Some persons are born with a likable nature, everyone is attracted to them. Some are never liked. Others are neither liked or disliked; they are just ignored. Why? Impartial God is not responsible for the uneven distribution of attractive qualities. The differences in each man’s character are of his own cultivation. He himself has created those pleasant or unpleasant qualities, in this or in past lives. It would be great injustice if God were responsible for starting off some children with the advantage of likable good qualities and others with a handicap of obnoxious bad qualities. But it is not He who has established bad tendencies in some children and good in others; therefore we cannot hold God accountable.
God creates all men equal, made in His image. In order to see the justification of man’s seeming inequalities, we must understand the law of reincarnation. Knowledge of this law was buried and forgotten during the Dark Ages. Jesus spoke of reincarnation when he said: ”Elias is come already, and they knew him not….Then the disciples understood that he spoke unto them of John the Baptist.” The soul appearing in one incarnation as Elias (Elijah) had returned in another incarnation as John the Baptist’.
There would be no meaning of life if it did not afford us sufficient opportunities to develop our potentials and satisfy our desires. Without reincarnation, how does the divine justice operate for those souls who have no chance to express themselves because they are encased in the body of a baby that is born dead, or of one that perhaps lives only to the age of six? Those souls could hardly be condemned to Hades, because they have done nothing to deserve punishment; nor could they go to heaven, having had no opportunity to earn it. The answer is that this earth is a vast schoolhouse, and the law of reincarnation is the justice that brings each man here again and again until he has learned all life’s lessons. Lord Krishna referred to this truth: ”By diligently following his path, the yogi, perfected by the efforts of many births, is purged of sin (karmic taint) and finally enters the Supreme Beautitude.”
Man himself has cultivated his bright and dark qualities. Somewhere, sometime, in this or other lives, the seeds were planted by his own actions. If he permits the seeds of harmful acts to grow, they will crowd out the seeds of good that he has sown. The wise cast out seeds of evil from the garden of life.
Extract from the book ”Man’s Eternal Quest” by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda.