Adonis Diaries

Old soul and re-incarnation:  Shrimad Raj Chandra (1867-1901)

Shrimad Raj Chandra was born in Vavania (Gujarat province) in the northwestern region of India.  His mother was a princess and his father a rich merchant and banker.

Young Shrimad is passing by the incineration ceremony of the body of a young, handsome, and brilliant young guy who died of snake bite.

Suddenly, Shrimad is reviewing a series of his re-incarnations for the last 900 years, an accelerated reel of pictures of past lives.  Shrimad had the conviction that his “old soul” is not about to be re-incarnated anymore.

Old soul or knowledge of previous lives is called “Jati-smarana-jnana” in the Jain religion. At this stage, the old soul liberates its spiritual power in condensed and focused intellectual and spiritual faculties.

At the age of 8, Shrimad mastered the four arithmetic operations in one month and then wrote a poem of 5,000 lines describing the 5 vows: Non-violence, sincerity, honesty, chastity, and non-attachment to worldly materials or subject matters not related to development of knowing the spiritual self or the soul. 

Shrimad had the power of prescience:  He could foresee dangerous events and warn the concerned parties and saved many with his potential.

He had this unique faculty of processing and tending simultaneously to many different tasks and challenged the two most famous in the period Shastri Shankarlal and Gatulaji Maharaj.

Currently, Dr. R. Ganesh is famous in India for this prowess.  Shrimad increased the number of simultaneous tasks to one hundred different tasks!  Tasks such as performing arithmetic computations, listening to poems in different languages and repeating them in order, writing poems while doing other tasks, playing chess and cards and recalling every step in order, repeating 100 words from various languages in order, responding to a questionnaire…

Shrimar refused to marry several times at the instigation of his parents claiming that he is too young.  He had to bow to the demand of getting married at the age of 18 because it was the main condition for him to move to Bombay.

He had three kids but was not happy as head of a family though he could afford the upkeep; he once said: “Within two years, I managed to know the spirit of my wife and I can say that we are not unsatisfied but I cannot say with certainty that we are satisfied.  Our relationship is normal and common:  Mostly, because I am indifferent.  The imperfection of this happiness is not related to the wife, but to our own soul.  Once the search for this imperfection in our soul is resolved then, the soul perceives the full-scale of joy.”

Shrimad decided to abstain from intercourse 12 days a month; it is not clear if 12 successive days or just 3 days a week.

( I can empathize with Shrimad for considering that indulging in sexual activities is like performing obscene acts of servitude to the flesh.  I suggest to husbands that your wife will appreciate your kindness if you abstain from sexual intercourse 6 days a week.  A husband should also never forget to indulge reminding his wife that she is beautiful and very sexy; never under-estimate the power of taking her out without pre-conceived intentions for later sexual favors.)

Ghandi returns from London to Bombay in 1891 and wants to practice law.

The day his mother dies, Ghandi meets Shrimad Raj Chandra and he became Shrimad’s disciple. Shrimad is wearing a dhoti, a kind of one piece pajama (no sewing) and explain to Ghandi: “If you are earning enough money to keep hunger away off your family, do not render this day impure by desiring the happiness of a king.”

Ghandi would write: “Shrimad was constantly smiling and his voice was so soft .  Language was at his service. The purpuse of Shrimad’s life was to meeting God face to face. He repeated that religions are prisons.  Whoever wants to liberate his soul is on his own in the task of discovering his soul, the Atma.”

Shrimar was one of the three personalities that influenced Ghandi; the other two are: the works of Tolstoi and the essay of Ruskin “Unto this Last”

Shrimad dies at the age of 32 at Rajkot, the birthplace of Ghandi; he knew the timing of his death; he was barely a skin covering his skeleton but he suffered from no serious illnesses.

He told his disciples: “Be certain that this soul is eternal and will reach higher and higher levels and will acquire a marvelous future.  I am retiring to the true nature of my soul.” And Shrimad goes into meditation.

My question is:

Does everyone, regardless of religious beliefs, has the grace and privilege of advanced knowledge that his current life is the last incarnation?  That his soul is already “too old” for another tedious experience?

Shrimad is adamant that soul is eternal and every individual conserves his soul.

Many scholars like Averroes, Maimonides, Theard de Chardin and others suggest that there is a collective soul:  After the body dies, the soul is robbed of memory and imagination.

May I offer a compromise?  Old souls that refuse to re-incarnate join the collective soul. As long as the soul is not that old then, individual soul retains memory and imagination of past lives.  What do I lose if I keep everybody relaxed and contended:  I never had the luxury of witnessing any of my past lives.

Consequently, I am in no position of confirming or denying the existence of an eternal soul, or a temporary soul.  It won’t rattle me if I have indeed a soul that would re-incarnate:  I am used to pain and suffering; that is the lot of living species if we are honest enough to admit it.

That our soul is eternal is fine with me, but when we proclaim that our body is just a shell and we can control it then, I revolt.

Claiming that the body is a shell is not just a falsehood, it is a plain lie.  It does not matter how deep in meditation you are, when you have to go (piss or shit) then, you have to go; unless you decided to commit suicide by internal poisoning and die in terrible pain and suffering.

You may be able to practice hunger but excretion is not within your will-power.

The body controls your mind and spirit:  You care for and maintain your body and the body will permit you to liberate your mind and spirit.