Demystifying Reincarnation 14 – Reincarnation in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism

Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna! Welcome back to our demystifying reincarnation series. We are discussing about how reincarnation has been present in world thought across all the inhabited continents. And it has also been present in all the great religions of the world.

We discussed in the previous session about how Christianity, although the Bible doesn't talk about it, the Bible does not explicitly deny or reject it either. And it was definitely a discussable concept at that time. And further in the Bible itself, as far as the coming of the, the coming again of the Prophet Elijah, that is his reincarnation, that is talked about at least seven times.

So, the idea that people can come back, that is definitely there in the Bible. Now, there have been many eminent Christian thinkers who have all accepted reincarnation. For example, there was the Clement of Alexandria from 150 to 220 AD, Justin Martyr, 100 to 165, St. Gregory of Nyssa, 250 to 332, Arnobius around 290 and St. Jerome, 340 to 420.

Even St. Augustine, who is considered one of the founders, considered the founder of Christian theology, he writes in his book Confessions, did my infancy succeed another age of mine that dies before it? Was it that which I spend within my mother's womb? And what before that life again, O God of my joy, was I anywhere or in any body? And so, he clearly does not reject this idea, but he considers it and considers it in a mood of prayerful contemplation and devotion. And perhaps the most direct propagator of reincarnation among the church thinkers was Origen. Now, Origen is considered by the Encyclopedia Britannica as the most prominent and prolific of all the church fathers, with the possible exception of St. Augustine.

And he is glorified by Christians of great status like St. Jerome, who proclaimed him the greatest teacher of the church after the apostles and St. Gregory Bishop of Nyssa, who honored Origen as the prince of Christian learning in the 3rd century. So, Origen accepted reincarnation. But thereafter, through a whole complex web of theopolitics, religion and politics being brought together, that led to the condemnation of Origen and his teachings, including the teaching of reincarnation.

Now, how that happened is described in a blow-by-blow account by Jedis MacGregor in his book Reincarnation in Christianity. MacGregor is a Christian theologian and Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. So, Origen lived in about AD 185 to 254.

And because he accepted and talked about reincarnation, so that became widely propagated. It was considered mainstream Christian belief. But 3 centuries later, after that, there was the Emperor Justinian, the Roman Emperor, 483 to 565.

And he felt he wanted Christianity to be redefined and to be reused as a tool for reinforcing his own political power and his hold on the subjects. So, he felt that if people were taught that you have many lives, that if you do not become moral, if you do not become obedient to God, and by extension, by obedient to God means also obedient to king who is considered to be the sacred monarch, who is representing God, then if they have the idea that they are going to become, they have only one life, then they will be more diligent in becoming devoted to God. So, he felt that we should tell them, give them one life or give them hell.

And with this idea, he manipulated the Christian church establishment to have Origenism, the Origenism which had within it the idea that the soul reincarnates over many lifetimes. He decided to have it condemned. And he convened in Constantinople in 543 AD, a synod that passed a papal edict rejecting Origenism in general and reincarnation in particular.

Now at that time, the reigning pope was Pope Vigilius and he was not even present at that time and he opposed the imperial edict. This was passed by Justinian and Vigilius opposed it and he broke off all communication with the emperor. But eventually, when he arrived in Constantinople, he was pressurized by the king and he reversed his earlier rejection.

And to avoid the idea that the king is having any say in theological matters, he himself issued an independent statement of his own condemning the same thing which Justinian had condemned. Now the papal edict which came out, there was an imperial edict which came from the king, there was a papal edict which came out from the pope. The papal edict was widely condemned by bishops all across Europe and Africa.

Especially in Gaul, West Africa, the bishops severely castigated it. And then after several years of contemplation in 550, Pope Vigilius withdrew the edict. But then Justinian still was insistent on his idea.

So in 553, he convened another synod. He in fact called the whole church in the second council of Constantinople, also known as the fifth ecumenical council of the church. And he arranged this whole council in such a way that all the fathers who were supporting Origen were absent over there.

