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Do you have a
soul?
by Christopher
Calder
When I was a child,
I was an atheist and only believed in what I could see and touch.
By age nineteen I started to believe in the existence of souls and
reincarnation as a result of my exposure to a number of famous Indian
yogis and the majestic J. Krishnamurti, who once claimed to have
remembered all of his past lives. At age 21 my belief in soul was
dramatically reinforced by explosive experiences I had with Acharya
Rajneesh, later known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and Osho. I
never believed in any "God," but for 35 years I lived under the shadow
of the great meditation masters and was fairly certain that we all
possessed souls that would survive our physical death. [This
essay was written in 2004.]
Unlike
Hindus, most Buddhists believe in some mysterious and poorly defined
soulless form of personal karma which survives death. I never
believed in the Buddhist concept of immortal personal karma without
soul, because when you reject the idea of a soul you lose the only
credible vehicle for the transference of karma from one lifetime to the
next. To my mind, if there is no soul, there is no possibility of
immortal personal karma and reincarnation.
When I met Acharya Rajneesh in 1970, he spoke of souls and
reincarnation and claimed to have the power of astral projection.
I believed his claim because of what I thought were authentic
experiences I had with this "Master" astrally projecting himself, not
just into my room, but into my body while he was physically several
miles away. After reading Matthew Alper's book, The "God" Part of
the Brain, I wonder if those amazing experiences were really what I
thought they were. Alper summarizes the latest scientific
research into how the human brain functions while having religious
experiences. In this essay, I have added additional neurological
data obtained from medical journals and my observations and theories
regarding several of the main points of Alper's book.
Medical research has shown that if you stimulate certain areas of the
brain with a small electric current, you can give people the experience
of spiritual visitation. You may feel that Jesus is touching your
heart, or that the soul of a dead relative is near you. However,
no evidence supports a belief in authentic soul travel, as all studies
indicate that consciousness only exists in the brain cells that create
it. You cannot remove consciousness from the physical body
because consciousness is a physical phenomenon created by chemistry,
just as a firefly's light is created by chemical reactions. That
is why you can turn consciousness on or off by injecting a person with
drugs to wake them up or to put them to sleep.
Near-death experiences and even certain drugs, such as ketamine and
sodium pentothal, can give you the feeling of being outside of your
body, but researchers say that is just an illusion of the holographic
nature of human consciousness, which is produced by the physical human
brain. When neural communications between the body and brain are
reduced, the brain is free to project your sense of self anywhere it
chooses, and this can happen while under partial anesthesia, while
partially asleep, or even during the preliminary (and reversible)
stages of death. Prolonged fasting and isolation can also produce
hallucinations and other distortions of reality, and such ascetic
practices are a major source of the Asian myths of astral
projection.
While true astral
projection may be impossible, there is credible scientific evidence to
suggest that telepathic communication is possible between human
beings. The human brain is an organic electrochemical computer so
complex that no existing silicon-based supercomputer can approach its
capabilities. Think of all the things your relatively simple cell
phone can do. There is plenty of computer power in the human
brain to imagine that some portion of its circuitry could be allocated
to broadcasting and receiving messages, or at least sensing basic
electromagnetic radiation from other human brains. Such an
ability would have obvious survival value for the species and thus
would be understandable in terms of evolution and survival of the
fittest. A rudimentary telepathic communicative ability may be
the reason disciples feel the presence of their spiritual teachers so
strongly.
The brain is the most
metabolically active human organ and requires a steady supply of oxygen
and glucose as fuel. Although the brain represents less than 2%
of the body's mass, it utilizes 20% of the body's oxygen consumption
and 15% of its cardiac output, thus our brains produce an extraordinary
amount of energy in relationship to the rest of the body. Our
bodies use chemical reactions to produce mechanical movements and
electrical currents which flow through all of our living cells.
Our brains contain approximately 100 billion neurons connected by
trillions of synapses which can be viewed as nature-created
transistors. Consciousness is born of an intricately woven flow
of electromagnetic radiations, not by souls.
Dr. Johnjoe McFadden, a Professor of Molecular Genetics at the
University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, has described consciousness
as an electromagnetic information field, known as the CEMI Field
Theory. The CEMI abbreviation stands for conscious
electromagnetic information. It states that consciousness is
physically integrated, and causally active information encoded in the
brain’s global electromagnetic field. McFadden extends the theory
to argue that consciousness implements algorithms in space, rather than
time, within the brain’s electromagnetic field. McFadden states
that the CEMI field theory accounts for most observed features of
consciousness.
Laboratory
research has revealed that when the brain stops producing an observable
electromagnetic field, consciousness disappears as quickly as turning
off a radio transmitter. Consciousness feels like an ethereal
nonphysical cloud floating in space. Electromagnetic fields are
physical, but not in the same solid state form of physicality as a rock
or a tree. The CEMI Field Theory explains
why mystics and holy men from all cultures and nations may feel that
their consciousness is nonphysical and supernatural, and thus might
survive death. All of Earth's animals that have significant
consciousness, from ants to elephants, must share electromagnetic and
bio-mechanical traits, expressed in different levels of sophistication
and complexity. It is not difficult to imagine that the
fantastically complex human brain may have capabilities beyond our
current level of understanding.
Perhaps what I thought was astral projection was simply Rajneesh
concentrating on me, sending me his super-mental energy long
distance. That powerful jolt of energy may have caused my brain
to supply the added illusion of personal visitation on top of the
strong telepathic transmission. There is no doubt that Rajneesh
had tremendous mental powers, but was that power really supernatural or
just a product of his unique brain structure and meditative
skill? Science has uncovered a strange phenomenon known as Quantum Entanglement.
The miraculous psychic phenomena of the guru-disciple relationship may
have something to do with this bizarre natural phenomenon of
space-time. We know that consciousness is constructed through an
incredibly complex web of streaming particles and electromagnetic waves
created by brain cells. Are the communion and communication
disciples feel with their teachers at a great distance a matter of
highly complex physics as well as psychology?
If you inject any human being with enough sedative, enlightened or not,
they will become unconscious. If you damage certain areas of the
brain you can drastically alter human behavior. You can turn a
conservative bank president into a garbage-eating bum just by killing
off some of the brain cells that contain the biocomputer program for
his personality. If you damage other areas of the brain, you can
erase all memory.
If consciousness,
personality, and memory are all physical phenomena of brain cells, then
when your brain dies there is nothing left of your identity. Your
permanent identity of time-energy-space (see The TES Hypothesis)
continues unharmed, but there is no soul, no reincarnation, and no
Buddhist transference of personal karma. If this is true, it
means that all of the major world religions are wrong. It also
means that we all achieve "moksha" (liberation) at the time of our
death because there is no personal cycle of birth and death to escape
from and no magical afterlife. You are born once, and you die
once, and you will never come back.
One theory states that we have souls and/or personal karma which
transmigrates from one life to the next, and another theory states that
nothing survives death, and only DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and the
will of the living determine the future of our species. Which
theory is correct? I once believed in reincarnation with a
high level of certainty. After many years of seeing the rampant
corruption of gurus, "enlightened" or not, the idiocy of disciples,
cults, and organized religion, and with the new scientific evidence in
hand, I find the soul-reincarnation-karma theory far less plausible.
You do not have to believe in anything supernatural to believe in
cosmic consciousness (satori). Anyone can take the drug
psilocybin and get a dramatic imitation of the natural religious
experience. Clinical research shows that our brains are built to
have religious experiences. As time-energy-space is one singular
phenomenon, it is only natural that we occasionally experience the
grand cosmic unity. I suspect that even animals have satoris,
though they cannot give it a name or understand its implications.
One of the most interesting concepts of Matthew Alper's book concerns
the rise of self-consciousness in human animals, and how knowledge of
our impending death has affected our brains and even our DNA
code. If you put a dog in front of a mirror, he will never figure
out that he is looking at his reflection. If you put a higher
primate in front of a mirror, such as a chimpanzee or human child, the
higher primate will eventually use the mirror for grooming purposes
because he recognizes himself in the reflection. Man's
self-consciousness is so highly developed that humans have come to
realize that our life expectancy is short and that our personal demise
is inevitable.
