We are constantly Changing Bodies

Reincarnation

We are not these material bodies, we are the spiritual force, the spiritual spark, the soul within. These bodies are simply an outward dress only. As I change my clothes yet still remain the same person so I also change my bodies but I am still the same person.

I am not an Australian, an Indian, a man, a woman, a human being or an animal, I am eternally a part and parcel of the Supreme Person, Krishna, so I have the same qualities as Him, although He has the qualities in fullness whereas I have the qualities in minute quantity. These original pure spiritual qualities are now covered because I have accepted this material body and I am falsely identifying with it.

There is a spiritual evolution of consciousness. We get a particular type of body out of the 8,400,000 different species of life according to our karma. Every living entity is a spirit soul and that spirit soul takes shelter within a material body in this world according to its karma. The living entity who has taken shelter in the dog’s body is no different to the living entity in the human body. Only the consciousness is different. Each type of body is provided according to superior arrangement to allow a living entity to suffer or enjoy in a particular way according to what he deserves and desires.

This material world has been created by Krishna to allow us to fulfil our desires to enjoy separately from Him and to simultaneously frustrate us so ultimately we come again to our original pure consciousness of serving Krishna in the spiritual world. But while we have material desires to fulfil we have to remain within the material world and take birth again, and again, and again… This cycle of birth and death has been going on since time immoral and it is very difficult to trace out the beginning of our material life.

We are more or less stuck here perpetually, sometimes with a human body, sometimes with a dogs body, sometimes with a trees body and so on according to our karma. Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, who is Krishna Himself in the mood of a devotee, while instructing His principal disciple, Rupa Gosvami, said:

brahmanda brahmite kona bhagyavan jivaguru-krsna-krpaya paya bhakti-lata-bija

“According to their karma, all living entities are wandering throughout the entire universe. Some of them are being elevated to the upper planetary systems, and some are going down into the lower planetary systems. Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bona fide spiritual master by the grace of Krishna. By the mercy of both Krishna and the spiritual master, one such person receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya-lila 19.151)

This is a scientific process, we are travelling from one body to another, not only on this planet but on innumerable others as well. This earth planet is situated in the middle of the universe and above this planet there are seven levels of heavenly planets each progressively better than the previous one, similarly, below this planet there are seven levels of hellish planets and we, the spirit souls, are travelling throughout all these planets. Bhagavad-gita states(14.18):

urdhvam gacchanti sattva-sthamadhye tisthanti rajasahjaghanya-guna-vrtti-sthaadho gacchanti tamasah

“Those situated in the mode of goodness gradually go upward to the higher planets; those in the mode of passion live on the earthly planets; and those in the mode of ignorance go down to the hellish worlds.”

So according to our actions in this life our next body is determined. We have some control over our future. If we act sinfully we will be degraded in the next life to animal bodies or to the hellish planets to suffer, if we act in the mode of goodness we will be elevated with a birth in a wealthy family or a pious family or we may be transferred to the heavenly planets for a higher standard of life there.

We are responsible for our actions in the human form of life, this is the difference between a human being and an animal. The animals are simply eating, sleeping, mating and defending. These are the basic animal instincts. The human body, however, provides us with developed consciousness and a degree of independence. The tiger in the jungle has no choice as to his eatables, by his bodily constitution he has to eat flesh, he is forced to do so by nature. Therefore for the tiger or any other animal there is no question of sin because the animals don’t have any choice, they are simply working according to their nature to fulfil their base desires. But human life is different. We have a certain amount of freedom to chose our activities and we have developed consciousness to ponder on the more subtle questions which should interest any sane person. Questions like: Who am I? Why am I suffering? What is the purpose of life?

It is the primary purpose of human life to find the answers to these questions, the animal demands of eating, sleeping, mating and defending have to be met also, of course, but these demands are secondary. The real purpose of human life is to make a solution to the problem of repeated birth and death in the 8,400,000 species of life and to become liberated and enter into the spiritual world to re-establish our original lost relationship with Krishna.

