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Rebirth is Not a Punishment But a Chance
Spirituality says, think of your life also as a vehicle between birth
and death. It is a transit through the physical world, which must be
treated as a school so that in this time that is allotted to you, or
which you have chosen for yourself in the past, you are able to learn
the lesson that upon reaching your destination, you don’t have to come
back again. It is not death. It is the completion of my journey. Now
it would be silly to say when I reach Silkeborg, I am one quarter dead;
Sikanderborg, I am half dead; Arthus, I am fully dead. Don’t you think
so? But this is what people are afraid of. They are afraid of death.
Why? Because we are living life wrongly. Like a boy who has never studied
for his exams. He is terrified of his exams, he gets nightmares. He
does not want to go to school. He does not want to appear for his examinations.
He prays that he may have fever or become sick so that he need not go.
But nature will not oblige so easily. So when that boy fails and comes
back to his same class the next year, can you say the school punished
him? Or his teachers punished him? Or the system punished him? He was
not fit for the next level, so he is retained at this level.
This law applies to our life too. Rebirth is nothing but my having
to come back to learn lessons which I did not learn when I had the chance.
So I come back and say, “Please, one more year. I have to learn this
lesson because without doing it I cannot go forward.” So please remember,
rebirth is not a fate, it is not a punishment. Please remember that
rebirth is not a punishment given by God. In rebirth each one has an
opportunity for a fresh life, to again start this journey, find one’s
way and reach one’s goal. It is a fresh opportunity that nature gives
us again and again and again and again.
So you see, nature gives us, without limit, eternally – chance after
chance after chance, which we call rebirth and death, and not understanding,
in our foolishness, in our fear of death, that this is like a new day,
a new page in a book, to write upon, and create for ourselves a new
future. I am surprised that people are afraid of death, when it is life
they should be afraid of. What is there to be afraid of in death? Every
fool dies. Every millionaire dies. Every king has died. Avatars have
died. Who has not died? That which is the common and only heritage of
all human beings – can it be fearful? Can it be something of which we
should be afraid? Is it not only a door into the next life which beckons
and says, “Forget this room full of horrors. Come into this room, where
it is all beatitude, plenitude, love.” So you see, it is life we should
be afraid of.
If we want to become like Him, it is never too late! Because Nature
says, “Not only this life, I give you many lives hereafter.” Because
it is Nature’s generosity, God’s greatness, mercy, that He gives chance
after chance for us to evolve. He does not say “Stop”. You know in some
religions, this life is the final life. And what do we do after this
life? We are in some sort of a limbo awaiting the day of judgement.
I consider it the most merciless conception of God that He can give
me one life, expect me to perform and then judge me for it, millions
of years hereafter – nobody knows when! Because that is their siddhantha,
that after death, somewhere my soul will exist; and then one day, the
day of judgement will come; all the souls will be called; some will
be sent to heaven, some will be sent to hell. What a merciless God!
What a cruel God!
Creation on the other hand gives us infinite chance. “All right, this
life you have failed? Try again! That also you are failing? Try again!”
“But Babuji, what about another Master for me?” “Why? Again and again
I will come to help you.” “Yada yadahi Dharmasya Glanirbhavati Bharata”.
Not only does He give you a chance but He gives Himself a chance too
that you shall not be left helpless. “I shall come to you again and
again. What can be more noble, more generous, more great than such a
concept of Divinity who is not enslaving you but giving you a chance
again and again like when you fail in school in one class you are allowed
to go to that class again and sit and pass the examinations. Can you
say ‘it is cruel? My teachers are cruel.’ No teacher is cruel! You have
been cruel to yourself; you have not studied when you had the opportunity;
you have failed when you should have passed! To make you capable we
are giving you another chance to study again to pass, so that you can
be fit for the next stage.
So please do not think of death as a punishment or as something from
which we cannot rise or as something to be afraid of! On the contrary
any man who thinks he cannot make it in this life should pray for a
good next life: “At least give me the next life which can be good, so
that I can achieve God.” Because when we are afraid we run away from
it. As Babuji said, “We are running away from God because of our fear.”
We are talking of the love of God but we are afraid of God. It is like
saying “My mother loves me. I am running away from her.” Is it possible?
Today I would form a new slogan – “Die before you start doing.” And
in what sense is this ‘dying’? I die to myself, myself from this existence,
in the sense that the ‘I’ is gone. If I am able to die the moment I
come into the spiritual existence that is, on my becoming a twice-born
or Dwija, by having rebirth of this spiritual existence, then
it means that the twice-born ceases to exist at the moment of its birth.
That is, if you die before you begin to do, everything is done for you.
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