Just as matter cannot be created
or destroyed but merely transformed into another form, our body after our
passing away from this life is transformed into another form. There is no end,
no finality to our lives. There is just transformation.
It is proven in Buddhist tantric
experiments that the natural elements of nature, earth, wind, fire, water and
space – have qualities of the mind and also support vital systems of our body
functions. It is also proven that there is continuity of our mind from one
birth to another. There have been reports of instances where a child quite
naturally yet vividly remembers the place of birth and some of the critical
happenings of her past life. Therefore, there could be direct linkage of
elements to our psychophysical state.
If we conclude that there is
afterlife, the question arise “What kind of births could we take?”
According to Buddhist teachings
there are six realms in which we can reborn - As hungry ghosts, animals,
humans, demigods and god realms. It is not to say that there are different
worlds that we are born in or anything like that. All these counties rebirths
are the direct effect of our affected emotions. The reason for being born in
these realms is driven by the resulting karmic accumulations. Being born in the
hell realm is due to our affected emotions of hatred, being born as hungry
ghosts is due to greed; envy and jealousy leads us to birth in the asura realm,
pride into the god realm, confusion as animals and ignorance as human beings.
Even for those born in god realm, there is intense suffering as the good effect
that has given them this birth will be born out someday and they will have to
be reborn in lower realms. This is because they are not in a position to
neither accumulate anymore good karma nor clean their accumulated bad ones,
being in a state of mental blankness.
Now the good news -It Is birth
only in the human realm – with its freedoms and advantages of being born with
sense faculties at a place where dharma teachings can be obtained (perhaps
obsolete in this interest era) and with the right intent and faith – that spiritual trajectory and, therefore,
possibility of good rebirth is possible.
All this simply means that if we
wish to be born in higher realms we can undertake practices in this life to
achieve the end we want. We can tweak the stacked up causes before us to our
advantage to have the desired good effect. And these practices essentially lead
us to doing good deeds of body, speech and mind, in the process accumulating
deposits of good karma in our spiritual bank account.
Accumulate good karma by doing
good deeds without an ulterior motive of personal gain or gratification or to
show off. However, the true fruit of this merit is deposited into your account
only after such deeds are dedicated to the wellness and Buddhahood of every
sentient being. While it is good to increase the ‘bank balance’ in this way and
add to credit, it is important to keep an eye on the debit side of the entries
as well!
What better investment can we
think of in this materially driven world than investing in the mother of all
investments, where accomplishment and returns are guaranteed – the investment
in good karmic deposits?
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