If, in the human form, we concentrate only on the animal needs of eating, sleeping, mating and defending then we are no better than the animals, we are two-legged animals, and our next birth will be within the animal kingdom. If we fall again into the animal species of life it is the greatest loss. This human life is a great opportunity to make an end to the cycle of birth and death and it is a very rare opportunity. If you look at the total number of living entities on this planet compared to the number of human beings you will see that human life is very rare. If we loose the human form who knows how many thousands or millions of births we may have to suffer before again getting the chance of human life.

There are four primary causes of suffering in material life: birth, old age, disease and death. These sufferings are inevitable for all of us. We don’t like to be sick, we don’t want to get old, and we certainly don’t want to die. These suffering conditions are unnatural to us because the nature of the soul is to be sat-cit-ananda, to be eternally youthful, to be full of knowledge, and to experience full pleasure. This is our natural position, but here, in the material world, we are forced to identify with a body which is mortal, full of ignorance and full of suffering. We can never actually be happy if we identify with the body, if we think, “I am an Australian man, I am a women, etc.” So human life is meant for eradicating this bodily concept and coming to the point of understanding that “I am an eternal servant of Krishna and my business is to serve Krishna.” This is the perfect conclusion and if one is convinced of this and acts as a servant of Krishna, this will be the last body he has to take in the material world. At the end of this body he will be transferred to the spiritual world never to return to this miserable place of suffering.

na tad bhasayate suryona sasanko na pavakahyad gatva na nivartantetad dhama paramam mama

“That abode of Mine is not illuminated by the sun or moon, nor by electricity. One who reaches it never returns to this material world.” (Bhagavad-gita 15.6)

(An article by Madhudvisa dasa)

Why do Bad Things Happen to Us?

Why do Bad Things Happen to Us?

From your views Why do ‘bad’ things befall us? How does all that come into play? Is everything karma or can anything just happen? How would a KC devotee deal with let’s say he’s on the road preaching and someone stabs him badly, how would you view that? Or would you say that while in KC it would not be possible to be stabbed because Krishna is watching over us, especially

Hare Krishna! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Nice question.

You have brought in two points. (1) generally speaking “Why do bad things happen” and (2) “do bad things happen to devotees.”

We know the soul is eternal. We are on a journey. And this life is but one small step in that journey. You could think of a motion picture which is on big, big reels of film made up of millions of frames. So our journey is like the entire motion picture and this life is but one frame out of the total movie. So what happens in this frame is a continuation of what happened in the previous frame and what we do in this frame will effect what happens in the next frame. So bad things do not happen to good people. They may have been good in this life but if bad things are happening we can see it is the result of some bad action they have performed in the past; in this life or in previous lives.

There is no such thing as “chance.” In Sanskrit there is not even a word that means “chance.” The concept does not even exist. The closest thing they have is “adrsti” which means “the cause is unknown.” So if something bad and unexpected happens they will not say it happened “by chance” they will say “the cause is unknown.” Which means it happened for some reason but we do not know what that reason is…

As far as a devotee is concerned Krishna is looking after him, that is sure, but how much of a devotee are we really? It is a question of surrender. We may be “a devotee” but we many not be completely surrendered to Krishna. But a devotee is in Krishna’s hands. He does not mind what is Krishna’s plan. If it is Krishna’s plan that he should be stabbed then that is all right. But he will think I am being stabbed because of my sinful actions in the past and it is Krishna’s mercy. I really deserve a lot worse. Krishna has minimized my suffering so much… Somehow a devotee always thinks it is Krishna’s mercy…

But that does not mean that if we are devotees and we see someone coming to stab us we will just put our arms up in the air and say: “It’s Krishna’s mercy” and let him stab us. No. A devotee can fight also. If someone is coming to attack him then he can protect himself of course. After all this body belongs to Krishna and we are using it to serve Krishna so if someone is trying to damage it if they succeed that will make it more difficult for us to serve Krishna. So we have to try and stop them. Also if they are attacking the other devotees we have to stop them.

