Yoga philosophy teaches that real man ...is not the body but merely occupies and uses the body as an instrument.
-Swami Vishnu-devananda , page 18
We can take this a little further and say we are not the body or the mind. The mind is also a tool to help us navigate our way along the physical plane. This philosophy teaches that we are Being and are incarnated ( and subsequently reincarnated) into bodies and minds as we progress spiritually. The bodies and minds, as spiritual instruments, give us an opportunity to experience Life and to express It as we evolve.
Do you find that a hard pill to swallow?
Many of us will choke a little on that, especially if we were raised and conditioned in western culture. I am not asking you to believe in reincarnation. I don't even know if I believe in it. It is okay if you don't believe it and it is okay if you do. I think we do, however, need to open up our minds to question the possibility of it. It would certainly explain and relieve a lot of suffering if it were true, would it not?
I think many of us are also getting, to some extent at least, that we are not our bodies and minds. Whether we are here for one round or a hundred, we get that there is more to us than this physical form we are in, than this personality and mind stuff we identify with. We are waking up enough to sense a presence beneath it all, a level of consciousness, a quiet observer, an awareness.
Some will call this spirit or soul, others presence or consciousness. Does it really matter what we call it when it is so immense we can barely understand it with our conceptual minds? Why do we fight and argue over names and labels in defense of our "faiths" and belief systems? Is it not just enough to know that there is something(which is really no-thing) there behind it all watching and experiencing?
What does "re-incarnation" mean anyway? Are we getting hung up on another word?
Let's break the word down. Re-in-carn-ate. "Re" of course, means again. "In" means in and "carn" means flesh. "Ate" means to cause to be. So the word basically means to become again in flesh. Or at least that is what the English/latin translation means. It is not so much the word we get hung up on but the prefix. It is the "re" we have a hard time digesting.
Okay with Incarnate
We have no problem with "incarnate," do we? We all agree that at some point we have been "incarnated." We all know that we come into flesh or are at least identified with flesh for a number of years. So we...something other than flesh are in flesh. What is this something other than body and mind? Being! We may argue what that "Being" is and from where it came but we know that something that was not flesh, "became into flesh". So we are formless Being (coming from some invisible realm) breathed into a finite vehicle of flesh for so many years.
Reincarnating all the time
Eckhart Tolle in, On Individuality and Reincarnation, teaches that we are actually reincarnating all the time. Whenever we get lost in the world of form through our thoughts, activities and melodramas we are going back into flesh. We may find ourselves in peaceful Being or presence, identified with our Higher Self one moment. Then something in the physical world pulls us through our minds away. We perceive something, and react to it emotionally and mentally and get lost in that reaction. We have then stepped away from Being and have been reincarnated. We have gone back to concerns of the "flesh". We have become bodies and minds again.
The Big question to understand then is why we are here so we can stop reincarnating in this life times and in others.
What the Heck Are We Doing Here?
So why are we here in flesh? Why is Being here? To suffer at the hands of random events for no explicable reason? What a waste of effort and divine energy to have our Being placed in a vehicle that is incredibly miraculous just so it can suffer at the hands of random events that mean nothing for a finite number of years. What happens to Being after the body dies or the mind stops functioning? Where does It go?
Does it make sense that we are here for a reason? Does it make sense that body and mind are just tools to help us achieve that purpose? If you believe in a Being...something deeper than body and mind, don't you want to know why and where you go after wards? Don't you want to know this Being and where it came from and why it is here? That is the spiritual quest. That, I believe, is why we are here. To answer these questions...and not by reading or listening to others but by going inward to where the only means of understanding lay. We do not understand with intellect but with connection to who we are.
The point is, the veil between our being lost and incarnated in thought, personality, drama, activity and physical world "stuff" is getting thinner and thinner for many of us. We are becoming more and more aware of that Being within us. We are wanting to know It and connect to the Source of It, the One Source, the Supreme Being. For many of us, that goal is becoming the most important parts of our lives. We are evolving. {Well I (in my pre-evolved state) and many spiritual masters east and west say "evolving". You might still see it as "going bonkers." lol}
As the mind develops, the veil covering the soul becomes thinner and finally disappears altogether. In this state, the soul realizes its immortality and its identification with the supreme being...and this is the purpose of all religions. page 8
Whether it be for one life time or many, we are meant to use the body as a vehicle to experience Life with and we use the mind as an instrument for understanding and transcending.
All is well!
Eckhart Tolle (Jan, 2019) On Individuality and Spirituality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVu6yU2plAo
Swami Vishnu-devananda (1988) The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga. New York: Three River Press.
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