Demystifying Reincarnation 19 – Reincarnation reveals justice amidst injustice

Hare Krishna. Welcome back to the demystifying reincarnation series. We are now nearing the end of our journey.

We'll be discussing here about how the reincarnation centered worldview enables us to see in the world a fulfillment of our innate longing for justice. Every transformation of man has rested on a new metaphysical and ideological base. A new picture of the cosmos and the nature of man.

Historian Louis Mumford transformation of man. Today our world is in a crisis and individually, ecologically, financially, socially, culturally, religiously, there are problems from all directions. And we need an evolution of consciousness to be able to deal with these problems.

And that evolution of consciousness will come by changing our view of ourselves, changing our view of our place and purpose within the universe. And that change of view is offered by a reincarnation centered worldview. To understand how this is so, let's begin.

Firstly, by considering what appears to be strikingly wrong in this world. We can see enormous level of iniquity in the world. Some people are born wealthy, some people are born poor, some people are born with great memory, some people are born with embarrassingly poor memory, some people are born healthy and good looking, some people are born sickly and not at all good looking.

So why this difference? Now what could be the explanation that we may come up with? Why are these differences there? The explanations will broadly fall in three categories. To understand these three categories, let us consider an analogy of cricket. Suppose we go to a cricket ground and there we see a cricket match going on.

And in that we see at the starting point itself, one team has a score of 0 and the other team has a score of 200. You may wonder, hey, what is going on here? How come there is a difference in the score right in the start? Now we may consider what are the possibilities? Is the score itself, is the scoreboard itself operating not by plan but by chance? Any score pops up for anyone over there? Is this operating by chance or is it that the scorekeeper is biased? And because of that, because of being partial to a particular team, has the scorekeeper decided to favor that particular team? Now the same two questions can be raised when we consider the world. As I said, some people have, different people have different starting points.

If we consider life to be like a game, a game of cricket, then why are these different starting scores there? So the first explanation could be, it's by chance. Now life is just like a lottery. Some people win, some people lose.

If you happen to be lose, if you happen to be among the losers, that's your bad luck. What to do? It's simply your bad luck. So this is something which is a extremely disempowering worldview because it makes us live in perpetual insecurity.

Anytime, anything may fall upon us and although today we may be on the winner's side in the life's lottery, tomorrow we may end up on the loser's side. And it actually counters the very foundational way in which we work in life because we normally do actions and we get results. Those actions, even if we don't always get the results, still we do see some causal connection with the actual result.

And that's what inspires us to work diligently so that we get the expected, desired results. So if there is, if there's no correlation with actual results, if everything is happening by chance, then it's a doctrine of hopelessness, of helplessness. And as I said, it contradicts our innate sense of logic and our observed reality in the world also, in the way we conduct our lives, in the way we expect the world to conduct itself.

Now the other alternative is actually even more damaging in a sense. The other alternative would be that, why is it? Why is it that different people have different scores? Because the scorekeeper has made it like that. That would mean, who's the scorekeeper ultimately? It's God.

So God has made some people wealthy, God has made some people poor. Why the difference? It's God's will. Now this, actually if we tell it's God's will because of which you are poor, because of which you are less intelligent, because of which you are this, because of which you are that.

And then you are told, you have to worship that God, you have to love that God and love that God more than everyone else. That is extremely difficult. And we say, don't question God's will.

Some different people try to give different way answers for this. Why does God discriminate like this? No, God does not discriminate. God's will is for everyone's good.

God's justice is better than our justice. Yes, it may be true that God justice, it is true that God justice, God's ways of justice are better than ours. God's ways are different from ours.

But they are, they should be different in the sense of being better than ours, not worse than ours. So if arbitrarily God decides to favor some people and disfavor some people, then that is most unfortunate. How can we ever devote ourselves to such a God? And thus we end up profoundly disempowered in the attempt to approach God.

Some people say, actually the difficulties that we face in our life are like tests. Okay, they can be tests. The problem is not with being tested.

The problem is with discriminatory testing. That see, after a class or a course, if a teacher conducts an exam, abiding the exam, the teacher gives different question papers to different students. Some people get easy questions, some people get difficult questions.

Our question will not be, why is there an exam? But why are there different question papers for different people? Similarly, here the question comes up, why are different people tested differently? And not getting a satisfactory answer for this, say just God's inconceivable will. If we say that, then that means that sounds more like a way of getting God off the hook, rather than addressing the question rationally, in an intellectually honest and satisfactory way. So many people, when given the choice between chance as the cause of iniquity, and divine caprice, God's arbitrary will as the choice of, as a cause of iniquity, many people feel impelled to choose chance, to become atheistic.

Not because they don't want to believe in God, but because they just can't believe in a God who seems to discriminate. And in a sense, if these two were the only options available, their choice of choosing chance would be understandable. However, although the choice is understandable, still it is misinformed.

