The following Article is taken from a book written by a Baptist Minister, Dr. Julian Johnson, who wrote "Path of The Masters." I am a firm believer in the Doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma. They are the Eastern verson of the Western Calvinistic Doctrine of "Predestination, Election, Reprobation, and Total Depravity of Man.
Meet Dr. Julian Johnson:
REINCARNATION EXPLAINS MUCH
If karma and reincarnation are a little difficult to understand, especially among Western people to whom the whole idea is rather new, on a little reflection it will be found the only rational explanation of some of the most complicated problems of life.
For example, why does some useless old man linger on for years, a burden to himself and everyone else, while a beautiful child, full of promise and joy, has to die suddenly?
A matter of fact only karma and reincarnation offer any satisfactory explanation.
To resort to the inscrutable decrees of deity, arbitrarily interfering in the affairs of human life, is to invite despair and unbelief. But, as a matter of fact, the parents are to understand that the child was, from the very beginning, allotted just that brief span of life, due to his own past karma, and they must be thankful that the child was 'loaned' to them for that brief period.
The child, due to its own karma, had been allotted just that length of life and no more. That time being finished, it had to go. That short life was only one scene, just a brief appearance upon the stage of its career. This little act had to be played. It was also one episode in the life of the parents. That much of karma in the lives of both parents and child had to be paid. When it was paid, there was no further need for the child to remain here, any more than an actor should remain on the stage when his act is finished. No answer except karma and reincarnation .
Again, why do some people enter this life with such terrible handicaps, while others, apparently less worthy, are born in the lap of fortune? Why are some children born with superior intelligence, while others are hopelessly dull? Why are some born with criminal tendencies, while others come into it with a lively sense of purity, justice and love?
These and a hundred other questions press themselves upon us all, and they have no answer, except in the scheme of karma and reincarnation. This is not the first life of all of those people, and so each one enters this life bringing with him all of his inherited tendencies.
Our inherited tendencies: Masters call these inherited tendencies sanskaras. Each one comes with a definite programme outlined for him, according to his past record. This is his fate karma. That programme he must carry out. When the last act of that programme has been performed, the scene closes. The end comes. It must come. Moreover, the end cannot come until the last act of his preordained life has been performed. He then passes to another life. There again his future is assigned to him, on the basis of his own earnings.
In this manner every individual marks time in the grand calendar of the ages. The only thing that can ever bring this monotonous routine to an end is the meeting with a living Master. When a man has this opportunity, it implies a good fate karma, and that the supreme crisis of his long career has come. His deliverance is close at hand.
No injustice, If a student feels inclined to ask why all men have not the opportunity to meet a Master, the answer is, again, their karma. They have not earned that privilege. No man can meet a Master until he has earned the right. And when they have earned the right, there is no power in the world that can keep them away from the Master - not even the stormy waters of the seven seas.
There is no injustice in this thing. Never mind if you think some who never meet the Master are much better people than some who do meet Him. We have not sufficient data to judge who is most worthy. If people are favoured in India, when so many good people in Europe and America have no such opportunity, it is because these people in India have earned the right. God only knows how many long, weary ages they have waited and suffered and worked, only to be born here with but little of this world's goods, and even poor mental equipment, yet with hearts filled with love, ready to follow the Master with no misgivings, no mental pulling back. They may have nothing else, many of them. They may be poor and ignorant; but they have much good karma, and so they find themselves at the Master's feet.
The right to meet a Master
On the other hand, a man or a woman in Europe or America may have great intelligence, wealth and position, yet his karma of past lives may not have entitled him to meet a Master in this life. That is why they do not meet Him. It is not because they live so far away. It may be asserted without qualification, that if a thousand men and women, or even one alone, in America, were fully prepared to meet a Master, they would find Him, even if He had to come across the seas to them.
When any man or woman has earned the. right to stand before a Master, there is no power in the universe that can keep him away from the Master. The two must meet. But in every case it is good karma that brings the soul to the Master.
It is well known among advanced students of the occult that: "When the chela is ready, the Guru appears. " We may be asked, what is the final goal of good karma? The answer is that it will bring the individual to the Master. That is the extreme good fortune, the very highest reward of good karma. His early liberation from the Wheel is then assured. However, reason as we may, the final and only conclusive proof of the doctrine of karma and reincarnation comes when one enters the inner worlds and there beholds its operation for himself. It is then not a question to be settled by academic disquisitions, or by logic or beliefs. Like all other teachings of the Masters, this is founded upon observation and personal experience, upon sight and hearing, upon positive knowledge. These things are as well known to the Masters as are the common phenomena of wheat growing or house building. They behold them in operation, and therefore they need not guess.
When anyone enters the higher fields of knowledge, he is able to watch the operation of karma and reincarnation. With clear vision he is able to see its application to others, as well as to himself. At that stage everyone is able to see clearly his own past lives. He distinctly remembers them. It is then that he knows that he has lived before, and he knows just where and when he lived. Also he knows his karmic earnings and losses. He can see exactly how the law of karma and reincarnation works out in his long succession of lives - how he came and went, times without number, always bringing with him his unsettled accounts. He remembers just how he suffered, or enjoyed, according to his debits and credits. He knows that always he had to pay, pay to the uttermost.
The great law is then no mere theory to him.
- Dr. Julian Johnson
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