Today, we will focus on Trishna, the driving force behind reincarnation. We have nearly finished our study of the nature, functions, growth, and development of the causal envelope. Having examined what we can consider the form aspect of the soul, it is now important for us to gain a deeper understanding of the soul itself as a conscious and functioning entity.
In this presentation, we will start studying the soul’s relation to its personality, which mainly involves the life aspect of reincarnation. The first part of our discussion will focus on Trishna, which is the fundamental reason why the soul seeks reincarnation. In the next presentation, we will specifically explore the form aspect of reincarnation, i.e., its mechanism.
Next, we will explore other aspects of the soul’s attitude towards the personality. Following that, we will delve into a study of the soul’s life on its own plane. Lastly, we will study, to the best of our ability with the available materials, the relationship between the soul and the Monad.
The main and fundamental reason for reincarnation is the Cosmic Will, which influences the soul and appears as a desire for manifestation within it. In response to this influence, the soul imitates the action of the Logos by extending itself into the lower planes. This Cosmic Will would come under that Law of Development.
The desire, referred to as Trishna in Sanskrit and Tanha in Pali, is the blind thirst for manifested life. It is the desire to find a place where the soul can express itself and receive the impressions and impacts from the outside world that enable it to be conscious of living and feel alive.
This is not a desire for life in the ordinary sense of the word but rather a longing for a more perfect manifestation. It is a desire to feel oneself more thoroughly alive and active, to achieve complete consciousness that involves the power to respond to all possible vibrations from the surroundings on every plane. This enables the soul to attain the perfection of sympathy, i.e., the ability to feel a part of something else. As we will explore more fully later on, the soul on its own plane is far from fully conscious, but the consciousness it does possess brings great pleasure and arouses a kind of hunger for a fuller realisation of life. In fact, it is this hunger of the soul which underlies the world’s great glamour for a fuller life.
It is not an outside pressure that drives a monad back into incarnation. They come back because they want to. If the soul didn’t want to come back, it wouldn’t return. As long as any desire for something the world can offer, remains, the soul will want to return. Therefore, a soul is not forced against its will back to this world of troubles. Instead, its own intense longing for it brings it back. Fools!
We can draw an analogy from the physical body. When we eat and fully digest food, our body craves more, signalling hunger. No one needs to push us to eat; we naturally seek out food and consume it because we desire it. Similarly, as long as humans are imperfect and have not fully utilised everything the world has to offer, they will continue to be reborn.
Trishna can be understood as one of the various ways in which the universal law of periodicity becomes apparent. In Esoteric Philosophy, this law is acknowledged as encompassing the emanation and reabsorption of the universe, the Night and Day of Brahma, and the exhalation and inhalation of the Great Breath.
The God of Desire in Hindu belief is known as “Kama” and is considered to be the driving force behind creation. In the Rig Veda, Kama is portrayed as the embodiment of the feeling that motivates and guides the act of creation. Kama is seen as the first impulse that moved the ONE to create after its manifestation from the purely abstract Principle. The desire is the primal germ of the mind and the bond that connects Entity with Non-entity. Essentially, Kama represents the longing for a vibrant, passionate existence and the intensity of a passionate life.
When spiritual intelligence encounters the thirst for sensation, its first action is to intensify it. As a stanza in the Secret Doctrine says: “From their own essence they filled (i.e., intensified) the Kama”. Therefore, Kama becomes the primary cause of reincarnation for the individual, just as it does for the cosmos. As desire differentiates into desires, it chains down the thinker to earth and leads to repeated rebirth. These concepts are frequently mentioned in Hindu and Buddhist scriptures.
Until one realises Brahman, Brahman being the Absolute, there will always be Trishna. When a person has assimilated all that they have acquired and made it a part of themselves, then Trishna will arise and drive them to seek new experiences.
The word “Trishna” is usually used to describe a thirst for external experiences, but there is also a deeper thirst expressed in the phrase “My soul is athirst for God.” This is the longing of a part to find the whole to which it belongs. If we think of the part as coming from the whole but never losing its link to it, there is always a force trying to bring the part back. The divine Spirit can find no lasting satisfaction outside of divinity. It is this dissatisfaction, this desire to search, that is the root of Trishna, and it drives a person out of Devachan or any other condition until the search is complete.
It is possible for a person to achieve a lower form of Moksha, which is a temporary liberation from rebirth. Some less advanced yogis in India intentionally eliminate all desires related to this worldly life. Understanding the transient nature of the world and the limited value in striving to remain in it, especially after experiencing much suffering or disappointment, a person can attain a form of non-attachment known as “burning-ground vairagya.” While this does not lead to complete Liberation, it does result in partial liberation.
According to one of the Upanishads, a person is born in a world that is guided by their desires. If a person eliminates all desires for things in this world, they can move on from it and will not be reborn into it. Instead, they might move into a temporary world where they could remain for a long time. There are several such worlds, often associated with the worship of a specific divine form or particular types of meditation. A person might enter one of these worlds and stay there for an indefinite period. For those who are deeply involved in meditation, their desire is solely focused on the objects of their meditation, so they remain in the mental world to which their desires have led them.
While some people may have removed themselves from the challenges of this world, they will ultimately return to a world – either this world if it is still existing or a similar world – where they can continue their personal development from where they left off. Therefore, the challenges are only delayed, and it does not seem worthwhile to choose the described path.
Occult teachers suggest the transmutation of desire rather than trying to eliminate it because eliminating it kills the possibility of higher evolution. When desire is killed, there’s nothing left to transform, which hinders spiritual and mental growth.
The false vairagya stems from a rejection of lower things due to disappointment, trouble, or weariness. On the other hand, true indifference to lower things arises from a craving for a higher purpose and leads to different outcomes.
The Voice of The Silence states that the soul seeks “points that draw it upwards.” By suppressing desire, a person only temporarily gets rid of the taste for life; the taste remains latent and will eventually resurface. If a person kills their desires as described, and if they are just an average person with no special intellectual or moral qualities, they will remain in a condition where they are happy but not particularly useful to themself or anyone else.
If a person has progressed far along the Path, they may reach a stage of meditation where their mental powers become very valuable. They might be able to unconsciously influence the world and contribute to the mental and spiritual energy that the Masters use for their work in the world. This reservoir is filled with spiritual energy by the Nirmanakayas.
A person like this, filled with the spirit of service, would transition to a world where they can work in that specific area. It would be a world around the level of the causal envelope. Here, they would live for ages, dedicating themselves to concentrating their thoughts to help others and contribute to the reservoir of spiritual power.
We have studied what draws us back into incarnation on the lower physical planes of matter. The next question is, how is this done? What is the mechanism that brings about reincarnation? Find out in the next presentation.