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was cured straightaway.
Next year the same disease returned but Tarak was cured when Tarak s mother sprinkled
her Padodak . It was then found that Tarak s Maduli has been defiled by taking water from a lady
in her menses.
Man learns lessons through bitter and painful experiences in this world. However sinful,
cruel and brutal a man may be, he corrects and educates himself through sufferings, pains, sorrows,
troubles and difficulties and diseases, loss of property, poverty and death of dear and near relations.
God moulds and corrects the sinners in a mysterious manner. Sufferings and pain act as useful
educative forces. They serve as eye-openers in the case of evil-doers. They check them from falling
back and pull them upwards. They begin to do good actions and seek the company of the saints.
Some say that a man can never reincarnate in an animal body, as his individuality cannot be
conveniently accommodated by the insufficient and incapable body of an animal. The higher
principles of man can find no receptacle and expression in the rude, rough and imperfect habitation
of the animal. The body of a creature is always an encrustation, as it were, of its inner bodies which,
too, are similarly of the same shape and cast. Thus, the encrustation or body of a human soul should
always be human. It should correspond to the necessities, requirements and ambitions of a human
soul. It should be furnished with all the instruments of perception and conception, which a human
soul stands in need of. It should, in short, be cast upon the mould and matrix of the causal and astral
bodies which generally form the plan and design of a human body. Thus a human body cannot but
incarnate in a human body. The sayings of ancient writers that a cruel person will become a wolf, an
avaricious person a cobra, a lustful person a bitch, etc. are all metaphorical statements. When they
say that a cruel person will reincarnate as a wolf, they mean thereby that he will be reborn as a
ferocious and voracious man like a wolf and similarly do other statements mean.
Others hold the view that a man may try to fall back, nay, may do his best to live the life of a
lower animal. He may try to push out of his mind all higher and finer feelings, and if he really
succeeds in making a monkey of himself, if he succeeds in making his desires nothing but animal
desires, and if he makes an animal of himself, then, of course, he will be born a monkey in the next
incarnation. But man cannot do that. There are other forces which prevent and keep him back.
Those forces are what are called sorrow, trouble, suffering etc. They are the guaranteed agencies
against any falling back. These forces will not allow man to fall down; thus, progress is secured.
Life of evolution is progress and progress must be made, and thus constant and continuous warfare
is necessary. This is another view of others.
45
DOCTRINE OF REINCARNATION
A human birth is the result of mixed Karmas, viz., good and bad. When good Karmas
outweigh the bad, man gets the birth of a Deva, Yaksha, Gandharva, and the like. When evil Karmas
outweigh the good, he takes birth as an animal, devil, etc. He falls into a lower birth. When good and
bad Karmas are more or less equal, he gets a human birth. By good Karmas man attains heaven, by
bad Karmas hell, and by mixed Karmas he attains the world of men.
It is the nature of a man or a beast to get attached to the particular body in which it resides.
The body of an ant is as dear to it as the body of an elephant is to an elephant or a human body is to a
man. This wonderful attachment to the body arising out of ignorance keeps this wheel of birth and
death eternally going. Of all births a particular creature likes the particular body which it has taken
in the particular incarnation. A man likes a human birth; an elephant is pleased with its birth as an
elephant and so on. At the same time everyone craves for evolution and attainment of unalloyed
bliss. This is common for all created beings.
Birth as a man is superior because he has the power to discriminate and decide for himself.
He knows himself and others and he is endowed with finer emotions of love, faith, shame, decency,
non-injury, etc. An animal is devoid of intelligence, memory and knowledge. Therefore, birth as an
animal is not desirable.
The life of a man who is not endowed with discrimination, knowledge of the Self,
non-identification with the physical body, faith and love for fellow-beings is equal to that of a beast.
The ignorant man sinks in the ocean of Samsara, and takes birth in various wombs until the eye of
discrimination is opened, until he comes in contact with a guide who is ready to take him to a higher
path. The ignorant worldly man takes birth as a dog, a cobra, a wolf or a tiger. There is no definite
law as regards to them. The Sastras are quite correct in their statements. It is a serious mistake to
take such utterances of the scriptures as merely figurative or metaphorical.
A spiritual Sadhaka who has started his life in the Divine has no fear of birth in a lower
womb. A Yogi who practises Yoga even though he happens to fall from his entitled position is not
ruined. He takes birth in better circumstances once again and pursues his spiritual path. In the
Bhagavadgita, you will find: O Partha, neither in this world, or in the next world is there
destruction for him (who has fallen from the path of Brahman); none verily, who does good, O my
son, ever comes to grief. Having attained to the worlds of the righteous and having dwelt there for
everlasting years, he who fell from Yoga is reborn in a house of the pure and wealthy. Or he is born
in a family of even the wise Yogis (Chapter VI 40, 41, 42).
King Bharata, son of Rishabha, renounced his kingdom and took to the path of an ascetic.
One day he observed a small motherless deer in the forest. He took pity on the poor creature and he
so passionately loved this little one that his thoughts were mainly centred on the deer and thoughts
of God gradually waned away. At the time of his death the thought of the small deer harassed him
much and he took the birth of a deer.
King Bharata was well versed in all the scriptures, Vedas and Puranas. He did very rigorous
Tapas and meditated on the lotus-feet of the glorious Vasudeva. But the inordinate attachment to
the animal gave him the birth of a deer. Bharata opened his eyes and recognised his folly. The deer
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