Other animals fear
death, danger, and pain, but most have no real understanding of time
and the inevitability of their destruction. Non-human higher
primates and elephants may have some perception of the time-death
equation, but that has not been proven scientifically. Our human
understanding of the inevitability of death can become a constant
source of anguish. A strong survival instinct is built into our
DNA code from our long evolutionary journey from bacteria to man.
When the survival instinct collides with the self-conscious knowledge
of impending death, the human brain needs both a psychological and a
neurological barrier to block the conflict and tension. That
barrier we call religious belief and "the God part of the brain."
The theory states that man has invented myths of God, soul,
reincarnation, karma, and an afterlife as a way to provide the brain
with mental opium, a buffer to the constant ticking clock inside our
heads that tells us that our inevitable destruction and decomposition
is getting closer every day.
The
psychological need for a feeling of immortality is so great that our
religious tendencies have become part of our DNA code. Humans who
believe in supernatural religions tend to be calmer, and healthier and
thus live longer than the non-religious. Believers also tend to
show more bravery when courage is needed to protect their tribe.
Genetic tendencies to have religious feelings are fortified over
thousands of years of evolution through survival of the religiously
fittest.
If your religious beliefs feel
exactly right to you, it may be because your subconscious mind wants
you to believe them so that you will have a better chance for health
and a long lifespan. If you intuitively sense that you have been
alive on planet Earth before, perhaps that feeling of déjavu comes from
your DNA code, not from a reincarnating soul because DNA has been
active on planet Earth for at least 3.8 billion years, and we are all
created and united by its existence.
Scientists know that there is only one real-life form on planet Earth,
and that is DNA itself. DNA is like a giant vine that has taken
over the world. Through the never-ending chain of DNA code we are
not only closely related to other mammals, but also intimately related
to insects, plants, and even bacteria. Many times in Earth's
history the higher life forms have been wiped out by impacts of
asteroids and comets, and by massive volcanic eruptions which made our
atmosphere toxic, yet the surviving bacteria have always evolved upward
into more complex plants and animals. DNA is not just a helpful
chemical substance that resides inside us. DNA is our biological
level identity, our three-dimensional physical
'soul.'
All
over the world, wherever you find man, you will find supernatural
religions promising some form of life after death. Muslim
extremists gladly kill themselves in the name of their religion.
American war heroes have died fighting Japanese and Germans in the name
of Jesus, and no doubt many felt they were going to heaven for their
heroic efforts. God is a pretty handy device to have when your
tribe is in trouble. Almost all of us, atheist and theist alike,
instinctively call out to God for help when we are in grave personal
danger.
Man's philosophical
beliefs have also been shaped by a survival contest of world religions
to see which religion can most completely satisfy our emotional needs
for a feeling of comfort and safety. Organized religion is a
business and must have money and public support to survive. If
your spouse or child dies, you want a priest, rabbi, monk, or swami to
tell you that your loved one's soul is going to a better place.
Can you imagine a funeral service where a holy man bluntly states that
the deceased has no soul and is gone forever? That would seem
cruel, and any religion that provided such a terse death ritual would
not last long in the religious marketplace.
Why do so many enlightened teachers believe in souls and karma?
It has been my observation that even the enlightened are affected by
cultural conditioning and have a tendency to pass on the religious
teachings of those who came before them with only minor
modifications. For example, the famous enlightened teachers from
meat-eating societies in Tibet, China, and Japan also ate meat, while
the great sages from strictly vegetarian India believe that eating meat
is a horrible unspiritual practice. So I ask, did Rajneesh and J.
Krishnamurti believe in souls because of some direct experience, or
simply because they grew up in soul-oriented India? Rajneesh once
stated that even plants have souls, and if an enlightened man (Rajneesh
himself) sat next to a plant, that plant would be so graced that in its
next incarnation, it might be born as a human being. I find that
grandiose and self-serving statement difficult to believe, and I
suspect a significant amount of the time Rajneesh was simply shooting
his mouth off without even thinking about what he was saying.
