Demystifying Reincarnation 16 – The soul’s defining characteristics and levels of consciousness

Hare Krishna. Welcome back to the demystifying reincarnation series. We are discussing the Vedic model of the self and its explanatory potential.

We'll discuss herein also a story that illustrates how we can come to know the soul and truth. So, the Bhagavad Gita offers a three level model of the self as the body, which is like the hardware, the mind, which is like the software, the soul, which is the user. Now, this model, we discussed how it explains the past life memory, the near-death experiences.

Now, let us discuss how it can explain past life memories. Now, with the materialist model of the self, the idea is that body is itself the self and then when the body is destroyed, so there is a person A and a person B, the child B who remembers details of the life of a person A who is deceased. Now, actually, if A were simply the body, then A is dead and gone.

So, B has no capacity to remember, there's no ability by which B can remember details of A, which cannot be normally known. So, then what could be the possibility? The possibility could be that the spiritual model of the self, the way the Gita model of the self says that the A is simply not the body. In the body, there is the mind and the soul and at the time of death, the soul along with the mind leaves that body and enters into the body of B, who is a child newborn.

And our memories are stored not just in our brain, but also in our mind as impressions. We discussed also in our discussion on the mystery of consciousness, how the brain cells are constantly changing and how is it possible for the soul to remember, for our memories to be constant, like all the molecules of a paper are changing, then how can the message on the paper still remain? So, it suggests that the message is also there somewhere from which it is stamped again and again on the paper. So, like that, the idea could be that our memory is stored in the brain, but it's not just stored in the brain, our memories are also stored somewhere else and that somewhere else is the mind.

So, because our memories are stored in the mind and because the mind goes from one body to another, so it is possible for the person in the next life, for say B who is a child now, to remember some of the details of the life of A because the mind is the same, the soul is the same and the is also the same. So, in this way, we can understand that the emotion that we discussed four features, there are recollections and recognitions. So, if the memories are there, then both of these are possible and we discuss also emotions and behaviors.

So, these also can happen because the mind doesn't just have memories, the mind also develops inclinations and those inclinations carry over from one life to another. That's why a person may exhibit the appropriate emotions which are appropriate for the previous personality, not for this person. So, those inclinations may carry over from one life to another.

So, for example, we discussed the case of Jasbir Singh where he claimed to have been born in a Brahmin family in a previous life and now although born in a low-born family, he said, I will not eat this food which is cooked by a non-Brahmin. Why? Because an inclination had been formed in the mind and mind is still the same. Or we discussed the case of Mushir Ali Shah who became Naresh.

So, Mushir used to perform Namaz and Naresh, although born in a Hindu family, was still performing Namaz. The inclination of the mind which carries on. So, moving on, we also discussed the fourth characteristic of the past life memory, that is birthmarks and birth defects.

And at that time, I mentioned how almost 50% of the birthmarks and birth defects have no explanation in terms of the explanations that conventional modern science offers. That is, there are three causes of birthmarks or birth defects, that is genetic causes or it could be because of some infection during pregnancy in the mother and it could be some tetragens, something which some chemicals, alcohol which were ingested can harm the embryo. So, now, when all these three are not present and in 50% of the cases where there are birthmarks and birth defects, these three are not present.

So, it suggests that the birthmarks and birth defects, where are they coming from? So, actually, we also noticed, we also noted that there is a precise correlation between the location of the birthmarks and birth defects in B s body and the location of the fatal wound in A s body. So, how does this happen? Say, consider, we saw the story of T2 who had double birthmarks and who was Suresh Verma in his previous life and was being shot point black with a bullet, with a gun. So, now, when a traumatic event like a wound and especially a fatal wound occurs, then at that time, it causes damage to the body and the body may succumb to death at that time.

But along with that, it also causes an impact on the mind. That means the person gets shocked, what happened? My head got damaged, there is a bullet gone inside. So, that impression which happens on the mind, that impression on the mind may well, because the mind is the same and mind carries over to the next life.

So, because the impression is there in the mind and then because suddenly that occurs, so, there is not adequate time to process this event of death. So, that unresolved emotions that are there in the mind, they could cause a modification of biological form, they could cause modification of the body at the corresponding locations. So, because the person in the mind is thinking, oh, I've got a terrible wound over here on my head.

