There are primarily two reasons for rebirth. The first one is the settlement of good and bad karmas whereas the second one is resolutions/desires.
Let’s look into good and bad karmas first. Though it is difficult to achieve exact definitions for them, let’s try to understand broader definitions for them. If you engage in an action, speech or thought with the intention of benefit of others, it is called good karma. If you engage in an action, speech or thought with the intention of hurting others, it is called bad karma. If you engage in an action, speech or thought with the no intention or desire, it is called a neutral karma. This concept has been explained in details, in the first part of this book.
Let’s see how good and bad karmas cause rebirth. When you engage in good/bad karmas with the sense of a doer, their results bind you. To be precise, you tie yourself to them when you engage in them as a doer. A conscious/subconscious sense while engaging in a karma, that you’re doing it makes you a doer. If you don’t have that sense, you become a medium and not a doer. Hence you’re not judged for such karmas, because a medium is not judged.
It is like you kill a person by shooting him. You get the punishment for murder but the gun doesn’t get any punishment. This is because you’re the doer as you kill this person of your own wish whereas the gun has no wish and it does what you want it to do. Hence you and not the gun will be punished. Likewise, suppose you as a doctor save someone’s life with the help of surgical equipment. You and not the equipment receives the praise since you’re the doer and not the equipment. Whether you save someone’s life or kill someone with the help of a surgical knife, it remains unaffected since it has no wish of its own. Hence you’re the doer and the knife is the medium.
It means that deep down, good or bad karmas don’t tie you, you tie yourself to them by being a doer while engaging in them. Since the sense of being a doer is created by ego alone, it means ego lies in the root of all good and bad karmas. Once ego is gone, the sense of doer is also gone and along with that sense, the judgment for your karmas is also gone. It is like if a baby urinates on you, you don’t judge him. However, if an adult does the same, you may punish him. This is because the baby has not yet developed the sense of doer. Hence you see him as a medium and not as a doer. On the other hand, the adult has developed that sense and he may be doing so despite knowing that it is bad to urinate on someone. Hence he is judged.
Looking at another example, a tree may give you fruits and shade or it may fall on you and hurt you. In both cases, the tree is not judged since it doesn’t have the sense of doer. Likewise, rain may bring prosperity in form of crops or it may bring destruction in form of floods. However, it is not judged in both these cases since rain is simply operating according to the arrangement of elements of nature and it has no wish of its own.
Therefore, if you engage in a bad karma, you are tied to its fruits. Since you may not have all the fruits in your present life, you may be born again to have such fruits. For example, you may kill someone for financial gains and you may escape punishment. Such punishment is pending and you may be born again to receive it. Likewise, you may engage in a number of other bad karmas, you may not get punished for all of them in your current life and you may be born again to receive such punishment.
Taking another example, suppose a contract killer murders dozens of people for money and one day, he’s shot dead. Being shot dead may not be sufficient punishment for so many murders. Hence he may be born again to receive due punishment. Similarly, there are a number of other bad karmas which can make you take births after births. They’ll leave you only when you stop engaging in them. Once you do that, the pending settlements for the already committed bad karmas may take some time to clear. After that, you’re free from one condition which brings you back again and again.
Let’s look into good karmas. Whenever you engage in good karmas, you have a conscious or subconscious desire for rewards. Since not all the rewards may be given in the present lifetime like the punishments, you may be born again to receive such rewards. In the next life, you engage in more good karmas with desires for rewards. Such karmas may bring you back again in order to reward you. This may continue life after life until in one life you realize that you don’t need any rewards. When that happens, you engage in good karmas but you don’t wish for rewards. As a result, you’re free from one more condition which brings you back again and again.
Looking at conscious desires for rewards, suppose you make a big donation to a charitable organization and you want the rewards. It means you do this good deed after consciously deciding that doing good deeds will bring more fortunes to you. Hence you’ve made this donation with the intention for results. Accordingly, it is a good karma and not a neutral karma. A part of your decision to make this donation is to be blessed more. Hence a conscious desire for fruits is there.
