Theos-Talk Archives (December 2005 Message tt00297)

12/26/2005 4:12 AM
 
Dear Friends:
 
An inquiry on this subject arose recently.  
 
This is what THEOSOPHY offers:
 
Best wishes,
 
 
DTB
 
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REINCARNATION IN JUDAISM AND THE BIBLE 
 
                                                            W.Q.Judge 
 
 
The lost chord of Christianity is the doctrine of Reincarnation. 
 
It was beyond doubt taught in the early days of the cult, for it was well
known to the Jews who produced the men who founded Christianity. The
greatest of all the Fathers of the Church - Origen - no doubt believed in
the doctrine. He taught pre-existence and the wandering of the soul. 
 
This could hardly have been believed without also giving currency to
reincarnation, as the soul could scarcely wander in any place save the
earth. She was in exile from Paradise, and for sins committed had to revolve
and wander. 
 
Wander where? would be the next question. Certainly away from Paradise, and
the short span of human life would not meet the requirements of the case.
But a series of reincarnations will meet all the problems of life as well as
the necessities of the doctrines of exile, of wanderings for purification,
of being known to God and being judged by him before birth, and of other
dogmas given out among the Jews and of course well known to Jesus and
whoever of the seventy-odd disciples were not in the deepest ignorance. 
 
Some of the disciples were presumably ignorant men, such as the fishermen,
who had depended on their elders for instruction, but not all were of that
sort, as the wonderful works of the period were sufficiently exciting to
come to the ears of even Herod. Paul cannot be accused of ignorance, but was
with Peter and James one of several who not only knew the new ideas but were
well versed in the old ones. 
 
And those old ones are to be found in the Old Testament and in the
Commentaries, in the Zohar, the Talmud, and the other works and sayings of
the Jews, all of which built up a body of dogmas accepted by the people and
the Rabbis. Hence sayings of Jesus, of Paul, and others have to be viewed
with the well-known and never-disputed doctrines of the day held down to the
present time, borne well in mind so as to make passages clear and show what
was tacitly accepted. 
 
Jesus himself said that he intended to uphold and buttress the law, and that
law was not only the matter found in the book the Christian theologians saw
fit to accept, but also in the other authorities of which all except the
grossly unlearned were cognizant. 
 
So when we find Herod listening to assertions that John or Jesus was this,
that, or the other prophet or great man of olden time, we know that he was
with the people speculating on the doctrine of reincarnation or "coming
back," and as to who a present famous person may have been in a former life.
Given as it is in the Gospels as a mere incident, it is very plain that the
matter was court gossip in which long philosophical arguments were not
indulged in, but the doctrine was accepted and then personal facts gone into
for amusement as well as for warning to the king. 
 
To an Eastern potentate such a warning would be of moment, as he, unlike a
Western man, would think that a returning great personage would of necessity
have not only knowledge but also power, and that if the people had their
minds attracted to a new aspirant for the leadership they would be inflamed
beyond control with the idea that an old prophet or former king had come
back to dwell in another body with them. 
 
The Christians have no right, then, to excise the doctrine of reincarnation
from their system if it was known to Jesus, if it was brought to his
attention and was not condemned at all but tacitly accepted, and further,
finally, if in any single case it was declared by Jesus as true in respect
to any person. And that all this was the case can, I think, be clearly
shown. 
 
First for the Jews, from whom Jesus was born, and to whom he said
unequivocally he came as a missionary or reformer. 
 
The ZOHAR is a work of great weight and authority among the Jews. In II, 199
b, it says that "all souls are subject to revolutions." This is
metempsychosis or a'leen b'gilgoola; but it declares that "men do not know
the way they have been judged in all time." That is, in their "revolutions"
they lose a complete memory of the acts that have led to judgment. This is
precisely the Theosophical doctrine. 
 
