There is a cause for an effect and an effect for a cause. The aggregate of your desires leads you to its effect. Therefore it is all important that you scrutinise and realise what type of desires you entertain moment to moment. You must try and avoid all negative desires. Make an earnest attempt to cultivate positive desires. If not, you lead yourself into series of difficulties.
People of this world entertain desires indiscriminately. They do not realise the consequences. But when they meet consequences they weep and wail. They blame their horoscopes. They pray to the Gods to mend their fortune. They never realize that they themselves have brought about their misery and nobody else.
Law of Nature
Night follows day; day follows night. Seasons of the year appear in succession. Childhood, boyhood, manhood, old age and death observe a perfect progression. The law of causation works with perfect mathematical precision.
Sunandaji, daughter-disciple of Swami Parthasarthy says, “Still people believe that death marks the end of all. But according to law of nature and Vedanta, death cannot be finality. Just as there is death after life, there ought to be life after death. Death actually means change of state. Change therefore means fall of prior condition and rise of altered condition”.
Swami A Parthasarthy, founder of Vedanta Life Institute says, “Your desires drive you from one experience to another. You are on the move all the time. You fulfil your desires through your experiences. The present desire drives you to the second experience for its fulfilment. Thus you go on and on. In philosophical language you are said to be born in each experience and dead in the previous one. You are constantly dying and being reborn from experience to experience, moment to moment”.
He continues, “Vedanta says your desires are innumerable. Most of them are left unfulfilled at the time of your physical death. You therefor take another birth in order to fulfil them. Unfulfilled desires are the cause for rebirth. If, however, all your desires are exhausted during your present lifetime through spiritual courses and meditation you will have no rebirth. When cause is removed effect is no more. You regain your Godhead”.
If desires are the cause for rebirth how is man born into an environment or circumstances which are not to his liking? Why is man born to a poor family when he entertains desire to be rich? Why is man born in the west when he has tendency for eastern life? Don’t these questions bother you?
Law of Resultant Forces
Your desires no doubt decide the course of your life. But it is not any particular desire that decides it. It is the total effect of your desires that decide the course. It is called the resultant desire. In physics there is a theorem called the parallelogram law of forces. Your life is ordered by your resultant desire.
Innumerable desires are operating within you. Each one has its own strength and direction. But you will move in the direction of your resultant desires. One may not be even aware of the consequences. Nevertheless the law expresses itself. Just hear this story:
A young girl suffered from the glaucoma in her eyes. She was losing her eyesight. At that time a misfortune befell her. Her mother expired. She was terribly upset. She lost all interest in life. She would not mix with anyone. She chose a life of spirituality and abstinence. In course of time her glaucoma ripened. She was heading towards blindness. Her well-wishers appealed to her to get her eyes operated. The girl disregarded their repeated requests. She chose to deny her sight. “What is the use of removing my blindness”, she would say. “Am I to restore my eyesight to gaze at emptiness? The beauty of my house has gone. I do not wish to see this world anymore”. But the girl’s father, friends and relatives were sincere. They approached a Swami and requested him to talk to her. Swami met the girl and in the course of the conversation with her, he drove home the concept of resultant desire not to see the world. “Remember, you have a very powerful desire, above your spirituality, not to see the world”, Swami said to her. “You are young. You will grow old. This powerful desire in you will be the deciding factor for your old age and next birth. Chances are that you will be blinded in your old age and perhaps be born blind”. The girl understood the implication and got herself operated.
The significant part of the episode is that a man may be born blind even though he does not desire to be so. The aggregate of his desire leads him to that effect. Therefore it is all important that you scrutinise and realise what type of desires you entertain moment to moment. You must try and avoid all negative desires. Make an earnest attempt to cultivate positive desires. If not, you lead yourself into series of difficulties.
People of this world entertain desires indiscriminately. They do not realise the consequences. But when they meet consequences they weep and wail. They blame their horoscopes. They pray to the Gods to mend their fortune. They never realise that they themselves have brought about their misery and nobody else.