And with the decks just thoroughly stacked against Origenism, he had Origenism declared as an anathema. He handed out as a papal edict, if anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls and the monstrous restoration which follows them, follows from it, let him be anathema, let him be cursed. So this convention had happened, this council had happened in May and the Pope was not present over there.

And the Pope tried to resist it by hiding. So from May till December, almost seven months, he stayed in hiding. But finally in February of 554 on 23rd February, he surrendered.

And he ratified the council statements. And in that way, Origenism was declared as exiled. Even at that time, the churches in the West rebelled with some dioceses, closing communications with Rome for a long time.

And West Africa, there was such a strong opposition to it that the Roman emperor had to send troops into West Africa to have the edict imposed by the imperial troops. So because of this whole complicated conspiracy and controversy that surrounded Origenism, there are many Catholic theologians who argue that actually the whole ecumenical council in which Origenism was condemned, that itself is not officially true. And that actually Origenism is never condemned in Catholicism and that Catholics can still accept Origenism including especially reincarnation.

And such reservations about the Fifth Ecumenical Council's reports or actions are stated in reference books as respected as the Catholic encyclopedia itself. So there are many Christian scholars who talk about reincarnation as being not only acceptable within Christianity, but even as respectable. For example, the globally renowned Swiss Catholic thinker Hans Kung, in his book Eternal Life, Life After Death as a Medical, Philosophical and Theological Problem, advocates that Christianity should not only accept reincarnation, but also elevate it to a central issue.

Similarly, there are many other Catholic writers in the Christian tradition who talk about this. There is John Herney, Professor of Theology at Fordham University, William L. Day Ortega, a Christian minister, John H. Haight, Danforth Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Quincy Howard Jr., an Associate Professor of Classics at Scripps College and a graduate at Harvard, Columbia and Princeton. So reincarnation is definitely acceptable and as what was at one time respectable within Christianity.

Now if you move on from Christianity, so there is Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all these three are Abrahamic religions. And if you look at Islam, again in the Sacred Book of Islam, that is Quran, it does not talk explicitly about reincarnation. That is typical of the sacred books of the Abrahamic religions.

And yet, at the same time, there are several verses which talk about living again. For example, in the Quran, 22.66, it is stated, He is the one who gave you life, ayakum, and he will cause you to die, yumitukum, and he will give you life again, yuhyakum. So now, again it is told in a few verses later, it is God who created you, then provided for you, then he will cause you to die, then he will give you life again.

Now, there are some Islamic thinkers who say that these verses refer to resurrection, not reincarnation. Resurrection means at the time of judgment, those who have been faithful, they are all going to die now, but at the time of death, they will be resurrected, and then they will live forever after that. But this verse, so resurrection refers to dying, and then being reborn again.

Reincarnation refers to going through many births and deaths. So while some Islamic thinkers say that this refers to resurrection, but actually the verses themselves are not specific like that. They can very well refer to reincarnation also.

Now, for example, the Islamic scholar G.F. Moore states in his Ingersoll Lectures on Transmigration that, among Mohammedans, the difficulty of reconciling the sufferings of innocent children with the goodness or even the justice of God led some of the liberal theologians to seek a solution in sins committed in the former existence. The reincarnation is fundamental to the doctrine of Imam as held by the Shiites. It was developed in a characteristic form by the Ismailis and the cardinal doctrine of Babism.

Similarly, now, Islamic historian E.G. Brown talks about the literary history of Persia, and he says that the classical Muslim thinkers in the esoteric schools, they accepted three kinds of reincarnations or three kinds of transmigration, we could say. There was Hutul, which is a periodic incarnation of a saint or prophet. Then there was Reef, the immediate return of an Imam or any other important spiritual leader after death.

