So what are we to make of the transmigration of souls, or what some call reincarnation? This is all in keeping with the inexorable “law of karma [that] renders the cosmos just,” and in the end, good. For just as all life inhales and exhales, so it stands to reason that “souls repair between incarnations according to their just deserts.”(Smith, 52)
Ironically, while we think of this as an eastern idea, it is a western philosopher who perhaps best illuminates this potential (which, he emphasizes, we can only speculate about, since humans can’t actually ‘know’ on this side of death what happens on the other side). It’s ironic because, of all cultures, the Greeks are not associated with this belief in reincarnation. But true to their dialectic ways, they are willing to take all voices seriously, because true or not, they might be instructive just the same.
Vedic Hindus are remembered for their belief in reincarnation, but the Greeks – the best of them, if not the rest of them – are better known for their resistance to belief, and adherence to reason. This is what we have minds for, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle emphasized, to think through what might otherwise be accepted on faith, to figure out what does and does not make sense, and whether something is true or false. A belief may be true or false, but we won’t know which until we’ve tethered it to other things we know to be true by working out the reason. Only then do we have knowledge, which is stable and sturdy, Socrates says.(Meno) That’s the good thing about truth, after all, that it stays true.
But the Greeks were as fond as any ancient culture of telling stories as food for thought.
It is in this vein that Socrates tells a story (at the very end of Plato’s masterwork, the Republic) about Er, the son of Armenius, who had lay ‘dead’ for ten days after falling in battle. But just as they were about to light the funeral pyre, his body, which had been unaffected by decay, suddenly returned to life.
And so Er lived to tell of what he had seen in the other world while he lay between this life and the next. [RepJ BookX 614] Waking up was, he said, like returning from a journey of a thousand years.
After receiving a fatal blow on the battlefield, he said, Er found himself in a beautiful meadow, where comers and goers gathered to talk together and to tell each other of the lives from which they had respectively returned. Some talked of glorious joys, and some cried who suffered their memories .[RepJ BookX 614-615] Some, to make a long story short, told of suffering tenfold for every wrong they had done to anyone on earth.[615] They told of living ten lifetimes, ten times in a thousand years, the time it took to make right what they had made wrong.
There were four thresholds in the meadow, he said – two departing and two returning, one each by which the just ascended and returned from heaven, and one each by which the unjust descended and returned from hell. It was a most dreadfully horrible scene when some tyrant, trying to escape from hell, was sucked back in to the vortex for yet another round of his dues -- his karma, if you will.[RepJ BookX 615]
A new cycle of life was awarded on a first come first serve basis, said Er, and genius and destiny were not allotted, but chosen. [RepJ BookX 618] There were an infinite variety of lives to choose from, so enough even for the last comer.[RepJ BookX 619] And virtue was free, and anyone could take as much as they wanted.
Some who come first, as Er told it, not having thought out the whole matter, choose lives of tyranny, in which they would be free to do whatever they liked. But the best choice, as was reported by those who had learned the hard way, was that life which was undazzled by wealth and other temptations to do wrong to others, for which he would ultimately suffer yet worse terrors himself.[RepJ BookX 619] ] So, rather than foolishly choose pleasures that would be fraught with pain (usually chosen by those who had had it too easy, and not been schooled by trial of experience), comers were cautioned to choose soundly from the first, that they might be truly happy in their life, rather than merely appear happy to others who did not know it’s true nature. Those who chose virtue we cautioned to also choose philosophy, for the habit of virtue is not enough without being accompanied by the search for truth and wisdom. [RepJ BookX 619-620]
This then is the knowledge we need, Er said, and we can forget all the rest. For true happiness involves the ability to discern between good and evil, so to choose always and everywhere, as the opportunity arises, the better over the worse life [RepJ BookX 618] A man must take an adamant faith in truth and right to choose always the mean of any virtue, and avoid the extremes of excess and deficiency. This is the way of happiness [RepJ BookX 619]
Er told how, having chosen their next life, individual souls would pass eventually from the meadow toward center of the universe, which swirled in a circle, one inside another, going opposite ways, like a spindle of necessity, weaving souls together, as if into the seashell of time.[RepJ BookX 616-617] They went, with their guardian genius, and were drawn into the revolution of the spindle, ratifying the destiny they had chosen.
And as they passed beneath the throws of necessity,[RepJ BookX p.396] and over the plane of forgetfulness and the river of unmindfulness. Those who drank, forgot what they had seen and experienced in the meadow.[RepJ BookX 621] But Er had not, and apparently neither had Socrates, he said, for he found this story to affirm his own intuitions. So perhaps the tale had been saved, Socrates says, to save us – so that we might remember to choose well how to live, now and through eternity.[RepJ BookX 621, p.397]
So we can see perhaps why Socrates argues that, “It is better to receive injustice than to deliver it,” for one’s soul can only truly be harmed by one’s own error and wrongdoing. Treating another with injustice may indeed make their life more difficult, but rather than harm them, it may actually do them good in the long run, if they learn from it to choose otherwise. Whereas one who delivers injustice may have to pay for it ten times over before he truly learns.
