Recently I celebrated a milestone birthday in my life. I am grateful for the several people who wished me on my birthday. It was also a moment for me to reflect on birthdays in general and the concept of birth.
Why should I celebrate my birthday? What is so great about my birth that it deserves a celebration? Did I do anything to cause my birth? Before most people move their heads vigorously and say no way I am responsible for my birth, I request people to hold off on saying that.
We will have to understand some analogies before understanding the principle of birth. All of us know energy is universal and can neither be created nor destroyed. We also know that energy has many forms and let's take electrical energy as one of the forms. Now assume that this electricity flows through several bulbs and they get lit instantly. So the flow of energy has brought life to a bulb and it is lit and is useful. In the absence of electricity, the bulb is an useless item that serves no purpose. Now, what is the bulb made of? It is made of glass, copper wire etc. What is glass made of? One of the component is silicon. As we go deeper and deeper, finally we say, a bulb is composed of atoms, further down to protons and electrons and further down to quarks and so on. What is a human body made of? Again a series of minerals which break down into cells and further into atoms and so on. So a human body finally is no different in its basic elements than a light bulb. Just as a light bulb is useless without electricity, a human body is useless without an equivalent energy called as "Consciousness". This is the life principle or Truth principle or God, whatever one may call. So, here is the first principle. An inert set of elements change to a living element when the enlivening principle or consciousness flows through them.
Does this mean that the birth of a lighted bulb is the same as the birth of life? There is one key difference. The bulb did not have a choice. It did not ask to be created as big bulb, small bulb or whatever. But when life is created, the created life has made a conscious choice. I am sure people are sighing and telling this is crazy. Before you move on to the next article, please bear with me as i develop the concept. To understand this concept, we need to go to our familiar structure of an individual. An individual is composed of a gross body which are the internal and external organs which as you would surely have guessed are made of inert matter just like a light bulb. Below the gross body is the subtle body consisting of the mind and intellect. Below the subtle body is the causal body. The causal body is the storehouse of all desires. It is like a container of all unfulfilled desires and depending on which desire has become most urgent, and depending on whether the right environment is available, the desire sprouts into a life form. As a farmer, I may have a variety of seeds and farmland all over the world. There is absolutely no use me putting seeds in a drought hit area and expect that it will give rise to a tree. However, the same seed once there is rain, can give rise to a tree. So for a tree to come up, both the right seed and the right environment are needed. In exactly the same way, for a life to manifest in a particular form, a set of desires and the right environment have to be present.
If a farmer has a desire to harvest mangoes, he will plant mango seeds and a mango tree will come up in the right circumstance. Here the farmer has taken a conscious decision and he is getting what he wanted. In exactly, the same way, we make a decision in terms of what sort of form we want and where depending on the seeds of desire. Does this mean that at this very instant, in terms of the type of desires I have, I am already planting the seeds of my future life. Absolutely right! I am a millionaire today. I decide to stop working and spend lavishly. I am planting the seeds of my own financial disaster. I am a healthy individual and start smoking. I am planting the seeds of my own health disaster. I am having deep unfulfilled desires which cannot be met in present circumstances. I am planting the seeds of my own birth in future in a form and environment where I can fulfill those desires. Recently I was seeing a TV show about a kid who is hardly 2 and is an expert at throwing balls into a basket. He has been shown on TV challenging basketball stars like Kobe and Magic Johnson. I doubt if there is anyway to explain this and any similar prodigies without at least a grudging acceptance that there was something before birth that has propelled the child into this skill or behavior. My hypothesis, till I am challenged and shown a better explanation is that this entity had a deep desire to be a basketball player and for some reason that was unfulfilled and the desire was so strong that the entity took birth in an American family where basketball is encouraged. So the entity has a opportunity to fulfill its desire. The seed of desire was laid in some birth and it fructified in the child being born in an environment where its desires can be met.