Why? Because there is a third choice. Suppose we look at that cricket scoreboard, and then we came to know that actually a second innings is going on. And it is in the second innings that this particular, this particular team has got a lead and that's why they have 200, their score.

The other team has got a lag and that's why their score is zero. Then it's not unfair, it's based on what was done in the past. Similarly, if we see the inequities that people have in this lifetime, and if we see that actually different people have acted differently in their previous lives, and based on the way they have acted in their previous life, they have got certain results.

So if somebody is the better starting point than others, then that doesn't mean that it is by chance or it is by God's arbitrary will. It is by the actions that they themselves have done. So this understanding that we ourselves are determiners, not just of the way we choose and consequences in this life, but also of the way we, of the way of the of our starting points, then we can actually be empowered to making healthy choices with the confidence that eventually we will get auspicious consequences, we will get auspicious results.

So the reincarnation centered worldview transforms life, transforms our new vision of the world from a jungle to a university. Why? What do you mean by jungle and university? In the materialistic worldview, in the atheistic worldview, might is right. Life is a cutthroat competition, and whoever has the maximum power, the maximum influence, the maximum abilities, that person can crush anyone else and get to the top, top of the pack, and might becomes right basically.

Might may be defined differently, but might becomes right. So life becomes competitive and we are competing against each other for the scarce resources that the world offers us. But if we understand the reincarnation centered worldview, then we understand that actually we are all in university.

That the universe itself is a university and we are all going through the same course. Some of us at a higher level, some of us at a lower level. So a student who is studying PhD needn't look down and scorn at a student who is in the kindergarten, in KG, because the PhD student also knows that.

Even if it's a distant memory, even if I don't have any memory right now, but one day I was in the kindergarten, in KG, and I have gone through that. So rather than laughing at the feeble and failing attempts of a KG student, I can help that KG student to rise. And in that way, those who are more endowed in life, if they understand that I am here, because in the university of school, university of the world, I have gone through the lower levels and now I have come to this level.

Then they can extend a helping hand towards others, knowing that they are traversing the same journey that I have traversed. Conversely, when we have people who are at the kindergarten level, that means people who are less endowed than others, their normal reaction would be towards envy. Why are these people having so many good things? Why am I so deprived? But they understand again that the world is like a university, that means they understand, oh, they have gone through the phases which I have gone through.

And now they also want to the KG student things, yes, they also want to the KG student, but now they are in the PhD. So rather than having envy, we can have appreciation and we can learn from them. So rather than a grabbing and pushing spirit, I want to grab it, I want to push others who want it.

We can have a caring and sharing spirit. We can all care for each other and we can all move onwards harmoniously. So this is a profoundly positive and empowering worldview that comes when we recognize that we are going through multiple lifetimes.

And actually, if we consider the cricket match, you know, we may say, who fixed this match? Why is this team getting a better score than the score at the right, at the beginning? The match of our life is actually not fixed by anyone. It is fixed by us itself, by the kind of actions that we have done, we are at a particular position. And we can by choosing judicious actions, proper actions, we can get better results in future, we can elevate ourselves to a better situation.

And more importantly, the spiritual worldview helps us to understand that our match is not against anyone else. Our match is against ourselves, it's against our lower self. To the extent we learn, to the extent we grow, to the extent we make wise choices, to that extent, we are winning that match.

There are within us selfish desires which sabotage ourselves. And ultimately, the ultimate self-sabotage that we do is that we deprive ourselves of the privilege of self-realization, of realizing our eternal ecstatic enlightened nature and of staying in ignorance, in mortality, in misery. So there are the desires within us which make us do the self-sabotage.

But by making wise choices, we can avoid that, we can elevate ourselves upwards. And thus, we understand my match is against myself. And even if the starting points are different, and even if those starting points seem to matter a lot, we understand from the spiritual perspective, they don't matter that much.

In the spiritual perspective, actually what matters is how much I am choosing well, how much I am growing in my life. So in the materialistic worldview, we will stay always dissatisfied with what we have, or rather what we don't have. But in spiritual worldview, we will see that what I have is not as important as what I do with what I have.

If I make the good use of what I have, I will grow, I will move onwards, I will progress. So this way, we all can be on the onward journey of progress. This cooperative worldview is extremely empowering.

And that is what we can get by recognizing the reincarnation worldview. And this worldview is not just intellectual, it is also accompanied by a transformational process. The Gita, in which reincarnation is a central teaching, is often called as a yoga text, yoga shastra.

And it describes yoga as a process by which we all can connect with higher reality. We all can connect with our own higher side, we can connect with our spiritual core. And this process of connection offers us experiential confirmation of our non-material essence.

The Bhagavad Gita 9.2 states pratyaksha bhagamam dharmyam susukham kartum auvayam. So it says pratyaksha bhagamam dharmyam. By direct experience from within, we can realize that actually this is what I am.

I'm not this bodily shell, I am the spiritual core within. And I have eternal relationship with the eternal, absolute truth. All these things we can practically realize.