The KETHER MALKUTH says, "If she, the soul, be pure, then she shall obtain
favor . . .but if she hath been defiled, then she shall wander for a time in
pain and despair . . . until the days of her purification." If the soul be
pure and if she comes at once from God at birth, how could she be defiled?
And where is she to wander if not on this or some other world until the days
of her purification? The Rabbis always explained it as meaning she wandered
down from Paradise through many revolutions or births until purity was
regained. 
 
Under the name of "Din Gilgol Neshomes" the doctrine of reincarnation is
constantly spoken of in the TALMUD. The term means "the judgment of the
revolutions of the souls." And Rabbi Manassa, son of Israel, one of the most
revered, says in his book NISHMATH HAYEM: "The belief or the doctrine of the
transmigration of souls is a firm and infallible dogma accepted by the whole
assemblage of our church with one accord, so that there is none to be found
who would dare to deny it. . . . Indeed, there is a great number of sages in
Israel who hold firm to this doctrine so that they made it a dogma, a
fundamental point of our religion. We are therefore in duty bound to obey
and to accept this dogma with acclamation. . . as the truth of it has been
incontestably demonstrated by the Zohar, and all books of the Kabalists." 
 
These demonstrations hold, as do the traditions of the old Jews, that the
soul of Adam reincarnated in David, and that on account of the sin of David
against Uriah it will have to come again in the expected Messiah. And out of
the three letters ADM, being the name of the first man, the Talmudists
always made the names Adam, David and Messiah. 
 
Hence this in the Old Testament: "And they will serve Jhvh their God and
David their king whom I shall reawaken for them." That is, David
reincarnates again for the people. Taking the judgment of God on Adam "for
dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return," the Hebrew interpreters said
that since Adam had sinned it was necessary for him to reincarnate on earth
in order to make good the evil committed in his first existence; so he comes
as David, and later is to come as Messiah. 
 
The same doctrine was always applied by the Jews to Moses, Seth, and Abel,
the latter spelt Habel. Habel was killed by Cain, and then to supply the
loss the Lord gave Seth to Adam; he died, and later on Moses is his
reincarnation as the guide of the people, and Seth was said by Adam to be
the reincarnation of Habel. 
 
Cain died and reincarnated as Yethrokorah, who died, the soul waiting till
the time when Habel came back as Moses and then incarnated as the Egyptian
who was killed by Moses; so in this case Habel comes back as Moses, meets
Cain in the person of the Egyptian, and kills the latter. 
 
Similarly it was held that Bileam, Laban, and Nabal were reincarnations of
the one soul or individuality. And of Job it was said that he was the same
person once known as Thara, the father of Abraham; by which they explained
the verse of Job (ix, 21), "Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my
own soul," to mean that he would not recognize himself as Thara. 
 
All this is to be had in mind in reading Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in
the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified
thee"; or in Romans ix, v, 11, 13, after telling that Jacob and Esau being
not yet born, "Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated"; or the ideas of
the people that "Elias was yet to first come"; or that some of the prophets
were there in Jesus or John; or when Jesus asked the disciples "Whom do men
think that I am?" There cannot be the slightest doubt, then, that among the
Jews for ages and down to the time of Jesus the ideas above outlined
prevailed universally. Let us now come to the New Testament. 
 
St. Matthew relates in the eleventh chapter the talk of Jesus on the subject
of John, who is declared by him to be the greatest of all, ending in the
14th verse, thus: 

And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come. 

Here he took the doctrine for granted, and the "if" referred not to any
possible doubts on that, but simply as to whether they would accept his
designation of John as Elias. 
 
In the 17th chapter he once more takes up the subject thus: 

10. And his disciples asked him saying, Why, then, say the scribes that
Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them; Elias truly
shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you that Elias is
come already, and they knew him not but have done to him whatsoever they
listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the
disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. 

The statement is repeated in Mark, chapter ix, v. 13, omitting the name of
John. It is nowhere denied. It is not among any of the cases in which the
different Gospels contradict each other; it is in no way doubtful. It is not
only a reference to the doctrine of reincarnation, but is also a clear
enunciation of it. 
 