So we are not, like the Buddhists, non-violent. Sometimes violence is necessary. Actually in the Vedic system there is a whole class of men called ksatryias. That means “to protect from hurt.” So these ksatryias are meant for using violence to protect the other members of the society when it is necessary. Non-violence is not a practical philosophy.

So on to your second point of “do bad things happen to devotees.” The answer is that “bad things” certainly do happen to devotees sometimes. Look at Lord Jesus Christ. His followers nailed him onto a cross. Or at least his followers did not protest while he was being nailed onto a cross. That is quite bad. And in the history of Krishna consciousness some very great souls have had to undergo some very difficult situations. But Krishna does protect his devotees, that is for sure. There is one case of Haridas Thakura. He was a great devotee and follower of Lord Caitanya who is Krishna himself and who appeared in India five hundred years ago. Because Haridas was a great devotee many people were attracted to him and he became very famous and highly respected. He became even more famous than the King of that time. So the King became very envious of Haridas. He did many things. But one thing is he had Haridas arrested and taken to 22 different market places and had him severely whipped in every market place. Such a punishment would ordinarily be a death sentence as no ordinary man could survive such a whipping. But Haridas said after it that he felt no pain. And later on the devotees saw on the back of Lord Caitanya all the whip marks. So Lord Caitanya had protected his devotee Haridas…

There is also Prahlada Maharaja, the son of a great demon, Hiranyakasipu. Hiranyakasipu was trying to train Prahlada to be a big demon and sent him to the school with all the other demon’s children to be taught politics and diplomacy. But Prahlada was a devotee of Krishna from birth and as soon as the teachers went out of the classroom he would jump up and preach Krishna consciousness to all the other boys in the school. So gradually the whole school, all sons of demons, started to become devotees of Krishna…. So it is a long story but Hiranyakasipu became very angry at Prahlada because he had become a devotee of Krishna and he tried to kill Prahlada in so many ways. He threw Prahlada off a big high cliff but the rocks at the bottom turned into feathers and cushioned Prahlada’s fall. He threw Prahlada into a pit full of deadly snakes and scorpions. But they did not bite Prahlada. He had a huge elephant trample on Prahlada. But he was not hurt. He put Prahlada in a big pot of boiling oil. But Prahlada did not die… So he was completely frustrated. And back in his palace he asked Prahlada: “Where do you get your strength from?” And Prahlada replied “The same place you get your strength from, Krishna…” Hiranyakasapu could see Prahlada was not at all afraid of him and he knew it was because of Prahlada’s faith in Krishna. So he asked Prahlada: “Is your God everywhere?” Prahlada said: “Yes” So looking at a huge pillar in the palace Hiranyakasipu said: “Is your God in this pillar?” Prahlada said: “Yes.” So Hiranyakasapu took a big hammer and smashed the pillar and Lord Krishna, in the form of half-man, half-lion appeared out of the pillar. And Krishna as Lord Narasimhadeva killed the demon Hiranyakasapu and saved His pure devotee Prahlada Maharaja…

But Haridas and Prahlada are very special and we can not expect Krishna to do like that for us. But it is true that Krishna protects his devotees and for devotees things no longer simply work on karma. We may have done so many bad things in the past that we should be suffering for now, but because we are trying to be Krishna conscious and are trying to serve Krishna, Krishna changes our karma. So a devotee is not like an ordinary person in this regard. But still we have this material body and it will get old, it will get sick and it will die. There is no getting around that. But a devotee has a different consciousness. He knows he is not the body and even though the body may be going through some troubles, he is not troubled, because he has realized he is not the body…

