The soul undergoes birth in various wombs on earth – animals, birds, insects, etc. All creatures except man live by instinct and nature. They are bound by their instincts. It is only man who rises above his bodily nature and is able to realize his true nature that he is one with God. Man is bound by his desires and vices and whenever he commits acts in fits of anger, vengeance, lust, passion, greed, possession and lack of knowledge, he binds himself and the others around in twisted knots of karma which spiral out of control. One wrong leads to a backlash which again leads to another act of revenge which again results in greater vengeance. The parties involved need to understand, have the knowledge of what they are doing and the wisdom to stop this spiraling cycle of karma. Only when they consciously put an end to the cycle of hatred, they are able to break the karmic consequences and stop the suffering. It takes a great deal of pain and suffering to understand that when we hit another in vengeance, we are cutting off our own knees. There is one such incident in the life of Buddha where two people wreak vengeance on each other and Buddha helps them to finally put an end to it:
A husband became unhappy and impatient with his wife as she was not able to bear him any children even after many years of marriage. The wife was also troubled and anxious as she was not able to give her husband the children he wanted so badly. She feared that her husband would leave her and take another wife. Before he took any such action, she persuaded her husband to marry again and bring home a young healthy wife to bear him children. But there was great pain and anger in her though she was sweet and polite on the surface. The pain of not having a child and being neglected by her husband was too much for her. Each time the new wife got pregnant, she put some drugs into the food of the pregnant woman and caused her to miscarry. By the time the second wife figured out what was happening, it was too late. Her body and systems had got damaged by the poison of the drugs and multiple miscarriages.
Before the second wife finally collapsed, she swore that she would make the first wife pay for her misdeeds. The karmic bond they had formed by the wrong deeds of the first wife and the pain and agony of the second wife caused them to be born and meet again. In one lifetime, one was a cat and the other a hen; in another life time one was a leopardess and the other a doe and each time they tried to kill each other’s babies. This caused more hatred between them and further strengthened the bonds of negative karma between them. Finally they were born as a daughter of a nobleman and an ogress. One day the ogress in her fury chased the nobleman’s daughter and the baby. The mother ran desperately to the monastery where Buddha was staying and fell at his feet. She begged him to save her child from the vicious ogress.
Buddha made both of them sit in front of him and admonished them. He explained to both of them about their past lives and how their mutual hatred began and how it continued and why they kept attacking and killing each other’s babies. If they had inculcated compassion and forgiveness in their first life, all this suffering, pain and killing could have been avoided. Their hatred for each other kept on escalating and binding them in the ugly cycle of kill and avenge. The lady and the ogress felt great remorse for the past hatred filled activities. They sought forgiveness from each other. Finally the cycle of kill and avenge was broken and they made peace with each other.
We may or may not believe in reincarnation. But the law of returns or karma always works. When we sow good, we reap good. We sow hatred, it only brings back multiple-fold hatred. Let us live in awareness and do away with the vices in us. Let us bring out the qualities of selfless love, compassion, forgiveness and peace which are the qualities of our soul and allow them to shine through in the acts of our daily lives. Let us act in awareness!