It goes much further than the case of the man who was born blind, when Jesus
heard the doctrine referred to, but did not deny it nor condemn it in any
way, merely saying that the cause in that case was not for sin formerly
committed, but for some extraordinary purpose, such as the case of the
supposed dead man when he said that the man was not dead but was to be used
to show his power over disease. In the latter one he perceived there was one
so far gone to death that no ordinary person could cure him, and in the
blind man's case the incident was like it. 
 
If he thought the doctrine pernicious, as it must be if untrue, he would
have condemned it at the first coming up, but not only did he fail to do so,
he distinctly himself brought it up in the case of John, and again when
asking what were the popular notions as to himself under the prevailing
doctrines as above shown. Matthew xvi, v. 13, will do as an example, as the
different writers do not disagree, thus: 

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples,
Whom do men say that I am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the
Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias or one of the prophets. 

This was a deliberate bringing-up of the old doctrine, to which the
disciples replied, as all Jews would, without any dispute of the matter of
reincarnation; and the reply of Jesus was not a confutation of the notion,
but a distinguishing of himself from the common lot of sages and prophets by
showing himself to be an incarnation of God and not a reincarnation of any
saint or sage. 
 
He did not bring it up to dispute and condemn as he would and did do in
other matters; but to the very contrary he evidently referred to it so as to
use it for showing himself as an incarnate God. And following his example
the disciples never disputed on that; they were all aware of it; St. Paul
must have held it when speaking of Esau and Jacob; St. John could have meant
nothing but that in Revelations, chap. iii, v. 12. 

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he
shall go no more out. 

Evidently he had gone out before or the words "no more" could have no place
or meaning. 
 
It was the old idea of the exile of the soul and the need for it to be
purified by long wandering before it could be admitted as a "pillar in the
temple of God." And until the ignorant ambitious monks after the death of
Origen had gotten hold of Christianity, the doctrine must have ennobled the
new movement. 
 
Later the Council of Constantinople [325 A D] condemned all such notions
directly in the face of the very words of Jesus, so that at last it ceased
to vibrate as one of the chords, until finally the prophecy of Jesus that he
came to bring a sword and division and not peace was fulfilled by the
warring nations of Christian lands who profess him in words but by their
acts constantly deny him whom they call "the meek and lowly." 
 
W.Q.J.                         PATH, February, 1894
 
 
 
=============================================
 
2
 
 
POINTS OF AGREEMENT IN ALL RELIGIONS 
 
W. Q. Judge
 
…Let me read you a few verses from some of the ancient Scriptures of the
world, from the old Indian books held sacred by the Brahmans of Hindustan.
 
“What room for doubt and what room for sorrow is there in him who knows that
all spiritual beings are the same in kind and only differ from each other in
degree? 
The sun does not shine there, nor the moon and the stars, nor these
lightnings and much less this fire. When He shines, everything shines after
Him; by His light all this is lighted. 
Lead me from the unreal to the real! 
Lead me from darkness to light! 
Lead me from death to immortality! 
Seeking for refuge, I go to that God who is the light of His own thoughts;
He who first creates Brahman and delivers the Vedas to him; who is without
parts, without actions, tranquil, without fault, the highest bridge to
immortality, like a fire that has consumed its fuel.”       --  Mundaka
Upanishad.
 
Such are some of the verses, out of many thousands, which are enshrined in
the ancient Hindu Vedas beloved by those we have called "heathen;” those are
the sentiments of the people we have called idolaters only. 
 
…I am glad to be here, and…speak on what are the points of agreement inall
religions. I am glad because Theosophy is to be found in all religions and
all sciences. 
 
We…endorse to the fullest extent those remarks…that a theology which stayed
in one spot without advancing was not a true theology, but that we had
advanced to where theology should include a study of man. Such a study must
embrace his various religions, both dead and living. 
 
