RE: Karma and transmigration - Part 2

From the Bhakti List Archives

• September 13, 1999


Dear friends,  I forgot to answer another point raised by Sri Chris in his 
email:
*******************
He wrote :

one thing which i have always wondered is, if we are reincarnated again and 
again in order to become perfect (to work through bad karma and eventually
break free of the cycle of rebirths), wouldn't it make more sense just to
extend our lifespans to the length necessary to achieve this?


[Krishna Kalale]
What if the life spans cannot be extended enough to deal with the amount of 
karmas one does?  For example, one of the shastras state, in half a kshana 
or moment,  one can do so many sins that even 100s of births will not be 
sufficient to repent and neutralize those sins.  At the same time there are 
some holy acts, if one does,  sins done in 100s of births will be destroyed 
in a second.  This is just for example;  It is however possible to extend a 
particular lifespan to a certain extent to allow that person to work out 
certain karmas.

There is another issue in the semitic view which is not acceptable to the 
vedantic view.  Once a person dies, that person has only two places, 
 heaven or hell.  This digital choice makes it impossible for a obsessed 
sinner to ever turn back, once he dies for some reason.  Vedantic systems 
allow even such sinners to have an exit from their sinful paths.  I guess 
that is why the concept called "purgatory" exists.  I am not sure that this 
purgatory is a correction center where the soul can work to rectify its bad 
orientation.  If purgatory is such a place, then the semitic view needs to 
only answer the problem of discrimination or difference at birth and how 
that does not taint or affect the impartial nature of God.

 ,peace,

chris bauch

[Krishna Kalale]  adiyen krishna 
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