the Mosaic law of retaliation. For alone in reïncarnation is the answer
to all the problems of life, and in it and Karma is the force that will
make men pursue in fact the ethics they have in theory. It is the aim
of the old philosophy to restore this doctrine to whatsoever religion
has lost it; and hence we call it the “lost chord of Christianity.”
But who or what is it that reïncarnates? It is not the body, for that
dies and disintegrates; and but few of us would like to be chained
forever to such bodies as we now have, admitted to be infected with
disease except in the case of the savage. It is not the astral body,
for, as shown, that also has its term and must go to pieces after
the physical has gone. Nor is it the passions and desires. They,
to be sure, have a very long term, because they have the power to
reproduce themselves in each life so long as we do not eradicate
them. And reïncarnation provides for that, since we are given by it
many opportunities of slowly, one by one, killing off the desires and
passions which mar the heavenly picture of the spiritual man.
It has been shown how the passional part of us coalesces with the
astral after death and makes a seeming being that has a short life
to live while it is disintegrating. When the separation is complete
between the body that has died, the astral body, and the passions
and desires—life having begun to busy itself with other forms—the
Higher Triad, _Manas_, _Buddhi_, and _Atma_, who are the real man,
immediately go into another state, and when that state, which is called
_Devachan_, or heaven, is over, they are attracted back to earth for
reïncarnation. They are the immortal part of us; they, in fact, and no
other are we. This should be firmly grasped by the mind, for upon its
clear understanding depends the comprehension of the entire doctrine.
What stands in the way of the modern western man’s seeing this clearly
is the long training we have all had in materialistic science and
materializing religion, both of which have made the mere physical
body too prominent. The one has taught of matter alone and the other
has preached the resurrection of the body, a doctrine against common
sense, fact, logic, and testimony. But there is no doubt that the
theory of the bodily resurrection has arisen from the corruption of
the older and true teaching. Resurrection is founded on what Job says
about seeing his redeemer in his flesh, and on St. Paul’s remark that
the body was raised incorruptible. But Job was an Egyptian who spoke of
seeing his teacher or initiator, who was the redeemer, and Jesus and
Paul referred to the spiritual body only.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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