And pushing that study into those regions we must conclude that man is
greatly his own reveler, has revealed religion to himself, and therefore
that all religions must include and contain truth; that no one religion is
entitled to a patent or exclusive claim upon truth or revelation, or is the
only one that God has given to man, or the only road along which man can
walk to salvation…of a dutiful, careful, and brotherly inquiry into all the
religions of the world, for the purpose of discovering what the central
truths are upon which each and every religion rests, and what the original
fountain from which they have come. This careful and tolerant inquiry is…for
unity, for the final and irrevocable death of all dogmatism. 
 
But if you say that religion must have been revealed, then surely God did
not wait for several millions of years before giving it to those poor beings
called men. He did not, surely, wait until He found one poor Semitic tribe
to whom He might give it late in the life of the race? 
 
Hence He must have given it in the very beginning, and therefore all present
religions must arise from one fount. 
 
What are the great religions of the world and from whence have they come? 
 
They are Christianity, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism,
Zoroastrianism, and Mohammedanism. 
 
The first named is the youngest, with all its warring sects, with Mormonism
as an offshoot and with Roman Catholicism boldly claiming sole precedence
and truth. 
 
Brahmanism is the old and hoary religion of India, a grown-up,
fully-developed system long before either Buddhism or Christianity was born.
It extends back to the night of time, and throws the history of religion
far, far beyond any place where modern investigators were once willing to
place even the beginning of religious thought. Almost the ancient of
ancients, it stands in far-off India, holding its holy Vedas in its hands,
calmly waiting until the newer West shall find time out of the pursuit of
material wealth to examine the treasures it contains. 
 
Buddhism, the religion of Ceylon, of parts of China, of Burmah and Japan and
Tibet, comes after its parent Brahmanism. It is historically older than
Christianity and contains the same ethics as the latter, the same laws and
the same examples, similar saints and identical fables and tales relating to
Lord Buddha, the Saviour of Men. It embraces today, after some twenty-five
hundred years of life, more people than any other religion, for two-thirds
of the human family profess it. 
 
Zoroastrianism also fades into the darkness of the past. It too teaches
ethics such as we know. Much of its ritual and philosophy is not understood,
but the law of brotherly love is not absent from it; it teaches justice and
truth, charity and faith in God, together with immortality. In these it
agrees with all, but it differs from Christianity in not admitting a
vicarious salvation, which it says is not possible. 
 
Christianity of today is modern Judaism, but the Christianity of Jesus is
something different.
 
He taught forgiveness, Moses taught retaliation, and that is the law today
in Christian State and Church. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"
is still the recognized rule, but Jesus taught the opposite. He fully agreed
with Buddha, who, preaching 500 years before the birth of the Jewish
reformer, said we must love one another and forgive our enemies. So modern
Christianity is not the religion of Jesus, but Buddhism and the religion of
Jesus accord with one another in calling for charity, complete tolerance,
perfect non-resistance, absolute self-abnegation. 
 
If we compare Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism together on the points of
ritual, dogmas, and doctrines, we find not only agreement but a marvellous
similarity as well, which looks like an imitation on the part of the younger
Christianity. Did the more modern copy the ancient? It would seem probable.
And some of the early Christian Fathers were in the habit of saying, as we
find in their writings, that Christianity brought nothing new into the
world, that it existed from all time. 
 
If we turn to ritual, so fully exemplified in the Roman Catholic Church, we
find the same practices and even similar clothing and altar arrangements in
Buddhism, while many of the prescribed rules for the altar and approaching
or leaving it are mentioned very plainly in far more ancient directions
governing the Brahman when acting as priest. This similarity was so
wonderful in the truthful account given by the Catholic priest Abbé Huc that
the alarmed Church…and then they burned poor Abbé Huc's book. 
 
As to stations of the cross, now well known to us, or the rosary,
confession, convents, and the like, all these are in the older religion. The
rosary was long and anciently used in Japan, where they had over one hundred
and seventy-two sorts. And an examination of the mummies of old Egypt
reveals rosaries placed with them in the grave, many varieties being used.
Some of these I have seen. Could we call up the shades of Babylon's priests,
we should doubtless find the same rituals there. 
 
