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Karma Philosophy
303
intelligence and memory of one are sharp while those of the other are dull; again, there is difference in their thinking and conduct. Though the same means and facilities are made available to them and their efforts too are of the same degree, one learns science or art in a short time while the other lags behind. Though the two undergo the same training, make the same practice and are brought up in the same environment and circumstances, one develops the faculties of oratory, poetic composition and music, while the other remains either destitute of all those faculties throughout his life or is very slow when compared to his brother in developing those faculties. A six or seven year old boy makes the appreciative audience spell-bound by his art of singing; a child reveals his brilliance in mathematics, another child is endowed with poetic genius which enables him to compose plays or dramas. Can all this be possible or explainable without the awakening of the powers lying dormant in the impressions accumulated through past births?
We come across instances of children whose intellectual capacities and skills are qualitatively different from those of their parents. A son of the uneducated parents becomes a great scholar. A boy becomes a great musician though his parents positively dislike music. Only external circumstances, conditions and environment do not constitute the sufficient cause to generate those excellences. If it be said that all this is the result of the wonderful nerves or brain cells of those boys, then there arises a question as to where from they enter into their brains, while they are absent in their parents whose blood and semen have developed their bodies. It is true that we find a child as intelligent as its parents, or a boy has a great poetic genius like his parents. But then there arises a question as to how there occurs a favourable incidence in their case. In other words, what is it that determines that they would be born of intelligent parents or of parents having poetic genius? And why does the child of highly intelligent parents remain dull or of ordinary intelligence in spite of their great efforts to make him intelligent? Innumerable such instances do call for our consideration.
A man is walking carefully. Suddenly a tile of a roof, a brick or a stone falls on his head. He is seriously injured. Is it his fault that he is put to this trouble? No, not in the least. How can there be any difficulty calamity in the absence of any fault? A man suspects another man of something, becomes excited and thrusts a dagger into his belly. As a result, the victim dies. What is the fault of the man who dies? If he is really
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