Still even pure devotees like Jesus can die “horrible deaths.” But in that case there is some plan of Krishna involved. Pure devotees are sometimes killed as was Jesus. He was killed by the Jews who were envious of his popularity and because he preached against the existing religious men. He went to the Jewish churches and told the people “the only way to God is through me…” So he was telling them that these Scribes and Pharisees could not help them get to God at all. If they wanted God they had to listen to him. So it did not make him very popular with the religious leaders of the Jews. So they had him killed. And this is a pattern that repeats. If one becomes a truly spiritual person and preaches so many people will become his enemy. There is even a good chance that Srila Prabhupada was poisoned by some of his “followers” and it seems his spiritual master was also poisoned by some of his “followers.” Both Prabhupada and his spiritual master Srila Bhaktsiddhanta were very powerful preachers who upset a lot of the “caste Brahmins” who are the priestly class in India. They claim one can only become a Brahman [spiritually advanced] by being born in a Brahmin’s family. But this is not what the Vedas says. And both Srila Prabhupada and his spiritual master made this widely known. So even though a pure devotee is the friend of everyone by his preaching naturally demoniac people become envious of him.

But everything in connection with a pure devotee is an arrangement of Krishna. There is one verse that if Krishna wants someone to live no one can kill him and if Krishna wants someone to die no one can save him.”

So I hope it is of some help. Basically there is no chance. Nothing happens by chance. There is a cause for everything, “Innocent” people do not die horrible deaths. The cause is generally our bad karma, bad things happen to us because of the bad things we have done in the past in this life and in previous lives. There is nothing an ordinary person can do about this. The analogy is given of a seed. You plant a seed and after some time it will germinate and grow. So it is with our sinful activities. It is like planting a seed in our heart. In due course of time that seed will germinate and grow and we will have to then suffer the reaction to that sinful activity. Like seeds these sinful reactions take different amounts of time to germinate. Some, like a big tree, may take many many years, others, like wheat, may germinate quite quickly.

And if, at the time of death, we still have these seeds within our hearts waiting to germinate we have to take another birth in the material world so they can germinate and we will enjoy or suffer the results… And when we take another birth we will again do so may sinful and pious activities which will sow more seeds in our heart and we will have to come back to the material world again and again and again… practically forever.

The way out of course is chanting Hare Krishna. This chanting destroys the seeds of our sinful activities in our hearts so they will not germinate in the future and if we can keep ourselves engaged in Krishna conscious activities we will not sow more seeds in our hearts so at the time of death there will be no seeds in our hears waiting to germinate so we do not have to take another birth in the material world–we can go back home back to Godhead and get our original eternally youthful spiritual body full of knowledge and bliss…

And all just by chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare…

So why not chant Hare Krishna and be happy?

Posted By: Madhudvisa dasa

What is Re-Incarnation ?

Re-Incarnation

HINDUISM: THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING:
Swami Adiswarananda, Ramakrishna-VivekanandaCenter, New York

Why is a soul born on earth, and why does it suffer? What happens to it after death, and what is its destiny? Why are there inequalities between one person and another? According to Hinduism, the idea of complete annihilation of the soul after death is inconsistent with the concept of a moral order in the universe. If everything ends with death, then there is no meaning to life. Nor is the view that the soul is created at birth and then becomes eternal at death reasonable, for anything that has a beginning will also have an end. Further, this view does not explain the obvious inequalities among people.

Re-Incarnation

Clearly, all are not born equal. Some are born with good tendencies, some with bad; some strong, and some weak; some fortunate, and some unfortunate. Moreover, all too often the virtuous suffer and the vicious prosper. One cannot attribute these injustices to the will of God or to some inscrutable providence, because such a concept belies any belief in God’s love for His beings. These glaring differences cannot be considered the mere results of chance happening; for if such were the case, there would be no incentive for moral or material improvement.

