Will accepting reincarnation make people more lazy or more responsible?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question, what effect will acceptance of reincarnation have on people? Will it make them lazy or will it make them more responsible? Answer, every worldview shapes people’s ethos according to their particular mentality. So, we cannot say in general, as a universal statement, what effect the reincarnation worldview will have on people.
But in a broad sense, it will definitely have a positive effect. I’ll talk about this positive effect in three different ways. First is that with respect to their activities, when people understand that, this is what the famous novelist W. Norwood St. Maugham also stated in his novel The Razor’s Edge.
He said that if we understand that whatever bad is happening to us is happening because of our own past misdeeds. And if we accept it gracefully and if we strive for good in this life, then in the future, our lives will be more blessed. Then it brings a sense of confidence and frees one from the sense of helpless victimization.
So, no matter how bleak my present is, I can create a bright future. This itself can create a very, very positive and uplifting mood in a person’s life. It can help a person get elevated because the person understands that I can shape my destiny.
I can determine my future by making right choices. No matter what life has handed me now, there is a saying that even if life gives you a lemon, make a lemon. It will make the best out of bad things.
But the reincarnation worldview helps us to actually live this because it makes us understand that we are really the shapers of our destiny by the choices that we make and the actions that we do. So, certainly for people in general, the understanding of reincarnation will be dramatically transformative in terms of not only accepting what is happening presently, but also in terms of embracing a proactive, confident way of living by which they can create a better future for themselves. That’s with respect to the individual acceptance of reincarnation.
And in terms of interrelationships, what will be the result? In general, in this world, the people who are better than us, we become envious of them. And people who are below us, especially when we have a self-centered mentality, then we want to dominate and control them, often exploit them. But if there is a reincarnation worldview, then we understand that the world is like a university and we are all evolving towards perfection.
Those who are situated higher than us, that simply means that they are in a higher class in the university and those who are below us, they are in a lower class. So, by knowing that the struggles that we are facing, those who are at a higher level in the university, they have passed the exam at our level, that’s how they got there. So, we will see them not with envy, but with respect and we will learn from them rather than being envious of them.
And those who are below us, then also we can see that they are in the same university as we are at a lower level and we were there at some time and we also went through the struggles that we are going through right now. So, that way, the result will be that there will be cooperation. There will be cooperation.
We will want to extend a helping hand and not a pushing hand towards them. Not an exploiting hand, but a hand that uplifts and assists. So, this is with respect to our own attitude towards our own life, our attitude towards others.
And especially what will be quite significant in terms of today’s life is that, today’s situation is that it will change dramatically the attitude towards the environment. Much of the environmental crisis that is there today is actuated by the materialistic mentality of people. People think that we need to control more and more of nature, more and more of material positions and that’s what will make us happy.
But, actually speaking, this stems from a materialistic self-conception. When we understand that we are spiritual beings and we can find happiness in developing ourselves spiritually, not aggrandizing more and more material things, then the materialism that is wreaking havoc on the environment will be checked and curbed substantially. And thus, the eco-crisis will also be substantially healed by acceptance of our incarnation worldly.
So, in this way, from the point of view of our own psychological acceptance of our situation and our embrace of responsibility from our dealings with others and from our dealings with the environment, acceptance of reincarnation will definitely have a very uplifting effect individually, socially and ecologically. And of course, beyond this, acceptance of reincarnation is foundational for getting the highest benefit spiritually. When we understand that we are incarnated, we understand that we are eternal beings and we should seek an eternal destination.
Just as a person who is living in a rented house wants a permanent house, similarly, when we understand that we are eternal beings, we would like to have eternal residence. And that’s how, by understanding the incarnation, we can strive in a focused way for attaining an eternal destination, alive with God in His eternal spiritual abode. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.