Wouldn’t it be great to have a do-over when your life doesn’t seem to go as planned? One of the key ’drivers’ in the story line of my novel is the concept of reincarnation. It has also been the core subject of recent Hollywood films. Last time, I ‘posed’ the question, are we unconsciously asking questions about the nature of the universe when we buy movie tickets and books based on mystical subjects?
How do you feel about this? Have you wondered why lately, we are being inundated with film and television programs that expand our accepted ideas of matter, space, time, humanity? Clearly, there is an interest. Just this week, a film based on a bestselling novel was released. It does not focus on multiple lives specifically, but it is somewhat tangential because it does bring the nature of the soul into the conversation. What is even more interesting is that the story deals with ‘choices’. The central character faces two decisions: choosing between life and death and choosing between two different destinies.
Have you ever found yourself in uncharted territory, a place that challenges your belief system? While studying Eastern religions and philosophy in graduate school, I found myself bouncing back and forth between Hinduism and Buddhism. Both religions share two big ideas that easily became my favorite subjects because the possibility of them was so intriguing. They were reincarnation and karma. The benefits were hard to deny.
The intriguing thing about reincarnation was the notion that a person has more than one opportunity to get it right. Not one choice based on how to live one lifetime as in the film, but many choices that arise from many lifetimes. And as a soul or individual improves through experience over the course of many lifetimes, it perfects itself.
Suspend your disbelief for a moment. If it is so, do you think there’s a reward in having to come back over and over again? This is where the second big idea, karma, comes into play. Have you ever wondered if it’s true, the notion that good actions bring good things and bad actions similarly bring bad things?
In “Laws of Inertia”, Isaac Newton wrote, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Anthony J. Fisichella compares this to the Law of Karma sometimes known as the Law of Cause and Effect. Fisichella wrote, [karma] “…dictates…the response to a cause [deed or thought]…shall be equal and opposite—equal in intensity and nature…opposite in direction, rebounding upon whomsoever generated the cause.”
If the Law of Karma does exist in the universe, is this where the ‘rewards program’ begins to mean something you? And if the Law of Reincarnation was tied to Karma, would it work like this?
People living more than one life are given multiple opportunities for reward if those lives are dedicated to good deeds. A life well spent would produce another life full of good fortune. Would this be the best rewards program?