So, Suresh Verma, the soul of Suresh Verma thought that, oh, I've got a terrible wound over there and that thought is there in the mind and when that soul went into the body of T2's mother, at that time as the body was developing, because of that thought, what happens is, oh, that thought causes a birthmark or a birth defect to happen at particular point of the fatal wound. So, in this way, we can say that the features of past life memories and near the experiences can be explained with the notion, with the concept of the soul as a distinct entity separate from the body and similarly in Penfield's experiment, when we discussed about that, the computer Penfield's conclusion as well as John Eccles and other Nobel laureates' conclusion was, Wilder Penfield has pointed out that when the hand is raised, the corresponding brain area is simply a tool. But who is the doer? The doer is not in the brain.

Source of consciousness is extracellular, that is the soul. So, the soul is different from the body. In this way, whatever is discovered as evidence by science, but what is not explainable within the materialistic model of self, which science has, that can be explained with the Gita's model of the self.

Now, if we move forward and explore a little bit more about what is this, what is this soul? So, how do we know the nature of the soul? So, the Gita says, the Gita is a part of the broad body of Vedic literature and they describe that the soul has three characteristics, Sat, Chit, Ananda. Sat can mean existence or especially eternal existence. Chit means consciousness, the capacity to know and Ananda is joy.

So, let us consider these three Sat. Now, we all exist and we all want to exist and exist forever. If we consider our circumstances, the material world around us, there is nothing that is eternal.

In fact, the only constant thing in the material world is that nothing is constant. So, when nothing is constant, nothing lasts forever in this world, why do we have a longing to live forever? Suppose somebody has lived in a remote village where they have never heard of a pizza and suddenly they get a desire for pizza. You get the question, where did the desire come from? If it's not come from the circumstance, then where did it come from? So, like that, in our circumstance, there is nothing that is eternal.

Then where does the desire for the eternal come from within us, come from? That desire actually comes not from the external but from the internal. So, because we at our core are eternal, because the soul is eternal and destructible, the soul's consciousness is now presently projected outwards to the body. So, we seek, we as souls, seek at the body level that which is natural to us at the spiritual level.

So, although death is inevitable for everyone, but still all living beings try to the best of their capacity to avoid that, to have extraordinary remarkable mechanisms to avoid that and that is because we as souls are eternal. So, one characteristic of the soul which we could infer from observation is that it is eternal and this inference correlates with the with the Gita's description of the soul as Sat, as existing forever. Now, the second characteristic of the soul, we could say it is that we all know and we all want to know.

Whenever we go to a new place, we look around, what is there? What are the things in there in this room? Depending on our interest, someone may look at the furniture, someone may look at the paint, someone may look at the look at other things, but we all have an insatiable curiosity. Even animals, you know, if monkeys are kept in an enclosure and there they have food and they have a mate, they will eat and mate for some time, but after that if there is a wall, then they will strive desperately to jump up, jump up, jump up and somehow try to go on the other side of the wall and see what is there on that other side of the wall. Why do they do that? Because that is our nature, we are curious.

Now, we human beings have this curiosity even more that actually, first of all, consciousness means to know. We are aware of our existence and we are aware of the existence of circumstances around us and we want to know more and more about those circumstances. So, how does this work? So, we may, some of us may want to know about the latest breaking news and some of us may want to know about the secrets that lie hidden deep within the atoms in the microscopic level or some of us may want to go to the furthest, know about the furthest reaches of the cosmos and what exists there.

But whichever direction our curiosity is directed, the point is we all have curiosity. So, where does this insatiable innate curiosity come from? That curiosity comes, that capacity to know and the desire to know that comes from the soul. The soul is at its core conscious.

So, the eternity and cognizance, cognizance means the capacity to know, conscious awareness and the desire to expand that conscious awareness. This is also a characteristic of the soul. And the third characteristic that I said is Ananda.

Ananda means bliss. We all are innately pleasure-seeking. Immense are the efforts that we put in to seek pleasure.

Some people get addicted to unhealthy substances and although those addictions cause them great tribulation, but still they stay hooked to it because they desire pleasure. So, this craving for pleasure is innate to us. And where does this craving for pleasure come from? Matter simply exists and matter is not conscious of pleasure or pain.

But we are conscious of pleasure and pain. We want to avoid pain and we seek pleasure. So, where does this longing to seek pleasure come from? It actually comes from our core.

Actually, if you look at the world around us and even the body, the body actually is perishable and it is vulnerable to pain. If you look at the body itself, its capacity to give us pain is far greater than its capacity to give us pleasure. Now, every limb of the body, if we want to think, we can think of a few ways in which say a finger can give us pleasure.