On another occasion, Rajneesh stated that we are attracted to beautiful
people because their outer beauty represents the inner beauty of their
souls, as it is the soul which creates the physical body and
mind. Science has proven that DNA creates the body and brain, not
any mysterious and immaterial "soul." Outward beauty does not
always mean inward beauty or even a sane mind. The infamous
serial killer Ted Bundy was quite handsome physically, yet he is
estimated to have murdered between 35 and 50 women just for the thrill
of it. If the great "enlightened" Rajneesh could be mistaken
about something this basic, then couldn't he be wrong about anything?
The "Master" Rajneesh presented many idiotic theories about life right
here and now, so why should anyone believe his theories about souls and
reincarnation? It is only because of his great psychic presence
that his disciples refrained from laughing out loud at some of his
ridiculous ideas. Rajneesh was living proof that enlightenment,
intelligence, and honesty are separate phenomena. You can be a
fool, a liar, and a criminal, and also become a great energy channeler
(enlightened) if that is your predisposition and desire. Freedom
means the free choice to be good or bad, and you have that choice no
matter how powerful your meditation skills have become. George
Gurdjieff, the famous Greek-Armenian mystic, was an alcoholic.
Rajneesh became a drug addict, yet both men could channel a great
cosmic presence that inspired thousands of spiritual seekers.
Rajneesh's use of drugs, especially Valium, nitrous oxide, and LSD,
also casts doubt on his soul theory of enlightenment. Rajneesh
once stated that from his personal experience, LSD can produce the same
consciousness as a Buddha. During his younger sober days,
Rajneesh stated that LSD produced a "false samadhi" and that
consciousness was the product of the "soul," not just physical
chemistry. Rajneesh changed his teaching to rationalize his drug
use by stating that "You are nothing but chemistry." He thus
implied that it is acceptable to use chemicals to alter consciousness
because you are chemicals bonded together in an organic biological
machine. One could ask that if Rajneesh had the power of astral
projection as claimed, wouldn't flying around the world in his soul
body be more entertaining than getting cheap thrills from taking LSD
and nitrous oxide?
Rajneesh claimed to
be as enlightened as the historic Buddha, and I believe that he was,
but why does a Buddha need to take hallucinogenic drugs? My
answer is that Rajneesh became bored with the Void because the Void can
only provide peacefulness long term, but not an eternal buzz of
blissfulness. Judging from my meditative practice and reading of
science, the buzz, and bliss of meditation comes from a buildup of
excess neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine in the
brain. When you meditate in formal sessions, you are conserving
the chemical energy of your brain by not wasting it on thoughts and
sensory distractions. Thus, you become blissful and may
experience nonsexual orgasms during meditation sessions, but that
ecstasy gradually dissipates after you return to your normal work
routine. The feeling of spaciousness and peacefulness continues,
but the buzz settles down to a feeling of neutrality and quiet
emptiness. There is no eternal orgasm-ecstasy-buzz-bliss possible
because any human feeling that has a beginning must also have an end
due to the inherent chemical nature of the brain.
The Buddha is reported as having said that there is "no bliss."
Rajneesh at times admitted that he felt "no energy," though those
around him felt awash in his energy. U.G. Krishnamurti stated
that there is "no bliss." When I meditate in formal sessions, I
experience bliss and nonsexual orgasms felt in the Hara (belly center),
the heart center, the forehead center, and the center of the head
directly behind the eyes. The problem is, the orgasmic feelings
never last. I have to go back to my meditation room and sit to
regain the neurochemical energy that dissipates during the daily
routine of work. Using my brain for utilitarian purposes eats up
those neurotransmitters rather quickly. It may also be that the
brain itself wants to bring us back to a state of neutrality because a
neutral brain has the greatest ability to ensure our physical
survival. A man distracted with a blissed-out brain is likely to
be the first member of the tribe eaten by the lion, not the last.
Meditation and enlightenment may be a neurochemical experience, not a
magical soul experience outside the laws of chemistry and physics.
Rajneesh changed his name to "Osho" and ended his life in a state of
dementia due to illness and drug addiction. J. Krishnamurti
avoided major scandals, stayed sober, and is still highly revered long
after his death. But was J. Krishnamurti a saint and somehow
better ethically than any normal human being? I know many people
who lead virtuous lives who don't meditate at all. What made J.
