Bharathiyas, grown up in the culture of India, have deep faith in the equality of all faiths. Whether it is Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism or Christianity, they believe that no one should talk lightly of the worship of God. They believe that when any one talks lightly on any One of the Names of God or any of the Forms of God whom others adore, they are insulting the One God. This was the message held forth by the Indian way of spiritual life. Those who have learnt this truth and adhere to it are the real sons and daughters of India.
This Truth is beyond the grasp of all; not all can achieve this knowledge: Who is the ruler of the Universe? Who is that stands outside It and guides it? What is the cause of the existence of this Cosmos? Whence did this originate? How did it happen? What caused this existence? The Vedas have many Rks dealing with these mysteries. Bharathiyas have probed into them.
Creation involves the putting together of substances; what is put together must come apart, in course of time and get liberated. The individual is created and so he has to disintegrate and die. Now, some are born happy; some are enjoying healthy, happy lives. Some are born miserable; others are born without hands or legs. Some are born feeble-minded or as defectives. Who hurt them or injured them? God is proclaimed as just and kind. It can be argued how such a God can ever be so partial and prejudiced? How can such differential treatment come into the Realm ruled by God? Such doubts are natural. But, the vision of the sages of Bharath who moulded the thought of this land revealed to them that God is not the cause of these differences; they are the consequences of the acts indulged in by the individual in lives previous to the present one. They result in happiness and misery, health and handicaps.
Good and bad are self-made, the effects of what was done in previous lives. Can the bodies of men and their conditions, the ups and downs men meet in life, can they not be the accumulated result of hereditary impacts and tendencies? There are two things that stand like parallel lines before us, when we consider this subject, mental and material. If satisfactory solutions can be found for the problems relating to human nature and its special qualities in materialism, then there can be no basis for believing that there is a factor called Atma or the Soul! But, it is impossible to demonstrate that the capacity to think, for example, has evolved out of the physical matter.
When an item of work is done again and again, it becomes a habit, a skill; isn't it? Therefore, the skill or habit that a new-born exhibits must be due to constant repetition indulged in long ago. Of course, such practice must have taken place in a previous life or many lives. So, it is necessary to posit the validity of the belief in past and future lives, for all living beings. This is a basic belief in Bharathiya spiritual thought.
