Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: Albemarle Street London

Page 68

OBJECTIONS TO REBIRTH suffering for the deeds of someone about whom we remember nothing. The answer is the same. It is the inner mind, the reincarnating entity, which draws from the universal memory the lessons it would learn. The man who has forgotten, the man who complains is, though he has a new brain, the man whose decds he suffers, is the Karma of which he now complains. The third objection is that Rebirth is disproved by the doctrine of heredity. This, of course, ignores the difference between the mind that uses the body and the body produced by its parents' union. The former chooses a body, in the sense that it is drawn by the laws of attraction to that body which is suitable to the working out of its Dharma, its Karma for that birth. The body obeys the laws of heredity, of the rebirth of the body ; the mind obeys the Law of Karma-Rebirth, of the rebirth of the 'soul'.
Finally, the objection is often raised that the doctrine is uncongenial. “I don't want to come back to this world of misery and toil,” the complainer says. The Law replies, “Who cares about your likes and dislikes, you who claim to be separate? In essence you are part of the Law, and made it so." "If a brick falls on my head I may dislike the law of gravity, but I don't deny that it cxists. And why this fierce objection to return? He who understands the Law knows that all causes have effects, and that all effects have sprung from causes. The deeds of the past must be ' digested'. Where? The obvious and reasonable answer is here, on earth, and if the sufferer dislikes this life it is he who made it so.
01