Mitch Blum

When I was a kid the whole idea of reincarnation bothered me. I always thought that reincarnation was irrelevant – as in, if you couldn’t remember your previous incarnation during your current incarnation, then the previous incarnation might as well not have happened. Sure, you could get flashes of a previous existence in a dream or in feelings of déjà vu, but it was only the current incarnation that ever really mattered.

Of course, a smart yogi like you will quickly spot the flaw inherent in my youthful perspective. A Vedantist would point out that the “I” that I was expecting to be reincarnated was not the true “I”, but rather the false “I” created by my three-part mind: intellect (buddhi), ego (ahamkara) and sense-mind (manas). The Vedantist would remind me that my little “I” was always a temporary fictional creation and was never meant to last. My true Self (atman) would be reincarnated and the only baggage that would come along for the ride would be my deep tendencies (samskaras) and the seeds of past actions (karma) that had yet to be resolved.

That perspective, while solving my confusion with regard to reincarnation, creates a whole new problem: what’s the difference between doing the right thing because you want to get into heaven versus doing the right thing because you want your soul to get a good draw in the next incarnation? Can’t we just do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do?

I’m all about the current incarnation. I embrace the state of non-thinking. I value self-study (svadhyaya) as a means to identify habits (vasanas) driven by subliminal activators (samskaras) created by cyclical actions (karma) that create the perspectives that color our mind.

We’re always told that you need to pick a path and stick to it. Dig one deep hole instead of many shallow ones. It sounds like good advice. And for most of us, we’ve chosen a daily Ashtanga practice as our path. But as householders practicing Ashtanga we’re really just learning asana. Sure, we might talk about the Yoga Sutras a little bit and how they relate to our practice and our lives, but the focus is decidedly on asana. That’s the way that SKPJ wants it. Do your practice every day and over the decades the rest of the picture will reveal itself.

Some days I’m cool with that and I have the patience to wait for the rest. Other days I want to learn more NOW, so I study and read about Samkhya, Yoga, Buddhism and Vedanta.

All of these threads are so similar and yet they’re so very different. And I keep looking for the one perspective that will make me stop in my tracks and say: “That’s it! Sign me up!” But all of them seem exactly right and exactly wrong at the same time.

And I know that the reason for the contradiction is because they’re all just concepts. They’re just products of thinking. And we need to dissolve all concepts and go beyond thinking if we want to really reside in the state of non-thinking.

Clearly, more practice and less thinking is needed.

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