Does it mean every desire will be fulfilled in the form of a life? Absolutely. But unfortunately, the entity has no control over what type of desires it has, both conscious and sub-conscious, their intensity and in what combination, the desires will be combined to give a form of life. Assume you are sitting in a covered carriage. There is one engine pulling it in the north direction at say 30 miles/hour and there is another engine pulling it at 40 miles/hour in the eastern direction, then the carriage will move in the north east direction at 50 miles/hour. So, if an entity has a burning desire to be healthy and a burning desire to study well, it may be born in a well to do family. But then an entity does not have just one or two desires. Relax for a minute and list out your top desires. Before long, you will have a list filling a whole page. So, a combination of a set of most urgent desires come together and create a form and the birth happens in that environment where the desires can be fulfilled.
So maybe I had a burning desire to write, be comfortable, study etc. These set of desires found a fertile environment in the lives of my parents and I was born in that environment where I had a chance to fulfill my desires. Does this mean, that just because desires are there, they will be fulfilled in a birth? Absolutely not! The Universe creates an environment and places the entity in the environment where it can fulfill its desires. But it is up to the free will of the entity whether it wants to flourish or not. I am already hearing some of you say, all do not have freewill.That's correct. Any life form other than a human being does not have a freewill. They are all programmed to act based on their basic quality which comes from desires. If I have a deep desire for blood, it is likely I will be born as a wild animal and will be programmed to kill and taste blood. There is no free will. A tiger cannot make a decision whether to kill a young deer or spare a deer because it has a child. It will just do whatever it is programmed to do. This is the difference of human birth. Though a human birth also happens because of desires, a human has the ability to think and has a free will. I may have been born in an environment where I can study and fulfill my desire to write. However if I do not exercise my free will correctly and waste the opportunity given by the environment, my desires will remain unfulfilled.
Conclusion
Our life is not accidental. Our life is not due to just a result of a physical act. We create our own environment and shape. As human beings we have the free will to either use the environment to flourish and get our desires fulfilled and at the same time use free will not to use the environment to fulfill bad desires. Every action we take, every unfulfilled desire we have at every moment of our life are the seeds for the form of life we will take in future.
As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.
I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.
1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality
My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality
2. Attain Infinite Bliss
Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide
3. The Spirit Of Spirituality
The Spirit Of Spirituality
Why should I celebrate my birthday? What is so great about my birth that it deserves a celebration? Did I do anything to cause my birth? Before most people move their heads vigorously and say no way I am responsible for my birth, I request people to hold off on saying that.
We will have to understand some analogies before understanding the principle of birth. All of us know energy is universal and can neither be created nor destroyed. We also know that energy has many forms and let's take electrical energy as one of the forms. Now assume that this electricity flows through several bulbs and they get lit instantly. So the flow of energy has brought life to a bulb and it is lit and is useful. In the absence of electricity, the bulb is an useless item that serves no purpose. Now, what is the bulb made of? It is made of glass, copper wire etc. What is glass made of? One of the component is silicon. As we go deeper and deeper, finally we say, a bulb is composed of atoms, further down to protons and electrons and further down to quarks and so on. What is a human body made of? Again a series of minerals which break down into cells and further into atoms and so on. So a human body finally is no different in its basic elements than a light bulb. Just as a light bulb is useless without electricity, a human body is useless without an equivalent energy called as "Consciousness". This is the life principle or Truth principle or God, whatever one may call. So, here is the first principle. An inert set of elements change to a living element when the enlivening principle or consciousness flows through them.
Does this mean that the birth of a lighted bulb is the same as the birth of life? There is one key difference. The bulb did not have a choice. It did not ask to be created as big bulb, small bulb or whatever. But when life is created, the created life has made a conscious choice. I am sure people are sighing and telling this is crazy. Before you move on to the next article, please bear with me as i develop the concept. To understand this concept, we need to go to our familiar structure of an individual. An individual is composed of a gross body which are the internal and external organs which as you would surely have guessed are made of inert matter just like a light bulb. Below the gross body is the subtle body consisting of the mind and intellect. Below the subtle body is the causal body. The causal body is the storehouse of all desires. It is like a container of all unfulfilled desires and depending on which desire has become most urgent, and depending on whether the right environment is available, the desire sprouts into a life form. As a farmer, I may have a variety of seeds and farmland all over the world. There is absolutely no use me putting seeds in a drought hit area and expect that it will give rise to a tree. However, the same seed once there is rain, can give rise to a tree. So for a tree to come up, both the right seed and the right environment are needed. In exactly the same way, for a life to manifest in a particular form, a set of desires and the right environment have to be present.