But if we think of the ways in which the finger can cause us pain, it can get cut, it can get crushed in a door, it can get burned, it can get stamped upon by someone, if we have put our hand out somewhere, it can get fractured, the skin can get ruptured because of something, it can get infected, it may need to be amputated. So many ways in which actually the body can give us pain. The ways in which it can give us pleasure is very few.

And if you look at the world around us also, there are so many natural calamities that can come by which there may be pain. But still, although there is so much potential to give pain in the body and in our circumstances, still we keep seeking pleasure. Unrelentingly, that unrelenting drive for pleasure, it comes from our spiritual core.

It comes from the soul. And that soul has these three characteristics. It is eternal, sat, it is chit, it has cognizance, chit and ananda, it is blissful.

So in this way, we can infer the essential nature of the soul. Now moving on, this is through inference. Is there some way to understand it more, to realize it? Actually, Chandogya Upanishad is an ancient text in the philosophical part of the Vedas.

It is one of the Upanishads and describes the story of how one can come to know about the soul. The great creator Brahma once declared that the true self is beyond old age, beyond pain, beyond death, beyond grief, beyond thirst, beyond hunger. And it is that self which should be known.

Having known that self, one becomes successful in life, one becomes joyful. So on hearing this, Indra, the head of the godly beings, and Virochan, who was the head of the ungodly beings, both of them came to Brahma and they said, we want to know the self. Please tell us how we can know the self.

And Brahma initiated them as disciples and he told them to follow discipline and austerities. And they did so for 32 years. And then they asked him, so please tell us what is the self? He said, go and look in the mirror.

What do you see? Go and look at a reflection in a river. What do you see? He said, we see ourselves. Okay, now go and bathe properly, shave yourself and then come back again.

Be clean shaven. And then they came back, cleaned up. And he said, now what do you see? Look at it carefully.

From the top, we can see the head, we can see the face, we can see the chest, we can see the belly, we can see the thighs, the legs, we can see the full body. He said, what you see in the reflection, the river, that is the self. So, you mean to say that this body that is visible to us, that is the self? He said, yes.

And both Virochan and Indra departed. Virochan went back to his people and he told them that, oh, the body itself is the self. Therefore, we need to, we just take care of the body, pamper the body and thus the self will be nourished.

As Indra was also going along, at that time he started thinking, wait a minute, Brahma said that the soul is beyond old age, the soul is beyond disease, the soul is beyond death, the self is like that, but then the body grows old, the body gets diseased, the body dies. What's going on? He turned back and he went to Brahma and expressed his doubt. So, Brahma said, good.

He says, stay with me again. And he stayed for another 32 years performing austerities. And after performing those austerities, again Brahma told him, now I'll tell you what is the self.

He said, actually, when you sleep and the being that you perceive in the dream, that being whom you perceive as yourself, with whom you identify in the dream, that is the self. Oh, Indra started thinking. So, the body is not the self, the person whom I see and identify within the dream, that is the self.

Is that right? Brahma nodded. And then Indra departed. As Indra was departing, he started thinking, wait a minute, the being in the self, the being in the dream actually is, it's at one level illusory.

It exists, that being exists only as long as the dream exists. When the person wakes up, the dream end, that being no longer exists. And maybe, and in one dream, that being is handsome.

In another dream, that being may be a cripple. In one dream, that being may be very powerful. In another being, that may be powerless.

So, how can that be the constant unchanging self? So, he came back to Brahma with this doubt. Brahma said, good, study more, perform more austerity. And again he stayed and performed austerity for 32 years.

And then after that, again when he asked, he said, actually, when you go into deep dreamless sleep, when you don't perceive anything, when the consciousness itself is subsided, that time the being whom you see, that is the self. That state of unanimated consciousness, that is the self. Indra accepted this and was going along back to his abode.

And then he thought, wait a minute. Actually, at that time, there is practically no consciousness on me. And the self, if it is beyond grief, then it must be joyful.

But when there is no consciousness at all, dreamless state, then how can that be the self? He went back again. He expressed his doubt. Brahma told him, good.

He told him to wait for and perform austerities for more. He performed for five more years. And then Brahma told him, actually, beyond the dreamless state, there is the locus of consciousness.

That being from whom consciousness emits, that is beyond the body, beyond the mind, that is not known in the wake state, not in the dream state, nor in the dreamless state, that being exists beyond, that is the atma, that is the self. Having known that, one knows the truth. Then Indra realized that this is the actual self.