This view of incarnation “posits a self that threads successive lives in the way a single life threads successive moments.”(Smith, 25) As Buddha would conceive it, it illuminates a self that is more like a wave than a particle.(Smith, 78)
And so we get a glimpse of what they mean when they talk of the ultimate reality that is Brahman, that which each individual Atman lives to explore. Whether as the “Creator (Brahma), Preserver (Vishnu), [or] Destroyer (Shiva),” in the end Brahman “resolves all finite forms back into the primordial being from which they sprang.”(Smith, 47)
In this ancient conception of ultimate reality, the universe itself is alive, and so it breathes, coming and going from “a state of pure potentiality” into full actuality and back again, eternal and imperishable as God respires.(Smith, 52)
And with this view, one can meet death with dignity. For “Life and death are natural phenomena, just like sunrise and sunset.(I Ching, pp. 259-260) Even in “the glow of the setting sun – like the end of one’s career or life. The sun is still shining and humility still has resonance.” (I Ching, p.155) “Even when sick, one should persist in the principle of keeping delight alive.” (I Ching, p. 162) “One should always think positively, persevere, looking forward to the good.”(I Ching, p. 133) “With the quality of humility, one is able to deal with any kind of situation; no matter how difficult or dangerous.”(I Ching, pp. 153-154) This is the true spirit of humility…acting positively by moving forward to do something productive.”(I Ching, pp. 153-154) Only then can one meet “dying without any regret.”(I Ching, 123) “The remedy should be hard work. In this way, the end will be good.” (I Ching, p.175)
Socrates on Dying With Honor: “You are mistaken...if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider...whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.14) "The truth of the matter is this, gentlemen. Where a man has once taken up his stand...there I believe he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything else before dishonor."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15) "[T]o be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not...[death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15)
“You know that I am not going to alter my conduct, not even if I have to die a hundred deaths."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.16) "[B]ecause I do not believe that the law of god permits a better man to be harmed by a worse."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.16) "I am convinced that I never wronged anyone intentionally...so, being convinced that I do no wrong to anybody, I can hardly be expected to wrong myself by asserting that I deserve something bad...prison...a fine...banishment."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.22) [Even death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15) "The difficulty is not so much to escape from death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.24) For "Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 25)
Ironically, while we think of this as an eastern idea, it is a western philosopher who perhaps best illuminates this potential (which, he emphasizes, we can only speculate about, since humans can’t actually ‘know’ on this side of death what happens on the other side). It’s ironic because, of all cultures, the Greeks are not associated with this belief in reincarnation. But true to their dialectic ways, they are willing to take all voices seriously, because true or not, they might be instructive just the same.
Vedic Hindus are remembered for their belief in reincarnation, but the Greeks – the best of them, if not the rest of them – are better known for their resistance to belief, and adherence to reason. This is what we have minds for, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle emphasized, to think through what might otherwise be accepted on faith, to figure out what does and does not make sense, and whether something is true or false. A belief may be true or false, but we won’t know which until we’ve tethered it to other things we know to be true by working out the reason. Only then do we have knowledge, which is stable and sturdy, Socrates says.(Meno) That’s the good thing about truth, after all, that it stays true.
But the Greeks were as fond as any ancient culture of telling stories as food for thought.
It is in this vein that Socrates tells a story (at the very end of Plato’s masterwork, the Republic) about Er, the son of Armenius, who had lay ‘dead’ for ten days after falling in battle. But just as they were about to light the funeral pyre, his body, which had been unaffected by decay, suddenly returned to life.
And so Er lived to tell of what he had seen in the other world while he lay between this life and the next. [RepJ BookX 614] Waking up was, he said, like returning from a journey of a thousand years.
After receiving a fatal blow on the battlefield, he said, Er found himself in a beautiful meadow, where comers and goers gathered to talk together and to tell each other of the lives from which they had respectively returned. Some talked of glorious joys, and some cried who suffered their memories .[RepJ BookX 614-615] Some, to make a long story short, told of suffering tenfold for every wrong they had done to anyone on earth.[615] They told of living ten lifetimes, ten times in a thousand years, the time it took to make right what they had made wrong.
There were four thresholds in the meadow, he said – two departing and two returning, one each by which the just ascended and returned from heaven, and one each by which the unjust descended and returned from hell. It was a most dreadfully horrible scene when some tyrant, trying to escape from hell, was sucked back in to the vortex for yet another round of his dues -- his karma, if you will.[RepJ BookX 615]
A new cycle of life was awarded on a first come first serve basis, said Er, and genius and destiny were not allotted, but chosen. [RepJ BookX 618] There were an infinite variety of lives to choose from, so enough even for the last comer.[RepJ BookX 619] And virtue was free, and anyone could take as much as they wanted.