Then, heredity and environment, although they explain the physical and mental characteristics of an individual partially, do not explain inequalities satisfactorily. Nor does the doctrine of eternal happiness in heaven, or eternal suffering in hell, answer this question. Everlasting life in terms of time is self-contradictory. The dwellers in heaven, endowed with subtle or spiritual bodies, are still subject to embodiment and therefore cannot be immortal. The idea of eternal damnation for the mistakes of man’s brief earthly career contradicts justice and reason. The inequalities and sufferings of life cannot be set right by readjustments after death, because what happens after death cannot be verified. The conditions on the two sides of the grave are different, and the dead never come back to testify to their afterlife conditions.

        HINDUISM: REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF KARMA 

Hinduism contends that the cause of suffering and inequalities must be sought not in what happens after death, but in the conditions before birth, and puts forward the doctrine of rebirth. Rebirth is the necessary corollary to the idea of the soul’s immortality. Death is a break in the series of continuing events known as life. Through death the individual soul changes its body: “Even as the embodied Self passes, in this body, through the stages of childhood, youth, and old age, so does It pass into another body.” A knower of the Self can witness the passing of a soul from one body to another at the time of death: “The deluded do not perceive him when he departs from the body or dwells in it, when he experiences objects or is united with the gunas; but they who have the eye of wisdom perceive him.”

Rebirth, Hinduism maintains, is governed by the law of karma. According to this law, man is the architect of his own fate and maker of his own destiny. Karma signifies the way of life, that is, what we think, say, and do and it brings conditioning of the mind, the root cause of embodiment. It is the mind that produces bodies, gross or subtle. Remaining identified with the body-mind complex, the soul, though ever-free, follows its destiny and, as it were, experiences all pairs of opposites, such as birth and death, good and evil, pain and pleasure. Patanjali (the teacher of the Yoga system), in one of his aphorisms, describes the causes of suffering as five: ignorance, ego-sense, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life. Reality is neither good nor evil. There is nothing in the universe which is absolutely good or absolutely evil, that is to say, good or evil for all time. Good and evil are value judgments made by the individual mind in keeping with its inner disposition caused by past karma. If one asks, why does God permit evil, then the question will come, why does God permit good? According to the Hindu view, good is that which takes us near to our real Self, and evil is that which creates a distance between us and our real Self. The law of karma is the law of automatic justice. It tells us that no action goes without producing its result. The circumstances of our present life, our pains and pleasures, are all the results of our past actions in this existence and in countless previous existences. As one sows, so shall one reap. This is the inexorable law of karma. Karma produces three kinds of results: (a) results of past actions which have produced the present, body, mind, and circumstances; (b) results which have accumulated but are yet to fructify; and (c) results that are being accumulated now. Over the first category of results no one has any control; these are to be overcome by patiently bearing with them. The second and third kinds, which are still in the stage of thoughts and tendencies, can be countered by education and self-control. Essentially, the law of karma says that while our will is free, we are conditioned to act in certain set ways. We suffer or enjoy because of this conditioning of our mind. And conditioning of mind, accumulated through self-indulgence, cannot be overcome vicariously.

A Hindu is called upon to act in the living present, to change his fate by changing his way of life, his thoughts and his actions. Our past determines our present, and our present will determine our future. He is taught that no change will ever be effected by brooding over past mistakes or failures or by cursing others and blaming the world or by hoping for the future. To the contention that the law of karma does not leave any scope for the operation of divine grace, Hinduism’s answer is that the grace of God is ever flowing equally toward all. It is not felt until one feels the need for it. The joys and suffering of a human individual are of his own making. Good and evil are mind-made and not God-created. The law of karma exhorts a Hindu to right actions, giving him the assurance that, just as a saint had a past so also a sinner has a future. Through the doctrine of rebirth and the law of karma, Hinduism seeks an ethical interpretation of life. The theory of the evolution of species describes the process of how life evolves. But the purpose of this evolution can be explained only by the doctrine of rebirth and the law of karma. The destiny of the soul is immortality through Self-realization. Existence-knowledge bliss-absolute being its real nature, nothing limited can give it abiding satisfaction. Through its repeated births and deaths it is seeking that supreme fulfillment of life.



[Copyright Swami Adiswarananda]