Turning to doctrines, that of salvation by faith is well known in
Christianity. It was the cause of a stormy controversy in the time of St.
James. But very strangely, perhaps, for many Christians, the doctrine is a
very old Brahmanical one. They call it "The Bridge Doctrine," as it is the
great Bridge. But with them it does not mean a faith in some particular
emanation of God, but God is its aim. God is the means and the way, and God
the end of the faith; by complete faith in God, without an intermediary, God
will save you. 
 
They also have a doctrine of salvation by faith in those great sons of God,
Krishna, Rama, and others; complete faith in either of those is for them a
way to heaven, a bridge for the crossing over all sins. Even those who were
killed by Krishna, in the great war detailed in the Ramayana, went straight
to heaven because they looked at him, as the thief on the cross looking at
Jesus went to Paradise. 
 
In Buddhism is the same doctrine of faith. The twelve great sects of
Buddhism in Japan have one called the Sect of the Pure Land. This teaches
that Amitabha vowed that any one who calls three times on his name would be
born into his pure Land of Bliss. He held that some men may be strong enough
to prevail against the enemy, but that most men are not, and need some help
from another. This help is found in the power of the vow of Amita Buddha,
who will help all those who call on his name. The doctrine is a modified
form of vicarious atonement, but it does not exclude the salvation by works
which the Christian St. James gives out. 
 
Heaven and Hell are also common to Christianity, Buddhism, and Brahmanism.
The Brahman calls it Swarga; the Buddhist, Devachan; and we, Heaven. Its
opposite is Naraka and Avitchi. But names apart, the descriptions are the
same. Indeed, the hells of the Buddhists are very terrible, long in duration
and awful in effect. The difference is that the heaven and hell of the
Christian are eternal, while the others are not. The others come to an end
when the forces which cause them are exhausted. 
 
In teaching of more than one heaven there is the same likeness, for St. Paul
spoke of more than a single heaven to one of which he was rapt away, and the
Buddhist tells of many, each being a grade above or below some other.
Brahman and Buddhist agree in saying that when heaven or hell is ended for
the soul, it descends again to rebirth. And that was taught by the Jews.
They held that the soul was originally pure, but sinned and had to wander
through rebirth until purified and fit to return to its source. 
 
In priesthood and priestcraft there is a perfect agreement among all
religions, save that the Brahman instead of being ordained a priest is so by
birth. Buddha's priesthood began with those who were his friends and
disciples. After his death they met in council, and subsequently many
councils were held, all being attended by priests. 
 
Similar questions arose among them as with the Christians, and identical
splits occurred, so that now there are Northern and southern Buddhism and
the twelve sects of Japan. During the life of Buddha the old query of
admitting women arose and caused much discussion. The power of the Brahman
and Buddhist priests is considerable, and they demand as great privileges
and rights as the Christian ones. 
 
Hence we are bound to conclude that dogmatically and theologically these
religions all agree. Christianity stands out, however, as peculiarly
intolerant - and in using the word "intolerant"…for it claims to be the only
true religion that God has seen fit to reveal to man. 
 
The great doctrine of a Savior who is the son of God - God himself - is not
an original one with Christianity. It is the same as the extremely ancient
one of the Hindus called the doctrine of the Avatar. An Avatar is one who
comes down to earth to save man. He is God incarnate. 
 
Such was Krishna, and such even the Hindus admit was Buddha, for he is one
of the great ten Avatars. The similarity between Krishna or Cristna and
Christ has been very often remarked. He came 5,000 years ago to save and
benefit man, and his birth was in India, his teaching being Brahmanical. He,
like Jesus, was hated by the ruler, Kansa, who desired to destroy him in
advance, and who destroyed many sons of families in order to accomplish his
end, but failed. Krishna [as Rama] warred with the powers of darkness in his
battles with Ravana, whom he finally killed. The belief about him was that
he was the incarnation of God. This is in accord with the ancient doctrine
that periodically the Great Being assumes the form of man for the
preservation of the just, the establishment of virtue and order, and the
punishment of the wicked. 
 
