepted it. Much as I may reason on it, there
are defects in my replies, for there seems to be consistency in the
doctrine that the ferocious may go into the ferocious and vicious into
the wild animals; the one destroying the other and man, the hunter,
killing the ferocious. Can you solve it?"

Turning on me the deep and searching gaze he used for those who asked
when he would determine if curiosity alone moved them, he said, 

"I will show you the facts and the corrupted doctrine together, on the
night of the next full moon."

Patiently I waited for the moon to grow, wondering, supposing that the
moon must be connected with the question, because we were said to have
come by the way of the moon like a flock of birds who migrated north or
south according to their nature. 

At last the day came and I went to the old man. He was ready. Turning
from the room he took me to a small cave near the foot of the Diamond
Mountain. The light of the diamond seemed to illuminate the sky as we
paused at the entrance. We went in by the short passage in front, and
here, where I had never been before, soft footfalls of invisible beings
seemed to echo as if they were retreating before us, and half-heard
whispers floated by us out into the night. But I had no fear. Those
footfalls, though strange, had no malice, and such faint and melodious
whispering aroused no alarm. He went to the side of the cave so that we
looked at the other side. The passage had a sharp turn near the inner
entrance, and no light fell around us. Thus we waited in silence for
some time.

"Look quietly toward the opposite wall," said the old man, "and waver
not in thought."

Fixing an unstrained gaze in the direction of the other side, it soon
seemed to quiver, then an even vibration began across it until it looked
like a tumbling mass of clouds. This soon settled into a grey flat
surface like a painter's canvas, that was still as the clear sky and
seemingly transparent. It gave us light and made no reflection.

"Think of your question, of your doubts, and of the young students who
have raised them; think not of Abad, for he is but a name," whispered my
guide.

Then, as I revolved the question, a cloud arose on the surface before
me; it moved, it grew into shapes that were dim at first. They soon
became those of human beings. They were the living pictures of my
student friends. They were conversing, and I too was there but less
plain than they. 

But instead of atmosphere being around them they were surrounded with
ether, and streams of ether full of what I took to be corporeal atoms in
a state of change continually rushed from one to the other. After I had
accustomed my sight to this, the old man directed me to look at one of
the students in particular. From him the stream of ether loaded with
atoms, very dark in places and red in others, did not always run to his
fellows, but seemed to be absorbed elsewhere. Then when I had fixed this
in my mind all the other students faded from the space, their place
taken by some ferocious beasts that prowled around the remaining
student, though still appearing to be a long distance from him. And then
I saw that the stream of atoms from him was absorbed by those dreadful
beasts, at the same time that a mask fell off, as it were, from his
face, showing me his real ferocious, murderous mind.

"He killed a man on the way, in secret. He is a murderer at heart," said
my guide. "This is the truth that Abad meant to tell. 

Those atoms fly from all of us at every instant. They seek their
appropriate center; that which is similar to the character of him who
evolves them. We absorb from our fellows whatever is like unto us. It is
thus that man reincarnates in the lower kingdoms. He is the lord of
nature, the key, the focus, the highest concentrator of nature's
laboratory. And the atoms he condemns to fall thus to beasts will return
to him in some future life for his detriment or his sorrow. But he, as
immortal man, cannot fall. That which falls is the lower, the personal,
the atomic. He is the brother and teacher of all below him. See that you
do not hinder and delay all nature by your failure in virtue."

Then the ugly picture faded out and a holy man, named in the air in gold
"Abad," took his place.

>From him the stream of atoms, full of his virtue, his hopes,
aspirations, and the impression of his knowledge and power, flowed out
to other Sages, to disciples, to the good in every land. They even fell
upon the unjust and the ferocious, and then thoughts of virtue, of
peace, of harmony grew up where those streams flowed. The picture faded,
the cloudy screen vibrated and rolled away. We were again in the lonely
cave. Faint footfalls echoed round the walls, and soft whispers as of
peace and hope trembled through the air.

BRYAN KINNAVAN [ W Q J ]

Path, October, 1892 

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I hope this might be of help,

Best wishes,

Dallas

=========================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Raghu 
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2004 3:58 AM
To: 
Subject: RE: SOUL and SPIRIT


Dallas

Will we reincarnate as humans or as animals ?
If humans, will v carry over traits / diseases ... from this birth ?

Kindly clarify.

Regards