Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:Is reincarnation a myth?

Are Swami Vivekananda’s views consistent with science? Do they explain our life experience in a more complete and satisfying way? Please share your views and wisdom. Thanks.

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Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation: The personal and collective unconscious

Swami Vivekananda’s remarks contain the idea of the personal and collective unconscious and point out the greatest flaw in Carl Jung’s argument: It’s possible for us to access the collective unconscious only because of our previous life experiences. Jung’s theories of the personal and collective unconscious can stand their ground only if they are supported by the idea of reincarnation and the Advaitic idea of a single, universal Self.

Artist: Swami Tadatmananda, vedanta.zenfolio.com

Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:How can we inherit the entire experience of living creatures without reincarnation?

Swami Vivekananda continues; ‘If in the bioplasmic cell the infinite amount of impressions from all time has entered, where and how is it?  …This impression is in the mind, that the mind comes to take its birth and rebirth, and uses the material which is most proper for it, and that mind which has made itself fit for only a particular kind of body will have to wait until it gets that material…The theory then comes to this, that there is hereditary transmission so far as furnishing the material to the soul is concerned. But the soul migrates and manufactures body after body, and each thought we think, and each deed we do, is stored in it in fine forms, ready to spring up again and take a new shape…When I die the resultant force of them will be upon me.’ (2.222-3)

Artist: Swami Tadatmananda, vedanta.zenfolio.com

Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:The problem with heredity

‘The simple hereditary theory takes for granted the most astonishing proposition without any proof, that mental experience can be recorded in matter, that mental experience can be involved in matter. When I look at you, in the lake of my mind there is a wave. That wave subsides, but it remains in fine form, as an impression. We understand a physical impression remaining in the body. But what proof is there for assuming that the mental impression can remain in the body since the body goes to pieces? (2.222)

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Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:The fallacy of not thinking an idea through to its logical conclusion

‘If we are going to exist in eternity hereafter, it must be that we have existed through eternity in the past.’ (2.218) Speaking about avatars or perfect human beings like Buddha or Christ, Swami Vivekananda considers them to be men who have gone through the entire history of the human race in a single life span and achieved perfection. (2.209) He considers Sri Ramakrishna to be a supreme example of such perfection.

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Swami vivekananda on reincarnation:‘Preservation of Learning’ is inherent in the process of reincarnation

Swami Vivekananda ridicules the idea that human beings have come out of zero, starting life with a tabula rasa, and then attain to great knowledge or eternal life. ‘Neither you, nor I nor anyone present, has come out of zero, nor will go back to zero.’ (2.217) The idea of cumulative knowledge supports child prodigies and genius. It explains why we have an aptitude for certain tasks or professions.

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Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:Knowledge comes from direct experience…

…If not in this life, then in some previous birth: ‘Without a fund of already existing experience, any new experience would be impossible, for there would be nothing to which to refer the new impression…Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know. If we have not experienced it in this life, we must have experienced it in other lives…What we call instinct in men or animals must…be involved, degenerated, voluntary actions, and voluntary actions are impossible without experience. (2.220-1)

Artist: Swmi Tadatmananda, vedanta.zenfolio.com

Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:Everything in this universe is indestructible

Swami Vivekananda has given a rational basis to the idea of reincarnation: Everything in this universe is indestructible… ‘You cannot take away one atom of matter or one foot pound of force. You cannot add to the universe one atom of matter or one foot pound of force.’ (2.229)

If everything in the universe is indestructible, it follows that man is immortal. How can that be? Everyone dies! Death and disintegration are the fate of the body, not the soul. How do we live and transform ourselves after the body has died? We take on multiple bodies until we attain freedom or moksha. Does the Law of Conservation of Energy apply to consciousness? Open question.

Artist: Swami Tadatmananda, vedanta.zenfolio.com