Why Do Some Feel That Birth And Rebirth Is a Cycle From Which One Should Free Himself?

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The cycle of birth and death is extremely painful for all. There is immense pain that one has to undergo every time one’s death happens and again at the time of his / her next birth.

Only with an enlightened view, one can see the reality as is!

Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan asks, “The body is slowly dying every second, but do you realize this?”

He explains, “The world is never void of fear for even a moment. And for whatever time one does not have any fear, he is living in ignorance of the real nature of this world. This happens because people are asleep even when their eyes are open (i.e. because we are in a state of ignorance of the reality of this world).”

Life seems wonderful right now. But at the time of death, a balance sheet of every-one’s deeds throughout his life arises. Depending upon this balance-sheet, after death, one can become a donkey, a fish or any animal or insect, or may even have to go to hell; or one can come back in human form; and if his deeds are super-good, he can go to heaven and become a celestial being.

Based on the karmas one has bound, one can go into any of the four life-forms.

Hell: Some people explode a bomb and 200-500 people get killed. Such a person will have to go to the lower life-form of hell.

Animal: People indulging in corruption, malpractices, injustice, etc. that we can see everywhere, are those who will have to go from two legs to four legs, they’ve taken a return ticket and come. They hurt others and become happy, what a big risk that is! They don’t realize that they are causing hurt to others, just for the sake of their own happiness, for their own selfish interest, and hence they go in animal life-form.

Celestial: One’s whole life, when lived for the happiness of others only eg. Saint Jalaram, Sai Baba, etc. they go in heaven form.

Human: And what I do not like, if I do not do that with others, I am following the religion of human, and therefore I come back in human life-form!

So, life is not a bed of roses forever. One may experience transient happiness when one’s good karma are unfolding. However, circumstances keep changing. In adverse circumstances, when life becomes truly miserable (on maturing of one’s bad karma), one may not find it wonderful at all, to be born and reborn, only to go through pain again and again.

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In Gnani’s enlightened view (the real view), every life is like a prison.

There are four kinds of prisons: Those who are in heaven are in a prison similar to the kind of house-arrest, with all the comforts and luxuries to their avail. The human beings are like in a simple prison. The animals are as if in a prison of intense labour and hardship. Those in hell go through the most stringent imprisonment of life-long pain and torture.

How can we free ourselves from the cycle of birth and rebirth?

Pujya Dadashri specifies, “When you find the answer to the question, ‘John (please insert your own name here) is my name, but who am I?’, you will break free from the painful cycles of birth and death.”

He further elaborates, “If something were to happen to your body, you will begin to have fear about dying. It is because of your conviction and belief that you are this body, and that you are John, that there is death. But if that focus and belief was not one with the body, then death cannot touch you.”

The Soul is the real Self, which never dies.

As long as we have not become the Soul (Self-realized), we will experience fear.

Only Gnani can grace others with Self-Realization. With his divine spiritual powers, he removes our ignorance. Thereafter, the illusion that ‘really I am this body or the name given to this body’ stops, therefore, the binding of new karma stops, and hence the wandering in the four life-forms also stops.

Thus, when we attain Self-Realization, we find the real answer to the fundamental question, ‘who am i?’; and after Self-Realization, as we follow Gnani’s words, we progress on the path of ultimate liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth forever.