Krishnamurti different was not how he lived, which was ordinary, but
his tremendous presence of being. You stood next to him and felt
flooded with cosmic energy which pushed you high into the sky,
destroying all feelings of limitation. Was J. Krishnamurti's
grand presence the result of many past lifetimes of spiritual effort,
or was it the result of modest effort in meditation combined with a
genetic gift for cosmic consciousness?
Matthew Alper points out in his book that some forms of epilepsy cause
hyper-religiousness and mystical experiences. J. Krishnamurti's
mother was an epileptic, and we know epilepsy can be genetically
transferred. J. Krishnamurti never had fits, but he often
mysteriously passed out, giving those near him a warning that he was
about to lose consciousness. The Indian sage Ramakrishna was
reported to have had fits in which he thrashed on the ground
uncontrollably. The universally revered Ramana Maharshi claimed
that his emotional heart center was located on the "right side" of his
chest, which I suspect represents a brain abnormality. In normal
human beings, the emotional heart center is located in the exact center
of the chest.
Is it possible that
natural variations in our genetic code could produce in each century a
handful of people with brains perfectly adapted for enlightenment, thus
making meditative practice so easy that they reached the goal with
little effort? Ramana Maharshi is reported to have achieved
"God-consciousness" at the tender age of 17. Rajneesh claims to
have become enlightened at age 21. J. Krishnamurti was in his
early twenties when people around him started to feel that he was fully
enlightened. Ramakrishna was reported to have been "born
enlightened," as was the ancient Chinese mystic, Lao Tzu.
Are the spiritually gifted among us the rare but naturally occurring
result of genetic variation? Of the 20,000 to 25,000 genes that
make up a human being, roughly half are suspected of being devoted to
blueprinting our central nervous system. Thus, with 10,000 to
12,500 individual genes controlling the formation of our brain and
spinal cord, the potential for major variations in the level of human
consciousness is enormous. For example, scientists have found
that changes in just a few human genes can have a dramatic effect on
the level of our intelligence. Is it therefore logical that human
gene combinations exist that control the amount of raw consciousness we
possess?
Few humans have the artistic
talent of Michelangelo or the mathematical genius of Albert
Einstein. If there is a natural genetic "bell curve" for
intelligence, then why not a natural genetically driven bell curve for
psychic power as well? [See The Bell Curve: Intelligence and
Class Structure in American Life, by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles
Murray.] Research has shown that identical twins tend to have the
same level of interest in religion and/or mystical experiences.
This suggests that there is a strong genetic component to our
meditative potential. If DNA can explain the vast differences
between a mosquito and a man, then why can't genetic variations also
explain the vast mental differences between a Hitler and a
Buddha?
Are the enlightened
simply those few individuals at the extreme forward edge of the bell
curve, with the masses of the world population stuck near the
middle? If there are child prodigy pianists, artists, and even
child prodigy golfers, then why not child prodigy meditators as
well? The Asian cultures may have simply mistaken naturally
occurring genetic variations in the human brain for evidence of a
romanticized past life history that does not exist in fact. The
group conditioning became so strong that the myths of reincarnation
fooled even the enlightened ones. History shows that the easiest
explanation for a phenomenon that has the most supporting evidence is
usually correct. Grand claims require significant evidence to
justify a belief in them, and there is currently no scientifically
valid evidence of reincarnation or a magical transference of personal
karma.
If the spiritual bell curve
theory is true, it could help explain the obvious corruption of
gurus. Rajneesh was a convicted felon and a proven liar and
hypocrite of historic proportions. George Gurdjieff was also a
chronic liar and a loud and often rude alcoholic. The
genetics-based view of enlightenment helps explain why there are so few
enlightened ones at any given time. If every soul has multiple
chances to improve its meditation skills over lifetimes of effort, then
surely the world would produce more than the meager handful of
enlightened sages that are born each century. Since at least the
dawn of Hinduism (about 1500 BC), long before the historic Buddha was
born (about 563 BC), millions of human beings have been making a
sincere effort at meditation, so where are the results of these
lifetimes of effort? The mathematical logistics of the soul-karma
theory just do not add up.