Looking at subconscious desires, you may engage in good karmas without conscious desires for fruits. However, if you’re affected by the results of such karmas, you have subconscious desires for fruits. For example, suppose you make a big donation to a charitable organization and you don’t have any conscious desire for being blessed more or gain more material things in return. When people find out about this donation, they praise you and you enjoy such praise. It means deep down, you were expecting this praise. The desire is not obvious and it is subtle in this case. Hence it is a subconscious desire.
Since you’re enjoying praise, it means you may be expecting other good rewards also. Such desire brings you back. It means that in this case, you don’t make conscious wishes to be rewarded when you engage in this karma. However deep down, you’re convinced that you’ll be rewarded. The difference is fine. You don’t wish for the rewards but you have a strong feeling that they’ll be given to you, even if you don’t wish for them. This feeling is the subconscious desire for fruits.
It means you’re spiritually much more evolved in this case, but the journey is still not complete. This is because the desire for rewards is still there, though it has become much less obvious which means much weaker. In the early stages of this journey, the desire for rewards may be strong or very strong. As you keep moving, the desire gets weaker. During the last stages, the desire may become very weak which means it may become subconscious. When the journey is complete, even subconscious desires may go away. To be precise, when subconscious desires are also gone, the journey may come to an end. It means you don’t get rid of desires after the journey is complete and they have to go away first, in order for the journey to be completed.
This is because it is the journey of desires. As long as there are desires, there is journey. Stronger are the desires, longer is the journey. Weaker the desires becomes, shorter becomes the journey. When there are no desires left, there is no journey. Hence the desires don’t go away once the journey is complete and the journey is complete once the desires go away.
When that happens, you may make a big donation and you may not be bothered by the results at all. It means you’re not affected when people praise you. Since the desire for rewards is gone now, you’ve made this donation as a medium and not as a doer. The defining difference between a medium and a doer is that the former doesn’t have a wish of his own whereas the latter always does. Since you don’t have desires for rewards, you’re a medium. It means that in the deepest sense, good karmas don’t tie you but you tie yourself to them.
Hence when the journey is complete, you engage in Nishkaam karmas. It means you simply do what is required of you according to the situation; and you are not focused on the results. The karmas done without desires for fruits are called Nishkaam karmas. When you don’t have desires for fruits, you become a medium and not a doer. It means that the sense of being a doer lies in the root of all this. As long as you’re engaging in karmas as a doer, they can’t be Nishkaam since a doer is always tied to the results. The moment you realize that you’re merely a medium, you’re free from the fruits of karmas; since a medium is never judged.
At this stage, you may save a number of people or someone may get killed by you. However, none of these karmas can bind you now since you neither wish to save people nor kill them, in the deepest sense. Whatever is the will of universal conscience commonly known as God, you’re executing it. Hence you’re merely a medium and you are not responsible for saving or killing anyone. Accordingly, you’re not tied to the results. As long as this sense is there that you’re saving or killing someone, you’re a doer and not a medium. It means you’ll be judged for good as well as bad karmas.
Let’s look into the factor of desires/resolutions. Once you’re born, you develop many desires and resolutions to achieve so many goals, to enjoy so many things, to be with so many people and to settle scores with some people. These are resolutions made by you and they’re stored on your subconscious. Technically, you can’t be liberated until your subconscious is empty which means free from each and every type of desire/resolution. Hence as long as such resolutions are there, your journey continues.
Here again, more is the number of resolutions/desires and bigger they are, more time they may demand to be fulfilled and deleted from your subconscious. Hence longer your journey becomes. As you achieve spiritual growth, you realize that desires are in the root of rebirth. As you become aware about them, you stop creating fewer of them. Creation of desires is directly proportional to the amount of spiritual growth you have. More spiritually grown you are, fewer desires you may create. Hence when spiritual growth reaches the highest level; you stop creating new desires/resolutions.
Among the already created ones, you may be able to delete the ones you can and you may have to fulfill the ones which can’t be deleted. For example, the desires which involve you and certain things but not people for their fulfillment may get deleted once you achieve awareness and you don’t want them any longer. However, the desires which involve other people and settlement of karmic accounts with them, may not get deleted in many cases; and you may need to fulfill them. To be precise, you may need to let other people fulfill them.
Taking an example, suppose you fall in love with someone and you get married to her. Suppose you have a son. You love your wife and son a lot and they also love you a lot. This attachment grows stronger and stronger with time. Parallelly, you work on spiritual growth. At the end of this life, you’ve achieved much spiritual growth and at the same time, you have unsettled karmic account with your wife and son.