And there is Tansukh, the ordinary incarnation of all souls. Beyond this, there is an influential sect within Islam, that is the Sufis. The Sufis have had tremendous influence through their mystical and devotional effusiveness.

And while some people consider, some Muslims consider Sufis to be heretics, but actually, this tradition has existed for more than 1000 years. And it has many followers, steady followers in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. And among them, the Persian Muslim theologian, Sufi mystic, Jalal ad-Din Rumi says, I died as a mineral and became a plant.

I died as a plant and rose to animal. I died as animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? When was I less by dying? So, the Sufis consider reincarnation to be a central doctrine.

And similarly, there is another big Mirza, who has written a book called Reincarnation in Islam. And there he gives extensive reasoning to explain how belief in reincarnation is harmonizable with the Quran in specific and Islamic tradition in general. So, after discussing the Abrahamic religions, let us move on to Buddhism.

And in Buddhism, reincarnation is a central tenet right from the beginning. This is seen directly in the stories about Buddha himself, which are called the Jataka tales. These describe the 547 stories of Buddha's past incarnations.

And the whole theme of these stories is that, how Buddha acted compassionately in his many previous lives. And then that compassion, those towards whom he was compassionate, they reciprocate in this life, and they become his followers. So, for example, in a previous life, it is said that Buddha was an elephant.

And at that time, when there was a woman in distress, so he went to great extreme as an elephant to protect her and he even filed off his own trunks so that she could be protected. And remembering this, that woman in a future life, when she is reborn in time and Buddha is there, she becomes a disciple of Buddha and becomes dedicated to her. She sees his selfless sacrificing spirit, and then she sacrifices her life for Buddha.

And if we move down from Buddha's own past lives to current times, for example, Tibet, there is the influential leader Dalai Lama. Now, it is said that Dalai Lama, as soon as he dies, he is the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, as soon as he dies, he is reborn again. And there is a whole elaborate process by which the, by which who the reincarnation of Dalai Lama is, who Dalai Lama has reincarnated, that is discerned.

There are general as well as specific signs by which the Lamas, the sacred people, the sacred leaders in Buddhism, they search out and find out who is the reincarnation of Dalai Lama. And then that person is selected, trained, and then once the person is identified, and person is actually taken into training, and then eventually is accepted as the Dalai Lama, next Dalai Lama. So, right from the fine beginnings of Buddhism till the current times, the idea of reincarnation has always been central to Buddhism.

Now, Buddhism has also evolved over the centuries. And there have become, there have, there are more, there are practices like Zen Buddhism, which focus more on complex meditational techniques rather than on metaphysical questions. But even in these techniques, the focus has been on, even in such fields of, such branches of Buddhism, there has been an acceptance of reincarnation.

So, for example, Zen master Chow Chow, he says that, before the existence of the world, the self-nature is, after the destruction of the world, the self-nature remains intact. The self-nature, of course, refers to the spiritual being, the spiritual essence, the non-destructible part of us. Now, interestingly, while reincarnation has been accepted in Buddhism, there are some people who say that Buddhism does not accept the existence of the soul.

So, these are, there is a, we see the two extremes in Christianity, in the Abrahamic religions, there is the acceptance of soul, but in the mainstream versions of these religions, there is acceptance of the soul, but there is no acceptance of reincarnation. Whereas, in Buddhism, there is acceptance of reincarnation, but there is no acceptance of the soul. Now, if there is reincarnation, there has to be something that goes from one body to another, there is something that reincarnates.

There is someone, in fact, that reincarnates. So, when Buddha is said to reincarnate, obviously, there is someone who is reincarnating from one body to another. So, if that is not the soul, then what is it? So, the idea of reincarnation without the soul has led to endless philosophical problems for Buddhist thinkers right from the beginning of Buddhism down to modern times.

