Thus Spake the Divine - Unique Features of Our Religion

Thus Spake the Divine

Unique Features of Our Religion

In this chapter, Poojyasri Maha Periyava lucidly explains the Theory of Karma in a simple manner for easy understanding of His devotees. He also dwells on aspects like incarnation, reincarnation, idol worship and so on, which are unique to the Hindu Religion.

There are many unique features that exist in our religion, which don’t exist in other religions. One of them is the Theory of Karma. Though Buddhism and Jainism, the off-shoots of our religion accepted this theory, such a theory is not seen in other religions.

What is the theory of Karma? It says that every action has a reaction. Physics also speaks of the inviolable ‘cause and effect’ and ‘action and reaction’ rules. Our ancestors developed the Theory of Karma applying the rules of physics to human life. For every action of man, there will be a reaction.

If a man commits a sinful act, he should undergo punishment for that. If a man does a good deed, he must be rewarded with good returns. This is what states the Theory of Karma, as propounded by our religions. Our religion underlines that since a man has to himself experience the effects of his own sinful or good deeds, he is granted many births. All religions insist on the principle that one should engage in good deeds, avoiding bad and sinful acts. But no other religion other than ours has through ‘cause and effect’ principle established the principle of good and bad deeds so powerfully.

The Reincarnation (Rebirth) Theory does not exist in any religion, including among religions that did not emerge from India. Not just that, founders of those religions strongly object to our philosophy that a man is compelled to take several births till his Karma gets exhausted. Their philosophy is that the cycle of a man’s birth gets over with his death. Once the man’s dies, his soul will stay in some far off place awaiting the Judgement Day.

On the Judgement Day, God will take into account his sins and good deeds and accordingly send him to eternal heaven or eternal hell. One foreigner, who visited me, told me that all over the Bible, it is stated that Love is God. Basis this, he questioned how God can send a man who has committed one mistake to eternal hell, as it is quite contrary to Bible stating that God is full of love. The same foreigner went to a pastor to seek a clarification on this. The pastor replied, “Yes! It is true that there is eternal hell, but it is always vacant!” It should be inferred from his reply that God never sends anyone to hell.

It will be difficult to accept this if you give it a deeper thought though. Let us assume that, God, out of mercy and compassion, does not send even a sinner to hell. If that is the case, according to their philosophy, where do they send the soul of that sinner after his death? Since they don’t believe in the theory of Reincarnation, he cannot be sent back to the earth. Hence, even a sinner will only be sent to heaven! This means that the followers of the religion can keep committing any amount of sins, as God will anyway send them only to heaven! If that philosophy is true, then everyone can indulge in unethical acts without feeling any guilt.

According to our religion, it is the Paramatma or Ishvara, who weighs bad and good acts of our karma and gives a verdict based on our course of actions. But He will not let the world drown in adharma (unrighteousness). That is why, to completely reap the fruits of our karma (both sinful and good deeds), He grants us one more birth and sends us back to this same earth. Both happiness (Heaven) and sorrows (Hell) are prevalent on this earth itself. Since we have committed both bad and good acts in our last birth, we are going through the impacts of those respective acts on this earth in this birth. The ones who have committed a lot of sins suffer; those who have done lot of good deeds remain happy.

Generally, there are only people who are equally happy and sad, rather than those who are immensely happy. The immensely happy ones are very less in number. From this, we can infer that generally all of us tend to commit more of sins than good deeds.

God, owing to his immense benevolence, gives us one more birth as an opportunity, with the hope that we will wash away our sins at least in that birth. He even comes forward to purify a man’s impurities by providing him various means, such as guru, codes of religion, religious places etc. to turn good.

Instead of thinking “He is useless; he can never enhance himself on his own”, God remains benevolent, believing in man’s capability of purifying himself from sins and reach a higher state. In utmost compassion, God also gives man rebirth and even assists him in his efforts towards turning good. When man, after making attempts to his best, surrenders at the feet of God and says, “What am I capable of? Nothing! Everything is God’s mercy”, then God himself lifts him up in just one shot! There is a strong evidence for the doctrine of reincarnation. Once, a western lady sought proof for that. Without engaging in any argument, I handed her over to a scholar in the Mutt who spoke good English.

I told him to take the lady to a maternity hospital nearby and get the record of details of new-born children there. She went along with him and recorded the details of the kids. One child was very chubby, one was very skinny, one was in a special ward born to a rich lady, one was born to a very poor lady, one was beautiful and one was ugly and so on.

Then, I told the western lady, “Let us keep away from what happens at the end of one’s birth or whether God sends one to eternal hell or heaven. It is something that we cannot visually see. But during your trip to the maternity hospital, you have literally seen what happens at the beginning of several births. Why so many dissimilarities and discrimination among those children? Why should one child be born to a rich and one to a poor? Why should one be beautiful and one ugly? Why should one be healthy and the other sick?

If one agrees with the doctrine of “only one birth” to a man, then, it means that God is erratically and illogically involved in his creations without any compassion even at the time of birth itself. In that case, how can one do Bhakti towards Him, trusting that He would be benevolent towards him? What else could be the cause for dissimilarities witnessed by you other than the doctrine of reincarnation, which calls for rebirth based on one’s good and bad deeds?” She happily absorbed my point of view and left.

But mere explanations may not suffice for people of modern times. They will ask for scientific proof. Even from that perspective, there are para-psychologists, who have done extensive research and have brought out results that stand as proof for the doctrine of reincarnation. These para-psychologists have travelled around the world. They have met people who have recounted many instances that have happened in their earlier birth in places, which were quite far off and totally unconnected with them in this birth.

They have recalled people related to their earlier birth, with whom there are totally unconnected presently. To test whether what these people are saying is true, these para-psychologists have travelled to the places mentioned. To their surprise, they have found people and places that people had recalled from their earlier births. Not one or two, para-psychologists have come across innumerable such evidences. There are many of us who have no memories of our previous births. But there are a few people who can recall many things from their previous births. Significantly, researchers say, people who could recall memories of their previous birth had not died a natural death, i.e. out of diseases. They died because there were sudden accidents or they were murdered and so on.

This article is a snippet from the Book Thus Spake the Divine, is available online at www.giri.in and across Giri Trading Agency Private Limited, A chain of Speciality Stores dealing in all kinds of products needed in Indian Culture and Tradition.

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