Prof. Anil Kumar
Questions and Answers


What is wrong if you are reborn time and again?
This is a very nice question. There is nothing wrong with being reborn. And when
we are reborn, we won't remember what we have done today. So I can do anything
today! After all, the next time around, I will take care of it.
So, rebirth can be a very convenient mechanism that allows us our freedom here —
freedom of action and freedom of movement. But my friend, we must understand
that life is bondage. Life is limited. Life is dual. Life is painful.
A newborn baby does not start life with a smile. He starts life in tears. If the
newborn baby does not cry, nurses in the hospital will make the baby cry
(Laughter) because, when the baby cries, that indicates that there is life
within the baby. So, the first sign of life is a good cry.
Now, do you want to cry until death? I don't know. (Laughter) Maybe you do. And
remember that, as the parents and nurses make the child cry, they celebrate.
(Laughter) So because I am crying, others are celebrating. That is the way of
the world, my friends. (These are not my ideas. All of this is taken from
Swami's discourses.)
Life is just a continuous stream or flow of dual experiences, and our journey
should eventually end with the non-dual experience of birthlessness and
deathlessness. Once you experience that, once you have travelled from this
shore of birth and have reached that other shore of birthlessness, you have
completed the spiritual journey.
"What is the harm in being born again?" There is no harm as long as I am
prepared to pass through the pain of incarnation time and again. Pleasure, as
Baba puts it, is just the interval between two pains. Pain is there in the
beginning, and pain is there in the end; pleasure lies in-between.
Life is a chance to attain liberation. Life is an opportunity. Life is a
blessing to work for the better, to journey from birth to birthlessness, from
death to deathlessness, from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, and from
mortality to immortality. That is what life is for.

Sai Ram

Sarika
(London)