And he went back, self-realized. Now, this story illustrates what it takes to actually know the self. And it also illustrates the levels of consciousness.

So, what does it take to know the self? It takes unrelenting introspection and unflinching purification. Introspection, keep thinking, who am I really? Who am I? Keep going inwards, keep thinking deeply. And then purification.

Be willing to withdraw the consciousness from the externals and take that from the material and take it more and more higher and higher towards the spiritual. Only when we do that, then we can realize. So, the Upanishads also actually describe four levels of consciousness.

So, for example, right now, when we are awake, this is called as the wakeful consciousness or in Sanskrit, jagruti. So, there is the soul, there is the mind, there is the body and there is the outer world. So, when the consciousness coming from the soul, goes rooted through the mind, through the body to the outer world, when the consciousness comes to the physical physical body and the physical level, that is the jagruti stage.

And beyond that, so when that is the first level of the selfhood that Brahma talked about, that actually the self that you see in the reflection, that is the self. So, that is the consciousness coming outwards from the soul to the level of the body. And that is the jagruti stage.

Then there is the swapna stage. Swapna stage is that the consciousness comes from the soul till the level of the mind, but does not radiate outwards till the body. When it stays at the level of the mind, that is the swapna stage, dream stage of consciousness.

So, in the dream stage, we are not physically awake. But still, it is not that we are thoughtless. It is not that we are not thinking about, we are thinking of various things.

And often in the dreams, unfettered from the connection of the body, our thoughts wander here and there. This is the swapna stage and a stage of deep, dreamless sleep. At that time, the consciousness does not come even to the level of the brain, to level of the mind.

At that time, even thought sees, that is called the sushupti, the deep, dreamless state of consciousness. Now, for example, we have the, there are some patients who are going to coma. And even there are levels of coma that can be measured, say, there's a Glasgow scale for coma measurement.

Now, when we say that somebody is in coma, that means we say they are unconscious. Actually, the soul can never be unconscious, because consciousness is an innate faculty of the soul. So, what we call as unconsciousness is also a state of consciousness.

It is a state of consciousness where consciousness is not manifested at the physical level, but it is still there. And sushupti is a state of consciousness where consciousness is manifested neither at the physical level nor at the mental level. And going beyond, so the consciousness can be directed completely towards spiritual level of reality.

And that is the turiya state or the samadhi stage. At that state, we become aware of ourselves as spiritual beings and we become aware of the entire spiritual reality to which we eternally belong. That is the ultimate goal of spiritual realization.

So, the Gita talks about a process of yoga. Yoga involves going within to our core and realizing who we are. And when we go deep within and start exploring our core, then through unrelenting introspection and purification, then we realize ourselves to be these eternal spiritual beings.

And we are trying to unravel the mystery of reincarnation. We are investigators trying to unravel the mystery. And we find out that the investigator is the investigated.

We, the seekers of the soul, are ourselves the soul. And in this way, when we realize ourselves through our consciousness at the spiritual level, then the soul becomes the defining reality, the reality that underlies all realities. It becomes realer than the sun that we see overhead at noon.

So, that is the way we can progress towards unraveling the mystery of reincarnation by practicing yoga for self-realization. Now, how reincarnation happens, that we will discuss, and what are some common concerns about reincarnation, objections to reincarnation, and benefits of the reincarnation worldview, we will discuss in our future sessions. To summarize, in this session, we discussed about the explanatory potential of the triadic model of the self, of how it explains past life memories, the recognitions, the recollections, the behaviors, as well as the birthmarks and birth defects.

Then we discussed about how the three defining characteristics of the soul, consciousness, eternity, consciousness, and bliss. And then we discussed the story of Indra and Indra and Purochana, how they learned through Brahma, the different conceptions of the self and going deeper and deeper to realize who the self actually is. And we correlated that with the four levels of consciousness.

So, initially, Brahma was told that whatever you are seeing in Jagruti, that is the self. Then when Indra came back, after that he told him that whatever you are seeing in the level of Swapna, that is the self. Then afterwards he told him, whatever you are seeing in the level of Sushupti, consciousness not in the body, not in the mind, but just withdrawn itself, that is the self.

And then he told him that when the consciousness is directed spiritually at the Turya or Samadhi level, that is the self. So, thus we can understand who we really are through introspection and we can realize who.