What is it that reincarnates? | Krishnamurti

Main Ideas and Concepts

• The central question of reincarnation

  • The speaker challenges the assumption behind reincarnation: when a person dies and hopes for a better next life (e.g., a bigger house, better life, more money), what exactly continues?
  • The focus shifts from hoping for improvement to identifying what “center” persists after death.

• “The me” as the likely candidate for what continues

  • The speaker describes a continuous inner entity:
    • a “me” that has accumulated knowledge and information
    • that has struggled and tried to be virtuous
    • that has experienced sorrow, depression, poverty
  • Upon death, the speaker questions whether this accumulated center continues—and therefore would constitute reincarnation.

• If there is continuity, reincarnation follows

  • The reasoning offered is:
    • If the center that accumulated, remembered, and suffered has continuity, then reincarnation would occur (using various religious terms such as “soul,” etc.).
  • The speaker repeatedly emphasizes that the group must think this through carefully together.

• Whether the “center” is permanent or constructed

  • The speaker asks whether the center is permanent:
    • If permanent, it could keep modifying itself, but the core would remain.
  • The speaker then proposes an alternative: the center may be put together by thought.

• How identity is formed (thought, culture, family, heredity)

  • The “center” is described as created by:
    • thought-based construction of “name, form, family”
    • prior family lineage and generational pain/sorrow
    • parents and upbringing
    • genetic/hereditary factors—framed within broader influence of conditioning
  • Examples are used to show conditioning:
    • “I am a Hindu” vs. “You are a Catholic,” formed through childhood training and cultural origin.

• Comfort and objection from believers

  • People who believe in reincarnation may object because the belief:
    • provides comfort
    • supports hope of a future
  • The speaker acknowledges the universal desire for comfort, even if the belief might be “illusory” or “nonsensical.”

• What “dying” means in the psychological sense

  • “Dying” is presented as the ending of the accumulated self-center—the mind’s process of collecting and experiencing.
  • When that center ends:
    • the mind becomes totally different
    • it is no longer accumulating
    • it is no longer experiencing
    • it is not “dead” or “static,” but alive without anything to collect

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Methodology / Reasoning Steps Presented (Implied Instruction)

1. Identify the assumed goal behind reincarnation

   • Notice the common expectation: after death, one hopes to “go on” and improve materially or circumstantially.

2. Ask the core ontological question

   • Determine: what is it that continues after death?

3. Investigate the “accumulated center”

   • Examine whether the continuing factor is the “me” that:
     • accumulated knowledge
     • struggled and sought virtue
     • experienced suffering (sorrow, depression, poverty, etc.)

4. Test the idea of continuity

   • Reason: if that center has continuity, then reincarnation would occur.

5. Determine what that center is

   • Check whether it is:
     • permanent (with a stable core that modifies), or
     • constructed (created by thought through identity, culture, family, and conditioning)

6. Challenge comfort-based beliefs

   • Recognize that many objections may come from a desire for reassurance and future comfort.
   • Reassess whether comfort is being mistaken for truth.

7. Consider “ending” rather than continuation

   • Explore “dying” as ending the self’s collecting/experiencing activity.
   • Conclude: when the center ends, the mind becomes fundamentally different—still alive, but without a collecting center.

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Speakers / Sources Featured

• Speaker: J. Krishnamurti
  • Video topic: “What is it that reincarnates? | Krishnamurti”