Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: Albemarle Street London

Page 59

CHAPTER VI
REBIRTH
CERTAIN writers have distinguished shades of meaning between the doctrines of Mctempsychosis, Transmigration, Pre-existence and Rebirth, but for present purposes the word Rebirth is used to cover the doctrine which, from the human point of view, is the inseparable twin of Karma. In this sense, just as physical progress is effected through hereditary transmission, so spiritual progress is achieved by the process of rebirth. Cause and effect are an indivisiblc unity, but in the illusion of time the one follows the other. In the opinion of the Bhikkhu Silacara, One might even say that they are the same doctrine, looked at in one case subjectively, and in the other objectively. In a manner of speaking, Kamına is rebirth latent, and for the time being unmanifest ; and rebirth is Kamma become active and manifest. From another point of view, the lessons of Karma necessitate a school wherein they may be learnt ; Rebirth provides such a school whose 'terms' and ' holidays' succeed one another until the final lesson is learnt.
The Reincarnating Entity
It has been seen tha, that which reincarnatcs is not an immortal soul but the product of countless previous lives, a bundle of attributes called Character which is changing from moment to moment, and lacks any element of immortality which it could truthfully claim as its own. On the other hand, each such returning unit of life is a ray or spark or aspect of the Wholeness which, through the slow experience of its myriad points of consciousness, collectively attains self-consciousness, or, in the words of "he mystics, “ finds Itself”. The Brahmin philosophy speaks of Atman (Pali, Atra), the Spirit in man which is his
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