Reinkarnation

[THE BOOK OF LIGHT]

Reinkarnation
The Occult Doctrine teaches that:

(1) There is no immediate reincarnation on Earth for the Monad, as falsely taught by the Reincarnationist Spiritists; nor is there any second incarnation at all for the "personal" or false Ego--the perisprit--save the exceptional cases mentioned. But that (a) there are rebirths, or periodical reincarnations for the immortal Ego--("Ego" during the cycle of re-births, and non-Ego, in Nirvana or Moksha when it becomes impersonal and absolute); for that Ego is the root of every new incarnation, the string on which are threaded, one after the other, the false personalities or illusive bodies called men, in which the Monad-Ego incarnates itself during the cycle of births; and (b) that such reincarnations take place not before 1,500, 2,000 and even 3,000 years of Devachanic life.

(2) That Manas--the seat of Jiv, that spark which runs the round of the cycle of birth and rebirths with the Monad from the beginning to the end of a Manvantara--is the real Ego. That (a) the Jiv follows the divine monad that gives it spiritual life and immortality into Devachan--that therefore, it can neither be reborn before its appointed period, nor reappear on Earth visibly or invisibly in the interim; and (b) that, unless the fruition, the spiritual aroma of the Manas, or all these highest aspirations and spiritual qualities and attributes that constitute the higher SELF of man become united to its monad, the latter becomes as Non existent; since it is in esse "impersonal" and per se Ego-less, so to say, and gets its spiritual colouring or flavour of Ego-tism only from each Manas during incarnation and after it is disembodied, and separated from all its lower principles.

(3) That the remaining four principles, or rather the 2½--as they are composed of the terrestrial portion of Manas, of its Vehicle Kama-Rupa and Lingha Sarira--the body dissolving immediately, and prana or the life principle along with it--that these principles having belonged to the false personality are unfit for Devachan. The latter is the state of Bliss, the reward for all the undeserved miseries of life,6 and that which prompted man to sin, namely his terrestrial passionate nature, can have no room in it.

Therefore the reincarnating* principles are left behind in Kama-loka, firstly as a material residue, then later on as a reflection on the mirror of Astral light. Endowed with illusive action, to the day when having gradually faded out they disappear, what is it but the Greek Eidolon and the simulacrum of the Greek and Latin poets and classics?

What reward or punishment can there be in that sphere of disembodied human entities for a fœtus or a human embryo which had not even time to breathe on this earth, still less an opportunity to exercise the divine faculties of its spirit? Or, for an irresponsible infant, whose senseless monad remaining dormant within the astral and physical casket, could as little prevent him from burning himself as any other person to death? Or again for one idiotic from birth, the number of whose cerebral circumvolutions is only from twenty to thirty per cent of those of sane persons, and who therefore is irresponsible for either his disposition, acts, or for the imperfections of his vagrant, half developed intellect. (Isis I, 352.)

These are, then, the "exceptions" spoken of in Isis, and the doctrine is maintained now as it was then. Moreover, there is no "discrepancy" but only incompleteness--hence, misconceptions arising from later teachings. Then again, there are several important mistakes in Isis which, as the plates of the work had been stereotyped, were not corrected in subsequent editions.


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