Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
An internet circular made these points:
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s Secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named ‘Ford.’
Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘ Lincoln’ made by ‘Ford.’
Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.
To the jocular comment that this parallelism implies reincarnation, I replied:
If Oswald was a patsy, as he claimed, the parallelism does not hold on key points.
In any case, should we think of Kennedy as Booth and Oswald Lincoln (karmic debt paid) or of Kennedy as Lincoln and Oswald Booth (evidence of historical repetition/circularity)? Or, as regressive revisionists, should we think of Lincoln as Kennedy and Booth Oswald? Where, when, with whom did the parallelism commence? What is the depth of reason for it? How could we know?
I know you are making a fun remark, so this is not to take you to task, just to make a little analysis of the significant possibility that you raise through the remark.
Historical parallelism — congruent, synchronic repetition of experience — between personalities does not necessarily imply rebirth by the same individual as each of those personalities. It might and it might not. We have no means for achieving certainty on the question.
The parallelism may not be as born out by the facts as appears to be the case.
Our resources for assessing the depth of any parallelism in the dimension of history are puny, unequal to the task and therefore unable to guarantee a reliable result.
We do not really know the facts. Not until we are endowed with an unambiguous anything would we have resources to see, much less to measure, facts in the dimension of history.
Even our resources for seeing and measuring facts in the dimensions of the inorganic and the organic and to some extent the psychic — dimensions we have some reliable competence cognizing — yield a fraction of the reliable cognition we could have with tools we do not have and have no grasp of how to make … such as a dog’s nose.
Finally, and most importantly, the notion that parallelism of life experience — ascribed by us from our puny view point — might imply rebirth of an individual, begins with an unexamined and indeterminant assumption, to wit, there is repetition, even circularity, in the dimension of history.
Since we are unable to find evidence of repetition in the dimensions we can approach scientifically (the inorganic, the organic and to some extent the psychic) it would be unwarranted, given our customary obsequy to experimental reliability, to suppose that in the dimensions we cannot approach scientifically — most of the psychic, all of the spiritual and the historical — we can find repetition or circularity.
In fact there is no circularity anywhere because there is no repetition of time, space, causality or substance. Thus, every instance of anything is fresh and unique.
Additionally, the word “individual” means, one that cannot be divided, In Sanskrit the word is Jivatma, which refers to Brahman, the Unconditioned, Tillich’s “Ground of Being,” self-actualizing as an individual.
Now, an implication of Jivatma is that all births are rebirths of the same individual because there cannot be more than one of the One, and because Jivatma is the Unconditioned, neither repetition nor any other condition can be ascribed conclusively, reliably to any experience or perceived fact, especially one occurring in the dimensions we lack scientific tools to cognize.
A story illustrates this phenomenon.
RamaKrishna was lying on his death bed, consumed with throat cancer — he had been a heavy tobacco smoker. He would not eat, could not eat. The devotees attending him were frantic for him to take nourishment. He waved them off, making them more frantic.
He was in constant communication with the form of God to which he was devoted, the Mother Kali, a terrifying form of the Consort of Siva, rather like Athena with her helmet cocked back rakishly, relishing victory, brandishing knifes, the fierce light of battle glaring from her eyes, the heads of enemies swinging from her belt, their entrails garlands about her neck.
Kali is a symbol of “The Wrath of God,” an experience not ordinarily mentioned and by liberal theologians in the West resolutely suppressed, to our detriment, despite its strong presence in the Bible, glossed especially by modern English translations.
He asked Mother Kali — to her devotees her appearance is soft, sweet, reassuring and fortifying — if he should accede to the devotees’ desire that he take nourishment.
She replied, “You are eating through all of these mouths around you. Why are you worried about this one?”
My personal opinion on this question of historical parallelism is that the more the parallelism appears established, the more I suspect a causality not from rebirth of an individual but from reaction against fresh, unique instances of good being done by the same anti-good that, with no hope of victory, dogs the heels of one and all, and especially of the great ones, the ones most able and positioned (Called, Anointed, Christened, Elected) to do good things, to incarnate, to embody the love of God.
In the spiritual and historical dimensions, and to some extent the psychic, causality often is from a debt that has to be paid, an animosity atoned, as all animosities must be. Animosity means against the name, and specifically, the Name of God, which all names are.
For example, it make more sense to speculated that Kennedy is Booth and Oswald Lincoln than it does to speculate that Kennedy is Lincoln and Oswald Booth. But in either case, it is speculation. We have no way of knowing. But we should assume, always, that the actual causality of anything is other than it appears to us, even on the ten thousandth reading.
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
