suppose you believed in reincarnation -- in that case, is there some sort of a law of conservation of "souls"?
that is, the total number of "souls"that exists is a constant, its just that the manifestations are different.
couple of thoughts:
1. the definition of what has a soul is fuzzy -- does a single-celled amoeba have a soul?
2. it seems that the total number of life-forms is in fact increasing over time (even not counting bacteria, amoeba etc). this seems to contradict what little i understand of karma etc, the number of souls is strictly decreasing over time (some attain moksha).
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i've asked these questions to many people. apparently the answer is that souls are a concept that is beyond the normal rules of logic.
how convenient :-)
I think there was some article/book somewhere that used (2) as an argument to rule out reincarnation. Not sure why they exactly needed one, but anyway ...
Is there any evidence to believe that the number of life forms is increasing over time? Or that the number of souls has to be conserved - for, souls are not supposed to be matter. Or that life forms exist only on earth ( many vEdAntins, particularly the traditional ones, do believe in indra etc. - these also occur in buddhist literature, for instance )? According to some school, a jIvAtman is a "reflection", whatever that means, of brahman in impure prakRti ( i.e., mixed with rajas and tamas ).
Then there are people who believe in only one jIvAtman, possibly viewing the different individuals as just a thread of matter, memories etc., liberation referring to the "ahaMkAra" dissolving or being replaced by a "riper" one, as in eternally living people like hanumAn.
Anyway I am no scholar in these things, one should look for answers to these questions in medieval ( post-shankara ) advaitic prakaraNa treatises like panchadashi, rather than ask random lay people whose answer you find it convenient to attribute to the entire religion.
Please replaced "mixed with" by "sattva mixed with" and "a thread" by "threads" - similar corrections might apply to other possible typos.
Hi Nice Try
If you chant the vedas, esp rudram and chamakms,on a daily basis, you will get the answer !
cheers
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