The
argument for souls and/or immortal karma is that enlightenment is a
process that takes many lifetimes of effort, and the fruition of our
long journey through time is the eventual payoff of "moksha" (final
spiritual freedom), infinite ecstasy, and liberation from all
suffering. This highly romantic idea appeals because it brings a
sense of warmth and justice into a cold and often pointlessly cruel
world. It intuitively seems fair that the right action is
eventually rewarded with positive results, but this belief in
inevitable karma has also caused negative results. In Tibet, it
produced a kind of fatalistic inaction that aided the Communist Chinese
in their military takeover in 1950. To quote Drupon Samten
Rinpoche, "They can be taking this life, but they cannot take the next
life." This feeling of immortality has brought Tibetan Buddhists
a great sense of peace and compassion in the face of invasion and
genocide, but is it based on real-world fact or just wishful
thinking?
Belief in souls and
immortal karma has had many negative effects in India, where the theory
of reincarnation helped establish the ancient Hindu caste system.
The caste system was abolished by law in 1949 but lives on as an unfair
social class structure which is considerably worse than the traditional
class snobbery practiced in Europe. The lower caste, the Shudras,
are considered inferior to the higher castes of Brahmins, Kshatriyas,
and Vaishyas. Even below the Shudras are the outcasts, known as
the "untouchables," who have no caste at all. The untouchables
are looked down upon as being spiritually unworthy due to past life
sins and are limited to performing the most unpleasant jobs, such as
disposing of dead bodies and cleaning toilets. The theory of
reincarnation has been used in India as a convenient rationalization to
exploit those who are poor and uneducated. Skin diseases, such as
leprosy, are considered signs of punishment for evil deeds committed in
past lives. Medical science has proven that leprosy is just an
ordinary bacterial infection that anyone can contract given sufficient
exposure to mycobacterium leprae bacillus. Even the great Bhagwan
Shree Rajneesh promoted the inhumane karmic explanation for leprosy.
Reincarnation and immortal karma were a way ancient peoples could
explain and rationalize the inherent inequities of life, death,
disease, riches, and poverty in religious terms that had no basis in
fact. All of the major world religions are relics of the
prescientific era, and all have negative biases woven into their
teachings. I suggest that it is time to embrace a pro-science
meditative attitude that does not promote irrational belief in magic
and the supernatural, things that exist in our imagination, but which
have no real existence.
Rejecting the
soul theory negates any need to answer such impossible questions as
where souls come from and why they exist. The rebellious sage
U.G. Krishnamurti stated "There is no such thing as enlightenment," and
that his state of continuous cosmic consciousness was without cause, or
"acausal." Could it be that the real cause of enlightenment is
rarefied DNA combined with modest effort? Perhaps the ancient
Hindus and Buddhists invented myths of souls and immortal karma simply
because they were uneducated observers of the natural phenomena around
them and inside them. Siddhartha Gautama never knew about neurons
or DNA, so how could he be expected to come up with any explanations
for life that were not based on inherited cultural myths of the
supernatural?
I dismiss claims of past
life memories because of the projective nature of the human
brain. The brain can project any image or feeling, and it is the
same neurological mechanism that projects fantasies of the subconscious
that also projects authentic memories stored in brain cells. What
comes out of that one singular projector may be real memory or real
fantasy, but no one can tell the difference with certainty, not even
the late J. Krishnamurti or the Dalai Lama.
False memories are a common occurrence in courtrooms and have sent many
innocent men to their deaths for crimes they never committed.
Just imagine a monk walking into a courtroom claiming to remember all
of his past lives. Then imagine the monk being grilled under
cross-examination. and he cannot even remember what he had for lunch
just a few days before. Even the enlightened sages have memory
problems and need to write down important dates and facts, so they
won't forget.
If a high Tibetan lama or
Hindu yogi enters a medical laboratory full of skeptical scientists and
proves through testing that he can transfer his consciousness out of
his body, then belief in souls and reincarnation would be easier for
everyone. To date that has not happened, and hospital tests
designed to prove out-of-body episodes during near-death experiences
have yielded no positive results. As far as scientifically valid
evidence of a soul is concerned, the well is completely dry.
