“One day I said to him: ‘You, who are so liberal, who know the world, who’ve read so much, science, philosophy, literature—do you in your heart of hearts believe in re-incarnation?’
“His whole face changed. It became the face of a visionary.
” ‘My dear friend,’ he said, ‘if I didn’t believe in it life would have no meaning for me.’ “
– W. Somerset Maugham “The razor’s Edge”
Is it possible to be happy in a world where there is so much hatred and so much suffering? Where there is so much injustice?
In fact, can there be a God who created such an unjust world? In my youth this thought seemed to me to be evidence that there is no God, there are no Higher Powers. I think differently now.
Let’s have a look at a small piece of the big picture – the hatred between nations and religions.
Religious and national hatred has existed from time immemorial. Muslims have slaughtered Christians just because they were Christians. Christians have killed Muslims without count only because they were Muslims. Even in the 20th century – the Turks have killed a million Armenians only because they were Armenians… and the Germans have done away with 6 million Jews only because they were Jews!
Many people respond to hatred with hatred. A well-known Russian film director of Armenian origin recently made a public statement, calling for the explosion of an atomic bomb in the Black Sea in order to flood Istanbul. While many Jews are very happy indeed when Arabs or Muslims are killed.
Where does this hatred come from? And where does it go?
When I think about it all, I get a thought…
If we look at occurrences within just one life, then these questions do not have answers. But if we assume that we had existed before our birth and will exist after our death… If we admit that this life of ours is only one of many in a long chain of reincarnations…
And especially if we remember that, according to Indian philosophy, our next birth is determined in many ways by what we concentrate our thoughts on in this life…
Then the thought comes to me that many of those, who in this life were born Jewish, in their past life must have strongly disliked the Jews. Our consciousness does not care what we concentrate on. The Saints focus on God (no matter how differently this is expressed in various cultures) and get closer to Him as a result. And those who have hated the Jews all their life become Jewish; those who have hated Muslims become Muslims.
When we come into a new life, we change everything – our nationality, religion, race, sex, etc. But our level of consciousness remains the same that it was in our previous life.
The hatred of other people only due to their skin color, nationality and religion is a sign of a low-level consciousness. And if we are in possession of it, then we transfer it to our new life. Only this hatred changes its vector, so to speak. Example: in a past life we were born in Germany and, under the slogan “Heil Hitler”, cleansed the world of Jews. In this life we are born Jewish, and we hate the Arabs.
If this is so, then you can imagine how God laughs as we travel from one life to another, massacring those, who in our past lives were our fellow kinsmen. God certainly has a sense of humor.
And in every life we have a chance to change everything. To do this, we need to stop responding to hatred with hatred. It’s very simple and very difficult at the same time.
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But what of those who died during the numerous genocides and pogroms of world history? Where is the justice there?
So, if we expand on the aforementioned thought… Let us take another example: there was once a composer called Richard Wagner. He was a musical genius. At the same time as his music, he wrote up projects to aid the extermination of the Jews. And he presented these projects to the parliament of Bavaria.
At some point he died, and the essence which in that life was Richard Wagner left its body. And in accordance with the law of karma, and possibly also with its own desire, in its next incarnation it was born into the body of a Jew (or Jewess) who burned in the fire of Auschwitz.
In this light everything looks a little different, does it not?