It will be impossible, because ‘inhumane’, to stop those ‘mind-made’ somanassa vedana from arising – UNLESS one has reached the Anagami stage.
Nature works through these mental states of beings, for better or for worse. In our case, the Buddha would not have gone through the necessary experiences of those 1,500 lifetimes had that brahmin and his wife, AT WILL, at any point during that time, resisted, so to speak, the (no less than) overpowering urge to be together again for the umpteenth time by NOT ‘generating MIND-MADE pleasant vedana (called somanassa vedana) based on that recalled memory’. One can have no desire to spend even one lifetime with anyone if somanassa vedana is not there – what to say of 1,500 lives?
What you are describing here, Lal, is what we should strive for, not how the matter stands for people in general, even for those on the Path at or below the Sakadagami stage.
The experiencing of, or, better said, the NON-STOPPING, the non-resistance to all that is good in us, because rooted in love, leads IN TIME to the highest – not of itself or by itself, of course. Then follows the understanding, the acceptance,and the practice of the Dhamma. But it is done in stages, as you yourself have pointed out many times. It is the basis, the foundation of all good that can ensue, including ultimately Nibbana. Love, the manifold forms and stages of it, from abstaining from outright killing to the slightest harm done by the mere utterance of a word is condensed in the 5 precepts. Love as we have here is the second highest expression of it, the gift of the Dhamma being of course the first. This is why I keep repeating how grateful I am to you for this Gift of gifts.
This is what underlies what I am trying to say. All too often the implication naturally arises (I am not saying it is so implied by yourself) that, in the matter now under discussion, one, anyone, any participant or reader, SHOULD stop those mind-made somanassa vedana from arising TO STOP THE WHOLE REBIRTH PROCESS. (Or, at a single moment, all would attain Arahanthod!) And, seeing that they are unable to do so time after time, a sense of failure, of defeat sets in. Defeated, one may abandon ‘this whole Dhamma thing’. It is of course not so with me, but it may happen to others.
I feel not enough emphasis has been placed on this all along. Please accept that in no way am I out to criticise, or even less to express disapproval of anything stated in Buddhadhamma. My aim is to understand ever more and more, but this concern has arisen of how others may be affected and possibly dissuaded from the Path by high self-expectations, irrealizable actually for anyone below the higher stages of the Path.
with deepest Gratitude,