The Bhagavatam gives an example. It says that, it says when we eat food, no one needs to tell us that, okay, your hunger is being satisfied. We ourselves know it intuitively.

Like that, when we are spiritually nourished, no one needs to tell us. We experience from within energy, fulfillment, joy that comes. And that energy, fulfillment, joy is the confirmation test of our being on the spiritual path.

Thus, the reincarnation-centered worldview, the reincarnation worldview offers us both an intellectual, an intellectual light and a transformational trajectory. So it shows us the way and it gives us the fuel to move along the way. So the philosophical understanding that comes from reincarnation, which redefines our view of ourselves, redefines our view of our relationships, redefines our view of the world.

We don't see ourselves as mortal creatures meant for that. We don't see others as competitors. We don't see the world as a jungle.

We see ourselves as indestructible souls, destined for immortality. We see others as fellow students in our lives in the university of the universe. And we see the world as a place of learning, not a place of competing and fighting to live.

This changed worldview is what will actually usher in, usher in auspiciousness, usher in happiness, usher in true meaning and fulfillment in our lives. Along with fulfilling, along with satisfying our innate need for justice, showing us how ultimately the universe is just, the reincarnation worldview offers us many other freedoms, freedoms from constricting ideas which we can counter. So now before we go into that, those freedoms, let's first look at how people approach the idea of reincarnation.

So some people believe in reincarnation because that's what their culture or their tradition has taught them. And such people, they just take reincarnation as a part of their own thought heritage. But they don't take it very seriously.

Okay, it is there, it is there. Our past people believe in it. Do I believe in it? Maybe, maybe I don't.

It doesn't really matter for me. Such people should profoundly underutilize the empowerment that can come from the reincarnation worldview. And there are others who reject the, who reject reincarnation maybe as a new age fad or is a quaint eastern idea.

And in that way, by labeling it like this, they don't examine it carefully. They don't give it the due intellectual consideration which would reveal to them that reincarnation is not a new age idea, but rather it is an idea that can answer questions that have troubled people of all ages. It helps us reconcile God's goodness with the world's inequities.

It helps us make sense of life and gives positive purpose to our life. So both people, those who are skeptical of reincarnation and those who are, those who are, those who are uncritically accepting reincarnation, if both become intellectually aware of the freedoms of the reincarnation worldview, they can make themselves better and they can make the world a better place. So let's look at what all freedoms that reincarnation can offer.

The first freedom is the freedom from body-based discrimination. All over the world we see people are divided, divided to the point of fighting and killing our body-based designations based on race, based on nationality, based on caste, based on creed, based on religion. And in this way, what happens is people fight.

You are from that race, you are my enemy, I'll kill you. You're from that community, I'll destroy you. But when we understand that we are all at the core similar, so say two countries were at war with each other and one soldier of one country was filled with hate towards the other country, if that person understands that actually maybe in a future life I might be born in that country and I might be citizen of that country and I might face the same wrath that I'm directing towards the national of that country, then we just, that broader perspective can revolutionize our conceptions and our actions.

So practically of course for protection, for nourishment, certain actions may have to be taken whatever is necessary. But the bias, the negativity, the unrestrained emotion that accompanies the division over bodily designations, all that can be countered if we can have a reincarnation-based world. The Bhagavad Gita states that it says that a wise person sees a dog, a dog-eater, an elephant, a cow and a Brahmana, a wise person, all of them equally.

How does this equality of vision, which includes not just humans but also non-humans? Today there is egalitarianism in human society but actually it extends only to humans. Animals are discriminated against and are killed often for getting as factory, in factory, animal factories for making food for humans. But that is speciesism where we consider humans as a special species and we can have egalitarianism which extends to all species.

And how does that happen? When we see beyond the body to the soul. And like that reincarnation can offer several other freedoms which we'll discuss in our next and last session. To summarize in the session we discussed about how reincarnation worldview can help us make sense of the inequities of life.

Like a cricket match wherein we see different teams starting with different scores. The cause could be the scoreboard runs by chance, the scorekeeper is biased or it is the second innings. Similarly, life's inequities, they say it's all by chance but it's a doctrine of powerlessness and reduces us to perpetual insecurity.

It contradicts our innate sense of logic where we see actions produce consequences, effects come from causes. And the idea that God is in charge, that makes God seem partial or arbitrary and becomes profoundly difficult to worship such a God, leave alone devote oneself to God. And thirdly, the understanding is that where we are is based on what we have done earlier.

And this vision transforms life in the world from a jungle to a university. Wherever we are actually we are in a journey of learning and we can help others who are no less than us because we have also been there and we can learn from those who are ahead of us because they have also been through where we have been. And this cooperative worldview is not just intellectual, we can realize it by practicing yoga by which we will actually understand and relish our spiritual identity.

And this reincarnation worldview can be profoundly freeing because it can free us from body-based discrimination. And what are the freedoms it offers,.