Theological struggles
I’m still struggling with Eknath Easwaran’s conception of the afterlife. I easily accept his perennialism, panentheism, and understanding of God as an impersonal force, but when it comes to heaven, I remain stubbornly Christian. Perhaps this is to be expected, given that’s my background. But there’s a part of me that wants to fit neatly into a theological box.
I should note this is a problem only in my own mind. Easwaran described his approach as a “come-as-you-are party.” He repeatedly said belief in reincarnation wasn’t necessary to living a spiritual existence. In contrast, he thought other things, such as compassion for animal suffering, were essential. He also urged his followers to focus on the here and now, not details of the afterlife!
Further, I’ve already made theological carve-outs for myself. For instance, I appreciate his sympathy for animals, but I think it falls short in some ways. Similarly, while I admire his absolutist pacifism, and believe it’s far more right than it is wrong, I have a hard time saying there is never a situation in which violence is necessary. One of the benefits of viewing your spiritual teacher as human is you don’t have to agree with everything they say or do.
So perhaps my theological struggle here is just a symptom of my Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. However, I think it’s natural, if you believe someone is spiritually advanced, to want to follow the path they have taken to a certain extent. And I can’t help but think reincarnation was an important part of Easwaran’s worldview. Why he believed this or behaved that way is tied to it.
I should mention what about the popular Christian understanding of heaven I appreciate. For me, that’s permanence and reunion with loved ones. My mother doesn’t talk a lot about her spirituality, but a common thing she will say is so-and-so is looking down on us from the afterlife. I don’t know how literally she means this, but I find it comforting.
As I understand it, the Hindu conception of heaven is temporary until one can break free from the cycle of life and death. In Easwaran’s case, at least, heaven is also very abstract. He compared it to a dreamless sleep, in which one is at a profound state of peace, with no mental or physical needs. Easwaran described it in a variety of ways, but so far as I’m aware, he didn’t talk about reuniting with loved ones.
I’m not sure, but I imagine Easwaran would say in this state of peace, you would have no desire to reunite with loved ones, because you would be very close to God, and everything good about your loved ones was part of God. However, I wish he’d spell this out a bit further and recognize some people, like me, have a greater need for metaphor when thinking about heaven!
That said, Easwaran did explicitly talk about reuniting with loved across different lives. I suppose, in this view, you might not recognize these souls or remember them from the last go around, but they would be there, reincarnation after reincarnation. It’s almost like classmates in school who you go through multiple grades with.