Mohini M. Chatterji.
Theories: About Reincarnation and Spirits.
By H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Over and over again the abstruse and mooted question of Rebirth or Reincarnation has crept out during the first ten years of the Theosophical Society’s existence. It has been alleged on prima facie evidence, that a notable discrepancy was found between statements made in “Isis Unveiled” Vol. I, 351-2, and later teachings from the same pen and under the inspiration of the same master.[132]
In Isis, it was held,—reincarnation is denied. An occasional return, only of “depraved spirits” is allowed. “Exclusive of that rare and doubtful possibility, ‘Isis’ allows only three cases—abortion, very early death, and idiocy—in which reincarnation on this earth occurs.” (“C. C. M.” in Light, 1882.)
The charge was answered then and there as every one who will turn to the Theosophist of August, 1882, can see for himself. Nevertheless, the answer either failed to satisfy some readers or passed unnoticed. Leaving aside the strangeness of the assertion that reincarnation—i. e., the serial and periodical rebirth of every individual monad from pralaya to pralaya[133] is denied in the face of the fact that the doctrine is part and parcel and one of the fundamental features of Hinduism and Buddhism, the charge amounted virtually to this: the writer of the present, a professed admirer and student of Hindu philosophy, and as professed a follower of Buddhism years before Isis was written, by rejecting reincarnation must necessarily reject Karma likewise! For the latter is the very corner-stone of Esoteric philosophy and Eastern religions; it is the grand and one pillar on which hangs the whole philosophy of rebirths, and once the latter is denied, the whole doctrine of Karma falls into meaningless verbiage.
Nevertheless, the opponents without stopping to think of the evident “discrepancy” between charge and fact, accused a Buddhist by profession of faith of denying reincarnation hence also by implication—Karma. Adverse to wrangling with one who was a friend and undesirous at the time, to enter upon a defence of details and internal evidence—a loss of time indeed,—the writer answered merely with a few sentences. But it now becomes necessary to well define the doctrine. Other critics have taken the same line, and by misunderstanding the passages to that effect in Isis they have reached the same rather extraordinary conclusions.