What if, instead of the ants messing with your food, it is your little baby doing it? Will you react differently? Why the bias? If you believe in reincarnation, you will know that your baby is another soul that may be attached to you only for this life. He or she could be one of your neighbors, friends, strangers or even enemies in past or future lives and his or her role in this life is to resolve some issue with you. Similarly, your neighbors that you dislike, or the stranger who bumps into you accidentally (but you punched him anyway), could be one of your family members in past lives. You may have treated them with love and respect then and why not now?
“It is possible that in the course of his evolution a man may have once been an animal, but he cannot be born as an animal again. In the process of evolution one cannot fall back… It is possible to move ahead from the previous form of birth, but it is not possible, from an advance form of birth, to fall back… It is indeed possible for some one to have previously been an animal or a bird; he must have been. But how long he remained in those species is a different matter. If we delved into our past lives we will be able to recall the species we have passed through so far. We may have been an animal, a bird, a little sparrow… lower and lower. Once we must have been at such a point of inertness where it is difficult to locate any sign of consciousness.
Mountains are alive as well; however, they contain almost no consciousness. They contain ninety-nine percent inertness and one percent consciousness. As life evolves, consciousness keeps on growing and inertness keeps on decreasing. Godliness is one hundred percent consciousness. The difference between godliness and matter is of percentage…That’s why matter can ultimately become God…If we look into our tendencies, it seems that although we are no longer animals we have not yet become human beings either; it seems that we are stuck somewhere in between. As soon as an opportunity arises, we don’t lose much time in reverting to the animal level once again….- at times we jump out of our animal state and become human beings, but then we revert to the same state again... After a hard day’s work, man turns into an animal; hence the world of night is different from the world of the day.”
- pg 51, AND NOW, AND HERE, On Death, Dying and Past Lives - by OSHO
First Published in Great Britain in 1995 by The C.W. Daniel Company Limited
From the perspective of the spirits, we were born into other physical bodies all the time, may it be plants, animals or human. Through millions of years of evolution of the souls, we learn and advance from near zero percent consciousness to the consciousness that we are at today. This consciousness is what the Buddhists called the Buddha nature. In other religions it is simply called the Light. This is why most paintings of saints, monks and religious persons come with a bright halo of light around their heads.
“So now you see that consciousness is on an upward spiral, and progresses onwards… even your own….”
“…We had all that Light all the time… and so few of us knew it!” (said the scientist)
“The Churches and all the Religions of the world knew it,” I protested.
“Maybe. But I was a scientist. They were building up a theory which nobody had proved.”
- pg 36, TESTIMONY OF LIGHT-by Helen Greaves 1969
Charity is big business in Singapore. Many are religiously linked. We see huge charity events on TV, endorsed by celebrities to attract donations. From monk scaling down a skyscraper to superhuman feats by celebrities, we have seen it all. Some donors too have their shares of limelight when their names get splashed across the papers. While the acts of raising funds for the less fortunate looks like a huge compassion, the intention is another. Frauds and personal greed led many of these fund raisers to the hall of shame. This act of compassion usually stops after the show is over. The same donors, who contributed to the success of the charity events, turn their nose from when approached by less fortunate at food centers. We have fake monks and nuns walking around asking for donation but we also have lots of elderly or handicap struggling to sell packets of tissue papers for their daily survival. If these were your elderly parents, will you help them? Unfortunately, most Singaporeans that I saw just pretend that they did not see. I for one do NOT donate at charity events but I will give my money to every single one of those who approach me for help at food centers and public places. They could be fake monks or nuns but I will not judge. There is a reason why they do what they are doing and I need not know why. If their intention is to prey on the compassion of others, they will pay the price. But if their intention is to feed and cloth their young, then my dollar would have gone a long way to help. The Lord Buddha said to his monks that by asking for alms, they are giving the lay people a chance to show their compassion.
Lives lessons will be repeated over and over again until you get it right. The roles may be reversed to let the lessons hit home but you cannot escape. What you do and what you think everyday will come back and ‘haunt’ you, without fail. The key to stop it is to show compassion. Put yourself in the other person’s shoe and look at the situation from his / her eyes before you make any judgment. If you can do that for every single situation you encounter, you will be assured a place among the angels.
No comments:
Post a Comment