So, now, this idea of Anattavada, there are many Buddhist thinkers who say, who say that actually this did not originate in the teachings of Buddha. It was later adopted by some Buddhists who wanted to establish their theological autonomy from Hinduism. That means, Buddhism was an offshoot of Hinduism and at that time, when the Buddhists want to differentiate their doctrine from the doctrine of Hindus, so, they came up with this idea.

How do we differentiate? Hindus accept the soul, then we want to differentiate ourselves from it. So, they said that we will not accept the soul. So, now, for example, there is a German Bhikkhu, George Grimm, in his book, The Doctrine of Buddha, reports the Buddha's reaction to the no-soul doctrine, Anattavada.

He says, and I, O monks, am accused wrongly, vainly, falsely and inappropriately by some ascetics and brahmanas. A denier is the ascetic Gautama. He teaches the destruction, annihilation and the perishing of the being that now exists.

These ascetics accuse me of being what I am not, O monks, and of saying what I do not say. In general, Buddha's approach was more pragmatic than philosophical. Whenever he was asked complex philosophical questions, questions about philosophical subjects, he focused more on practical things.

So, for example, when he was asked, who are you? Are you a god? He said, no. Are you an angel? He says, are you the supreme? No. Who are you? He says, I am awake.

So, I am awake. So, basically, rather than getting into philosophical technicalities about identification of who he was, he focused primarily on the principle of becoming awake, becoming spiritually aware, rising to a higher level of consciousness. So, Buddha's teachings in that sense were more of ethical.

There is the right thinking, the right living. So, there are the teachings of Buddha, if you see, they focus more on practicalities. And further, when Buddha was asked, so is the soul different from the body? He remained silent.

When he was asked, is the soul the same as the body? He remained silent. And exasperated, the questioner walked away. And the questioner walked away, then Buddha's followers turned towards him and says, why did you remain silent? And he said that this person was coming with a particular worldview, had a certain conception, that whatever answer I would have given, it would have simply reinforced the misconception.

So, I just remained silent. So, essentially, Buddha did not talk much about metaphysics. But overall, the very idea of reincarnation, and the subsequent understanding of the centrality of reincarnation, points to the idea that there has to be a soul who reincarnates.

So, overall, reincarnation is definitely a central tenet of Buddhism. So, in this way, we look at, today's talk, we look at multiple, at the world's various religions, discuss about in Christianity, the concept of reincarnation of a pre-existence of the soul, is definitely discussable. And it was mainstream in Christian theology, with origin propagating it, but we discussed the whole wave of theopolitics by which Justinian had declared anathema and Vigilius, the Pope at that time, reluctantly succumbed to that pressure.

And when many bishops opposed it, they had to be suppressed by the imperial troops. Then we discussed about, so that is why many Catholic thinkers now say that originism was never declared anathema, or that declaration is not valid. And there are some Catholic thinkers who say that reincarnation is not only be accepted, but made as a central teaching in Christianity.

Now, moving on to Islam, we saw how, in Islam, although there is direct reference to reincarnation, there is definitely the reference to living again. And there are, there are the esoteric streams within Islam, such as Sufism, which definitely accept reincarnation as a central belief. And there are thinkers in Islam also who talk about reincarnation as compatible with, with Quran and the Islamic tradition in general.

And with respect to Buddhism, we discussed how reincarnation of Buddha is central theme in Jataka tales, which talk about Buddha s previous lives. And the idea that if there is reincarnation, there has to be something that reincarnates. And therefore, although some Buddhists talk about the soul not being there, no soul doctrine, but there are other Buddhists also consider that this is a later, later insertion, interpolation, but it is not coming from Buddha.

So, reincarnation either way is, has been central to Buddhism. And thus, if we look at the world's various religious traditions, they do talk about reincarnation, and reincarnation is at least compatible, if not central to their teachings. Now, future sessions, we will discuss about how, if we understand reincarnation, then how can, where can we, we accept reincarnation, then where can we get a systematic understanding of it, which tradition, which source can be turned to.

That source, we will explore in our next session. Thank you. Hare Krishna.