Question: How do we explain why people suffer
and how our service to them is a part of the law of Karma?
Answer: Suppose a number of people have suffered loss
of life and property due to a natural calamity like earthquake. A situation
like this, it is believed, arises on account of the collective Karma of the
affected people. Though a situation is caused by collective Karma, there can be
great differences in how various individuals react to it. One person may
be busy in making money by overcharging the injured or looting the helpless or
only looking after his near and dear ones, another may engage himself in
serving others out of sheer compassion. A person with spiritual inclination may
offer his services to the affected people with an attitude of worshiping God through
them (narayana seva).
Question: How do the three
types of sufferings (viz. adhyatmika, adhidaivika, and adhibhoutika) affect the
life after and before death?
Answer: Everyone has to face the three types of
suffering. Though they have nothing to do with life after or before death, our
reaction to all the experiences that we face does make a difference in our
life. What is, therefore, important is
how you react to them.
Question: If a person has
fulfilled all his desires in life, can he escape from rebirth?
Answer: Yes. But all desires can never be fulfilled
by enjoyment. One has to go beyond all desires by discrimination and prayer and
other spiritual disciplines. Pray incessantly to God to make you desireless.
Question: According to the principle of reincarnation,
one soul, at the time of death, leaves one body and goes to another body. Then how the population
of mankind is increasing?
Answer: Indeed
when a person leaves his gross body, his subtle body travels, according to the
law of Karma, to another gross body. That is how man is reborn, and this
continues as long as man has desire, the material that makes a subtle body. But
many other animal species are getting extinct. Are they getting evolved into
human beings? Says Swami Vivekananda in his Complete Works (CW, 1:
430-31):
‘.
. . only man makes Karma. Karma means work which will produce effect. When a
man dies and becomes a Deva, he has only a period of pleasure, and during that
time, makes no fresh Karma; it is simply a reward for his past good Karma. When
the good Karma is worked out, then the remaining Karma begins to take effect,
and he comes down to earth. He becomes man again, and if he does very good
works, and purifies himself, he goes to Brahmaloka and comes back no more . .
.It is a significant fact that as the human population is increasing, the
animal population is decreasing. The animal souls are all becoming men. So many
species of animals have become men already. Where else have they gone?’