Millions of man and women read every day of Krishna in the Ramayana of Tulsi
Das. His praises are sung each day and reiterated at their festivals.
Certainly it seems rather narrow and bigoted to assume that but one tribe
and one people are favored by the appearance among them of an incarnation in
greater measure of God. 
 
Jesus taught a secret doctrine to his disciples. He said to them that he
taught the common people in stories of a simple sort, but that the disciples
could learn of the mysteries. And in the early age of Christianity that
secret teaching was known. 
 
In Buddhism is the same thing, for Buddha began with one vehicle or
doctrine, proceeded after to two, and then to a third. He also taught a
secret doctrine that doubtless agreed with the Brahmans who had taught him
at his father's court. He gave up the world, and later gave up eternal peace
in Nirvana, so that he might save men. In this the story agrees with that of
Jesus. And Buddha also resisted Mara, or the Devil, in the wilderness. 
 
Jesus teaches that we must be as perfect as the Father, and that the kingdom
of heaven is within each. To be perfect as the Father we must be equal with
him, and hence here we have the ancient doctrine taught of old by the
Brahmins that each man is God and a part of God. 
 
This supports the unity of humanity as a spiritual whole, one of the
greatest doctrines of the time prior to Christianity, and now also believed
in Brahmanism. 
 
That the universe is spiritual in essence, that man is a spirit and
immortal, and that man may rise to perfection, are universal doctrines. 
 
Even particular doctrines are common to all the religions. 
 
Reincarnation is not alone in Hinduism or Buddhism. It was believed by the
Jews, and not only believed by Jesus but he also taught it. For he said that
John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elias "who was for to come." Being
a Jew he must have had the doctrines of the Jews, and this was one of them.
And in Revelations we find the writer says: "Him that overcometh I will make
a pillar in the house of my God, and he shall go out no more."  The words
"no more" infer a prior time of going out. 
 
The perfectibility of man destroys the doctrine of original sin, and it was
taught by Jesus, as I said. Reincarnation is a necessity for the evolution
of this perfection, and through it at last are produced those Saviors of the
race of whom Jesus was one. 
 
He did not deny similar privileges to others, but said to his disciples that
they could do even greater works than he did. So we find these great Sages
and Saviors in all religions. There are Moses and Abraham and Solomon, all
Sages. And we are bound to accept the Jewish idea that Moses and the rest
were the reincarnations of former persons. Moses was in their opinion Abel
the son of Adam; and their Messiah was to be a reincarnation of Adam himself
who had already come the second time in the person of David. We take the
Messiah and trace him up to David, but refuse, improperly, to accept the
remainder of their theory. 
Descending to every-day-life doctrines, we find that of KARMA, or that we
must account and receive for every act. This is the great explainer of human
life. 
 
It was taught by Jesus and Matthew and St. Paul. The latter explicitly
said:  "Brethren, be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man
soweth, that also shall he reap." 
 
This is Karma of the Brahman and Buddhist, which teaches that each life is
the outcome of a former life or lives, and that every man in his rebirths
will have to account for every thought and receive measure for the measure
given by him before. 
 
In ethics all these religions are the same, and no new ethic is given by
any. 
 
Jesus was the same as his predecessor, Buddha, and both taught the law of
love and forgiveness. 
 
A consideration of the religions of the past and today from a Theosophical
standpoint will support and confirm ethics. We therefore cannot introduce a
new code, but we strive by looking into all religions to find a firm basis,
not due to fear, favor, or injustice, for the ethics common to all. This is
what Theosophy is for and what it will do. It is the reformer of religion,
the unifier of diverse systems, the restorer of justice to our theory of the
universe. It is our past, our present, and our future; it is our life, our
death, and our immortality. 
 
PATH, July, 1894