Reflections on Sri Aurobindo’s “The Reincarnating Soul”
Monday, November 15, 1999
Comparative World Philosophies
Sri Aurobindo’s The Reincarnating Soul is an attempt to find the proper point from which we should start our discussion of the possibility of reincarnation. He feels that “human thought” for most people has resorted to “a rough and crude acceptance of unexamined ideas.” This observation holds even truer when the ideas require “subtle thinking” and “precision.” We can manage thought about evident, tangible things, but Sri Aurobindo feels that out of “impatience,” in almost a lazy manner, we are contented with accepting crude ideas.
Reincarnation is one such subject. Sri Aurobindo feels that the idea of reincarnation as popularized by contemporary thought has become popularized in a crude, misleading manner. The popular idea is that of a reincarnating soul, where “the soul is reborn into a new body.” The questions often stop here, with no thought given to the definition of a soul. Is the soul Purusha (Person, or Atman)? Does Purusha simply take up a new body and bring along with it the old personality of the “now discarded physical frame?”