Reincarnation and the Law of Karma: A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and EffectAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
Reincarnation and the Law of Karma: A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect
Atkinson, William Walker
Karma; Reincarnation
Considering the first named view, namely that the soul is newly created,
and that its condition has been arbitrarily fixed by the Divine Power,
the student free from prejudice or fear finds it difficult to escape the
conclusion that under this plan of creation there is lacking a
manifestation of Divine Justice. Even admitting the inability of the
finite mind to fully grasp infinite principles, man is still forced to
the realization of the manifest inequality and injustice of the relative
positions of human beings on earth, providing that the same is thrust
arbitrarily upon them; and it would seem that no amount of future reward
could possibly equalize or explain these conditions. Unless there be
"something back of it all," it would certainly seem that Injustice was
manifested. Of course, many argue that the idea of Justice has nothing
to do with the universal processes, but all who think of a Divine Being,
filled with Love, and Justice, are compelled to think that such
qualities must manifest themselves in the creations of such a Being.
And, if there be nothing "back of it all," then the candid observer must
confess that the scheme of Justice manifested is most faulty according
even to the human imperfect idea of Justice.
As Figuier, a French writer said about forty years ago: "If there are a
few men well organized, of good constitution and robust health, how many
are infirm, idiotic, deaf-mute, blind from birth, maimed, foolish and
insane? My brother is handsome and well-shaped: I am ugly, weakly,
rickety, and a hunchback. Yet we are sons of the same mother. Some are
born into opulence, others into the most dreadful want. Why am I not a
prince and a great lord, instead of a poor pilgrim on the earth,
ungrateful and rebellious? Why was I born in Europe and at Paris,
whereby civilization and art life is rendered supportable and easy,
instead of seeing the light under the burning skies of the tropics,
where, dressed out in a beastly muzzle, a skin black and oily, and locks
of wool, I should have been exposed to the double torments of a deadly
climate and a barbarous society? Why is not a wretched African negro in
my place in Paris, in conditions of comfort? We have, either of us,
done nothing to entitle us to our assigned places: we have invited
neither this favor nor that disgrace. Why is the unequal distribution of
the terrible evils that fall upon some men, and spare others? How have
those deserved the partiality of fortune, who live in happy lands, while
many of their brethren suffer and weep in other parts of the world?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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