Some who come first, as Er told it, not having thought out the whole matter, choose lives of tyranny, in which they would be free to do whatever they liked. But the best choice, as was reported by those who had learned the hard way, was that life which was undazzled by wealth and other temptations to do wrong to others, for which he would ultimately suffer yet worse terrors himself.[RepJ BookX 619] ] So, rather than foolishly choose pleasures that would be fraught with pain (usually chosen by those who had had it too easy, and not been schooled by trial of experience), comers were cautioned to choose soundly from the first, that they might be truly happy in their life, rather than merely appear happy to others who did not know it’s true nature. Those who chose virtue we cautioned to also choose philosophy, for the habit of virtue is not enough without being accompanied by the search for truth and wisdom. [RepJ BookX 619-620]
This then is the knowledge we need, Er said, and we can forget all the rest. For true happiness involves the ability to discern between good and evil, so to choose always and everywhere, as the opportunity arises, the better over the worse life [RepJ BookX 618] A man must take an adamant faith in truth and right to choose always the mean of any virtue, and avoid the extremes of excess and deficiency. This is the way of happiness [RepJ BookX 619]
Er told how, having chosen their next life, individual souls would pass eventually from the meadow toward center of the universe, which swirled in a circle, one inside another, going opposite ways, like a spindle of necessity, weaving souls together, as if into the seashell of time.[RepJ BookX 616-617] They went, with their guardian genius, and were drawn into the revolution of the spindle, ratifying the destiny they had chosen.
And as they passed beneath the throws of necessity,[RepJ BookX p.396] and over the plane of forgetfulness and the river of unmindfulness. Those who drank, forgot what they had seen and experienced in the meadow.[RepJ BookX 621] But Er had not, and apparently neither had Socrates, he said, for he found this story to affirm his own intuitions. So perhaps the tale had been saved, Socrates says, to save us – so that we might remember to choose well how to live, now and through eternity.[RepJ BookX 621, p.397]
So we can see perhaps why Socrates argues that, “It is better to receive injustice than to deliver it,” for one’s soul can only truly be harmed by one’s own error and wrongdoing. Treating another with injustice may indeed make their life more difficult, but rather than harm them, it may actually do them good in the long run, if they learn from it to choose otherwise. Whereas one who delivers injustice may have to pay for it ten times over before he truly learns.
This view of incarnation “posits a self that threads successive lives in the way a single life threads successive moments.”(Smith, 25) As Buddha would conceive it, it illuminates a self that is more like a wave than a particle.(Smith, 78)
And so we get a glimpse of what they mean when they talk of the ultimate reality that is Brahman, that which each individual Atman lives to explore. Whether as the “Creator (Brahma), Preserver (Vishnu), [or] Destroyer (Shiva),” in the end Brahman “resolves all finite forms back into the primordial being from which they sprang.”(Smith, 47)
In this ancient conception of ultimate reality, the universe itself is alive, and so it breathes, coming and going from “a state of pure potentiality” into full actuality and back again, eternal and imperishable as God respires.(Smith, 52)
And with this view, one can meet death with dignity. For “Life and death are natural phenomena, just like sunrise and sunset.(I Ching, pp. 259-260) Even in “the glow of the setting sun – like the end of one’s career or life. The sun is still shining and humility still has resonance.” (I Ching, p.155) “Even when sick, one should persist in the principle of keeping delight alive.” (I Ching, p. 162) “One should always think positively, persevere, looking forward to the good.”(I Ching, p. 133) “With the quality of humility, one is able to deal with any kind of situation; no matter how difficult or dangerous.”(I Ching, pp. 153-154) This is the true spirit of humility…acting positively by moving forward to do something productive.”(I Ching, pp. 153-154) Only then can one meet “dying without any regret.”(I Ching, 123) “The remedy should be hard work. In this way, the end will be good.” (I Ching, p.175)
Socrates on Dying With Honor: “You are mistaken...if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider...whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.14) "The truth of the matter is this, gentlemen. Where a man has once taken up his stand...there I believe he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything else before dishonor."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15) "[T]o be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not...[death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15)
“You know that I am not going to alter my conduct, not even if I have to die a hundred deaths."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.16) "[B]ecause I do not believe that the law of god permits a better man to be harmed by a worse."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.16) "I am convinced that I never wronged anyone intentionally...so, being convinced that I do no wrong to anybody, I can hardly be expected to wrong myself by asserting that I deserve something bad...prison...a fine...banishment."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.22) [Even death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15) "The difficulty is not so much to escape from death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.24) For "Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 25)