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T G. Kalghatgi
Such persons will remalo for a long time in the stupified state in the De achan and then they are reborn on this earth According to the naturo of the intensity of impulses which varies with individuels some men may remain in the Devachan state for one, ten or a number of years in accor dance with the force of the impulses generated in life and the time reqpired for the average person to exhaust psychic energies and Impulses generated in life is from 1000 to 15000 years, and as the masses of persons return from Devacban in that cycle, it must follow that the Roman, the old Aryan and other ages will be seen again and can to a great extent be plainly traced Only when the force of the soul's asplcations and higher desires has been exhausted can tho Ego be again attracted to the earth, drawn by the pulling or magnetic force of the thirst for life inherent 10 all belogs and fixed in the depths of their cssential nature "4 This is the picture, the theosophists have given, of the journey of the soul and reincarnation
Sri Aurobindo calls at the attempt of religious philosophers to justify the belief in the theory of rebirth on traditional inoral grounds It may be comforting to believe that good men will be rewarded and the wicked will suffer in the next life The ideas of after-life and rebirth as fielda of punishment and reward were needed at a lower stage of development But after a certain stage, the theory ceases to be really effective
The true foundation of rebirth is to be found in the evolution of the soul, or rather its efflorescence out of the veil of Matter and its gradual selffinding Buddhism contained this turth Hinduism knew it of old, but afterwards missed the right balance of its expressiou Now we are again able to restate the ancient truth 10 a new language and this is already being dono by certain schools of thought, though, sull the old incrustations tend to tack themselves on the deeper wisdom Sri Aurobindo explains his concepts of cosmic and individual evolution, The individual plays an important role In evolution "The mense inportance of the individual being which loc cases as he rises in the scale, is the most remarkable and siguificant fact of a universe which started without consciousness and without individuality In an unduferentiated Nescience this importance can only be justified if The Selt as individual is no less real than the Self as Cosmic Being or Spirit and both are powers of the eternal ". From this, Sri Aurobindo concludes that rebirth is a necessity, and an outcome of the root nature of our existence The individual is a product of plunge into self-oblivion by which ibe sense of identity with the universe is lost and a consciousness of a
64 65 86
Ibid 15 Sri Aurobindo Sri Turolando
Problem of Rebirth Pondicherry, 1962, p The Life Drine, Vol II Pt II P 704
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