In the next life, you may achieve a lot of spiritual growth during early years and you may not be much interested in getting married. However, your karmic account with them is pending and you may have to get married to the same woman in order to settle it. Since this desire to be together in the next life was mutual and there is much else to settle, you may have to live through this desire instead of being able to leave it. Hence desires related to things can be left with awareness but desires related to people may need to be fulfilled in many cases.
The desire element is a strong reason for rebirth. In some cases, it can make a soul take many births in order to fulfill a single desire as such desire may require many other factors to be present, in order to be fulfilled and these factors may take many lives to come together. It should be noted that each and every desire of every person has to be fulfilled unless a specific person does conscious effort to erase/delete some desires from his list. In such case, such desires are removed from the list, though it may take long time and much conscious effort in order to do so.
Creation and fulfillment of desires as well as the factors essential to fulfill desires have been explained in the first part of this book.
If your desires are related to things and phenomena, they may be relatively easy since they don’t have their own wishes. It means if you have the desire and resources, you can buy any car or other thing which is available for money. However, you can’t do the same to a person. You need his/her consent in order to be with him/her. Hence the desire and resources alone are not sufficient in this case and freewill of the other person is necessary.
Let’s take an example to understand this concept in a better manner. Suppose you like a woman a lot and you wish to marry her. However, this woman doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you. In this case, your desire may remain unfulfilled. In case this desire is strong, which means you keep wishing for her for many years or even throughout your life, this desire may be forwarded to the next life.
Hence you two may be born again during the same timeline and elements of nature may bring you together. Here again, you try to initiate a relationship. If she also likes you in this life, she may initiate a relationship with you and your desire is fulfilled. If she doesn’t like you, one out of two things may happen. You may either delete this desire which means you may get over her or this desire may be forwarded to next life. This may continue life after life for dozens of lives; until you either fulfill this desire or you delete it. Hence a desire which involves a person can make you take many births.
Once you’re free from the fruits of good as well as bad karmas and you’re don’t have desires; you’re liberated. Liberation is a state of mind or state of being and it is not a state of physical body. It means even when you’re liberated, you may be born again, in order to do some specific jobs assigned by the universal conscience. However during one such birth, you stay liberated, since liberation once achieved can’t be undone.
It means that from early age in one such life, you don’t engage in bad karmas and you don’t want the fruits of good karmas. Apart from that, you don’t develop desires. Since your previous karmic account is clean and you don’t open a new one; you are born liberated and you die liberated. Hence the affairs of the physical body may not affect your state of liberation in this life. Since you don’t have the doer element, you’re free from good and bad karmas. Since you don’t have the doer element, you don’t have desires/resolutions.
You can’t be liberated as long as you’re a doer and you can’t cease to be a doer as long as the desire element is there. The doer element and desire element are closely bound to each other and they feed each other. At times, you may not even be able to tell which one is the parent one. For example, you can’t have desires without being a doer. This is because someone must be there to create desires. Likewise, you can’t be a doer unless you have desires. This is because as long as there are no desires, you’re not a doer.
Hence you have to be a doer in order to have desires and you can’t create desires without being a doer. In the deepest sense, ego lies in the root of them. As ego rises, you start feeling that you’re separate from the entire existence. It means that ego alone gives a sense of ‘I, you, they, me, my, your and their’. As long as ego doesn’t develop, this sense is not there. As long as you’re not a separate identity, you may not wish for anything because you’re everything and everything is you. Since you can’t wish for anything which you already have or to be precise, which you already are, you can’t be a doer and you can’t create desires.
With ego, you become a separate identity and now you see a lot which is not yours. The moment you feel that you’re a separate identity with freewill, you become a doer. Hence the journey of creating desires and fulfilling them begins. Then a time may come when you start working for spiritual growth.
Here again, a moment may come when you realize that you’re not a separate identity and you’re everything as well as everyone who is there in the entire existence. With this realization, all the desires as well as the sense of doer goes away. When you’re already everything that can be there, there’s nothing left to achieve. It means the doer is gone and so are the desires. Hence you’re liberated.
Himanshu Shangari