Human beings exist as footprints in the sand. One day the
footprints will be erased and only the sand will be left behind.
There is no reincarnation and there is no personal continuity of karma.
I use to dismiss U.G. Krishnamurti's
claim that there is no enlightenment, no soul, and no reincarnation as
just his negative way of teaching. Perhaps, however, he was just
trying to tell us the truth no matter how shocking that truth may
be. Instead of becoming attached to the small personal identity
of a mythical human soul, or the very real human body, it is apparent
that we must identify with nothing less than infinity itself to find
authentic immortality. That is a pretty tall order for a human
brain that only weighs about 3 pounds (1,300 to 1,400 grams). All
of the great religions of the world may be wrong and just a product of
our fear of dying.
A summary of the main issues
1)
There is no positive proof for the existence of souls, immortal karma,
reincarnation, or any spiritual afterlife. It is interesting to
note that in their last years, even Rajneesh/Osho and J. Krishnamurti
reversed themselves and stated that there was no reincarnation and
thus, presumably, no soul. If there is no reincarnation and no
heaven or hell, then the question of soul is moot.
2)
There are legitimate science-based alternate explanations for phenomena
attributed to souls and immortal karma. The enlightened teachers
seem to confuse the effects of DNA for the effects of soul. For
example, people with higher intelligence and a more finely articulated
DNA code are perceived by them as being older and higher souls.
3) There
are obvious profit and political power motives for those who promote
belief in the supernatural. How many gurus have made fortunes off
the idea of souls and reincarnation? How many monasteries,
ashrams, churches, mosques, and synagogues would go out of business if
people found out there is no soul or immortal karma? How can
governments and religious hierarchies control the masses if word leaks
out that we all end up in the same state of eternal unconsciousness
after we die no matter how we behave while we are alive? Would
there be a Vatican City or Tibetan Portola Palace without a belief in
souls and/or immortal karma? The idea of soul has historically
been as much a matter of politics as it has been an issue of personal
religious belief.
4)
It is highly probable that human animals have a built-in genetic
predisposition to avoid the inevitable fact of our future death to
reduce fear and stress. Our brains create myths of God, soul,
immortal karma, reincarnation, and afterlife as a buffer against the
hurtful knowledge of the inevitable demise of ourselves and everyone we
love. By inventing myths of afterlife and/or reincarnation, the
brain can exist comfortably without the highly charged survival
instinct electrically connecting to the newfound knowledge of the
inevitability of our death. The supernatural myths thus act as
resistive electrical insulation blocking a dangerous short circuit
between two parts of the brain.
5)
The wild and colorful supernatural myths of Hinduism and Buddhism were
created by the human brain mixing up the very real phenomenon of cosmic
consciousness with the romantic, fiction-producing part of the brain
that makes us fall in love. Humans have an inbuilt biological
need for love so we can sexually reproduce the species. This urge
for romance becomes embedded in our DNA code through the evolutionary
process, just as our need for strong bones and sharp teeth. Love
is a survival requirement for the human species, and it is the very
same internal brain wiring and euphoric brain chemistry which also
creates fantastic myths of reincarnated religious superheroes.
The flawless Godly guru becomes our non-sexual fantasy spiritual
lover. Many Asian and Western gurus have taken advantage of this
brain phenomenon and used their female disciples as a personal
harem. Sexual scandals follow gurus as regularly as summer
follows spring.
6)
The soul-karma-reincarnation theory has no reasonable explanation as to
how disincarnate souls enter a mother's womb and merge with a newly
formed fetus. The traditional Asian myths state that low souls
get less auspicious bodies and higher souls get better-looking,
healthier bodies with more intelligent brains. Few believers in
reincarnation have asked themselves how low souls are rejected from
better-quality fetuses, and how high souls avoid the trap of getting
attached to poor-quality fetuses. The theory implies that souls
have consciousness that lets them figure out which wombs to enter and
which to avoid, and fetuses and/or wombs have built-in restrictions as
to what type of soul may apply to enter. Certainly, even low
souls would like to enter better quality fetuses because everyone wants
to be good-looking, healthy, and wise. There are a thousand and
one Hindu and Buddhist explanations for this process, which sounds a
lot like house shopping and applying for a home mortgage. None of
the traditional theories meet even marginal standards of believability
in explaining such an impossibly complex theoretical process.
