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The path to spiritual enhancement
unchanged that good deeds procure good results and bad deeds procure bad results. 5
Whether this life is to be a demoniac one or a life divine has to be decided here, within the span of this very lifetime. One who realizes this truth clearly and truly will judge for himself which way to go. If a person has led a saintly life, then his next lifetime will be a blessed one. But if he has brought tears and grief to others around him and laughed at their pain, then such a person far from being a saint, is a demon. And what can be the destiny of such a person? He will be bereft of blessings and ridiculed in the moments of his suffering. Tell me, does he deserve better?
The desire is for heaven but if deeds are fiendish, then can one attain heaven? Wherever a person may be in this world, if his thoughts are pure, if he has diligently plucked out the thorns that have fallen in his path, if empathy has blossomed in his heart over the tears of another, then he will surely attain heaven.
Therefore, look at your life and introspect, and you will know what is going to become of your next life. Many persons who meet me ask, “What are we going to become in our next life?" I answer, "You don't need a seer to know your next three lives." But they are not convinced and believe that if they asked Sīmandhara Svāmī, they would get an answer. And I explain, "Why do you even need to go to Sīmandhara Svāmī? Whatever he says is based on the karmas. He will only reiterate what Lord Mahāvīra has expounded. And you have to invest your faith in that."
Lord Mahāvīra has expounded the theory of why a soul takes birth as a human, animal, celestial or hellish being. There is no new knowledge to be gained there. Therefore, a person can have no difficulty in knowing about his next three lives.
Scan your life until now and you will see that you have reaped as you have sown. He who has not done anything earlier will not get anything now, and he who does nothing in this moment gets nothing in the future. In this manner, the accounts of sins and
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sucinnā kammā sucinnaphalā bhavamti, ducinnā kammā ducinnaphalā bhavarti -- Aupapātika Sūtra 71
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