If a farmer has a desire to harvest mangoes, he will plant mango seeds and a mango tree will come up in the right circumstance. Here the farmer has taken a conscious decision and he is getting what he wanted. In exactly, the same way, we make a decision in terms of what sort of form we want and where depending on the seeds of desire. Does this mean that at this very instant, in terms of the type of desires I have, I am already planting the seeds of my future life. Absolutely right! I am a millionaire today. I decide to stop working and spend lavishly. I am planting the seeds of my own financial disaster. I am a healthy individual and start smoking. I am planting the seeds of my own health disaster. I am having deep unfulfilled desires which cannot be met in present circumstances. I am planting the seeds of my own birth in future in a form and environment where I can fulfill those desires. Recently I was seeing a TV show about a kid who is hardly 2 and is an expert at throwing balls into a basket. He has been shown on TV challenging basketball stars like Kobe and Magic Johnson. I doubt if there is anyway to explain this and any similar prodigies without at least a grudging acceptance that there was something before birth that has propelled the child into this skill or behavior. My hypothesis, till I am challenged and shown a better explanation is that this entity had a deep desire to be a basketball player and for some reason that was unfulfilled and the desire was so strong that the entity took birth in an American family where basketball is encouraged. So the entity has a opportunity to fulfill its desire. The seed of desire was laid in some birth and it fructified in the child being born in an environment where its desires can be met.
Does it mean every desire will be fulfilled in the form of a life? Absolutely. But unfortunately, the entity has no control over what type of desires it has, both conscious and sub-conscious, their intensity and in what combination, the desires will be combined to give a form of life. Assume you are sitting in a covered carriage. There is one engine pulling it in the north direction at say 30 miles/hour and there is another engine pulling it at 40 miles/hour in the eastern direction, then the carriage will move in the north east direction at 50 miles/hour. So, if an entity has a burning desire to be healthy and a burning desire to study well, it may be born in a well to do family. But then an entity does not have just one or two desires. Relax for a minute and list out your top desires. Before long, you will have a list filling a whole page. So, a combination of a set of most urgent desires come together and create a form and the birth happens in that environment where the desires can be fulfilled.
So maybe I had a burning desire to write, be comfortable, study etc. These set of desires found a fertile environment in the lives of my parents and I was born in that environment where I had a chance to fulfill my desires. Does this mean, that just because desires are there, they will be fulfilled in a birth? Absolutely not! The Universe creates an environment and places the entity in the environment where it can fulfill its desires. But it is up to the free will of the entity whether it wants to flourish or not. I am already hearing some of you say, all do not have freewill.That's correct. Any life form other than a human being does not have a freewill. They are all programmed to act based on their basic quality which comes from desires. If I have a deep desire for blood, it is likely I will be born as a wild animal and will be programmed to kill and taste blood. There is no free will. A tiger cannot make a decision whether to kill a young deer or spare a deer because it has a child. It will just do whatever it is programmed to do. This is the difference of human birth. Though a human birth also happens because of desires, a human has the ability to think and has a free will. I may have been born in an environment where I can study and fulfill my desire to write. However if I do not exercise my free will correctly and waste the opportunity given by the environment, my desires will remain unfulfilled.
Conclusion
Our life is not accidental. Our life is not due to just a result of a physical act. We create our own environment and shape. As human beings we have the free will to either use the environment to flourish and get our desires fulfilled and at the same time use free will not to use the environment to fulfill bad desires. Every action we take, every unfulfilled desire we have at every moment of our life are the seeds for the form of life we will take in future.
As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.
I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.
1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality
My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality
2. Attain Infinite Bliss
Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide
3. The Spirit Of Spirituality
The Spirit Of Spirituality
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