7)
Life on Earth was created through the nonhuman laws of chemistry,
physics, and probability. Strands of chemicals (DNA) were created
by sheer accident and replicated themselves faster than they could be
destroyed. By further accident, some DNA strands became encased
in protective shells which increased their survivability dramatically,
creating the first bacteria. From simple bacteria, more
complexity was added until a myriad of multi-celled creatures were
produced. Through this slow process of evolution over billions of
years, there was never any need for soul except as a myth to help human
animals deal with their growing consciousness of the inevitable
time-death equation. Scientists have
produced
the genetic heart of active bacteria from their base chemical components.
The logistical mathematics of the soul theory does not add up.
Does every new bacterium, seed, egg, spider, minnow, or cockroach that
appears in the world demand a soul to go along with its already
sufficient DNA code? We know that humans evolved from
bacteria. When did soul come into the picture and why? Is
there a printing press somewhere stamping out trillions of new souls
every second to keep up with the demand? The soul theory lacks
logical credibility, and science has shown that the universe is
extremely logical in its structure, formation, and evolution.
8)
The famous film director, Alfred Hitchcock, often added a theatrical
ploy to his movies called a "MacGuffin." The MacGuffin distracted
the audience long enough so that suspense could be created and the plot
could develop without giving away the true course of the story.
In the end, the MacGuffin has no meaning in itself. Likewise,
Hindus and Buddhists have invented complicated myths of reincarnation
and/or immortal karma, declaring that we are all trapped in a cycle of
birth and death and only our eventual enlightenment can set us
free. The Eastern traditions have created highly sophisticated
myth structures, but the underlying function of their myths is
identical to the more childlike myths of Christianity, with its
almighty God, angels, and heaven. The belief in karma and
reincarnation is the MacGuffin that keeps our minds diverted from the
inevitability and finality of our death.
No one can honestly say that it is impossible that human beings have
souls or immortal karma. You cannot prove an absolute negative
against such a big and complex issue. One can only say that given
the proven facts of life and nature, the possibility of a soul is
unlikely. On one side of the scale, you have an almost infinite
preponderance of evidence that the supernatural does not exist, and on
the other side of the scale, you have rumors, myths, and wishful
thinking.
Here is an excerpt from The Over-Soul, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which was first published in 1841.
"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.
Meantime within man is the soul of the whole: the wise silence, the
universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related,
the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose
beatitude is all accessible to us is not only self-sufficing and
perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the
seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We
see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the
tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul."
The universe is a pretty cold place. We, humans, can warm it up
with heart and poetry. There is nothing wrong or scientifically
inaccurate in declaring that the entire universe is God and that the
entire universe is the soul. The entire universe keeps creating
living creatures, so it constantly reincarnates itself through its own
living conscious structures. This is nondualism, which is a
simple understanding, not a religion.
Christopher Calder calderconnection@gmail.com
Videos
See the 16-minute YouTube video by physicist Max Tegmark, Consciousness is a Mathematical Pattern.
Suggested reading
The
"God" Part of the Brain, by Matthew Alper. Alper details the
logical scientific argument that spirituality is the product of
genetics and biochemistry and that God, soul, and reincarnation are
inventions of the human brain, used as a device to relieve the
tremendous stress of death awareness.
Note Opinions
expressed on this page must be viewed as the ideas of an ordinary
student of meditation. While I truly believe everything I say,
you should not believe anything unless you see it, feel it, and know it
for yourself. I make no claims of infallibility. I claim
fallibility.
Copyright notice: Please
feel free to copy, repost, or publish Do you have a soul? (© 2004
Christopher Calder) for educational, noncommercial use. You may
repost or publish any of my essays without cost, but you must clearly
state that the essays were written by Christopher Calder. No one
has been granted permission to use my writings to sell any products or
services. This is a 100% free website published only for the
benefit of other students of meditation.
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