Rebirth (Skt. पुनर्जन्म Punarjanma) is the concept of a mind or personality being born again in a new physical body after the destruction of the old one (death). In the nondual framework of the path of knowledge, rebirth is understood as a mechanical process of the illusion.

The Mechanism of Reincarnation

• Persistence of Vasanas: While the physical body decays and dies, the causal body (the storehouse of all desires and tendencies) remains completely intact. The "stickiness" of these latent tendencies drives the mind to create or possess a new body on demand.

• Recreation of Patterns: Rebirth is simply the tendency of patterns in the universal memory to recreate themselves in the same fashion they were created before.

• Possession of a Body: The process of taking birth is the possession of an already made biological machine (the body). The mind connects its senses to this new vehicle to play out its remaining desires.

There is No Reincarnating Person

• A Boundless Self: The true experiencer (the Self) is unborn, deathless, and beyond time. It does not go anywhere, nor is it ever reborn.

• Reincarnation Just Is: Upon self realisation, the seeker understands that the individual "I" is an illusion. Since there is no individual person to begin with, there is no separate soul to reincarnate. The one conscious Presence simply takes up new forms and generates new personalities in its cosmic play.

See also

Death, causal body, desire, self realisation, samsara, illusion.