Answer: We request you to read the book “Life after death” by Swami Abhedananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna.

In “Katha Upanishad”, Nachiketa has already asked this question to the God of Death (Yama). So, please read the book “Katha Upansihad” and also “Raja Yoga”. When you become a yogi of the highest order, you can concentrate your mind on your past lives, and problems like birth and death, and know the secret for yourself. There is nothing so secret kept behind the earnest seeker. Struggle hard and you can know it yourself. My simple question to you is – do you give out all your inner secrets to anybody and everybody? Are you so open? Is everything transparent with you?

The scriptures say that we identify ourselves with our body-mind-complex and think ourselves to be as the mere body-mind-complex which is essentially inert; the body is gross whereas the mind is subtle, but both are inert only. This is happening due to our ignorance about our Real Nature which is Pure Consciousness. Once a person realizes his Real Nature through the spiritual practices and God’s grace, he himself will automatically be able to know the secret of the birth and death and also he will not be bound in the chain of birth and death; he will then become free – the Liberated, Mukta Purusha. The ignorance again is due to our innumerable desires, Samskaras or the impressions in the mind; these Samskaras are stored embedded in the depth of the mind acquired through all our actions happened in different births. Each action / thought we do leaves behind an impression in our mind; these impressions are powerful and determines one’s propensities or to say, the character. Through spiritual practices one attains purity and these impressions get lost or loose their power and then the inner light flashes revealing the Real Nature of the person. In spiritual life, the grace of God and Guru is essential. Again, the God likes the play of this world going. So, He keeps certain things in secret. That is His wish. But, He listens to the sincere prayers and is moved by the spiritual practices of His devotee and thus He compassionately loosens the bonds of the devotee and frees him from the chain of birth and death. Hope this will clear your doubts to some extent.

Response to the Above: The creation of God is excellent. Endless human sufferings too excellent. Is it called frolics of God? If somebody does harm to you, don’t you call it sadism? Please answer me.

Answer to the above Response: We, the created beings, suffer or enjoy owing to our own past actions -mental or verbal or physical, performed in this life as well as during our innumerable earlier lives about which most of us have forgotten. It is somewhat like – if a man eats chili, his mouth is supposed to burn inside. How it happens? In two ways: Individual and Providential.

Individual: Each action results in the mind an impression. It is said, the mind is like a video camera, nay, much more than that; as, video camera can capture only sound and picture, but the mind can access many such dimensions Ð sound, picture, smell, touch, taste, hatred, love, jealousy, bliss, etc. When we do good actions, good impressions are left behind, and similarly for bad actions, bad impressions. Repeated such actions make the similar impressions stronger. When in a person the good impressions are prevalent, his propensities become good and so for the bad ones. These propensities determine the character of a person. Under same circumstance, a bad and a good man will act in a different way depending on their impressions. Also these stored impressions determine the mental and physical sufferings or enjoyments of a person as a matter of consequence, as Swami Vivekananda says, “If you project hatred and jealousy, they will rebound on you with compound interest. No power can avert them; when once you have put them in motion, you will have to bear them. Remembering this will prevent you from doing wicked things.” (Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. 1, p. 262) So, whatever we do should carefully and thoughtfully be done. Providential: Again, as in the world, for bad actions or, for good actions in the society, a person is punished or praised, similarly each of our actions – gross or subtle, the Providence observes every bit of these actions and accordingly sufferings or enjoyments are granted by Him to a person. God has both aspects: benign or gracious and dreadful or terrible aspect. We should not expect that He should always be kind and compassionate; is it right to expect this for our misdeeds also? It is like, in a family, the parents chastise their children at times, only for their good and also for the smooth-going of the things around. Our sufferings also are good in its real consequence, though most of us do not understand it.

Thus, you understand that God is not to be called the sadist for the sufferings in His creation. Whether we call Him to be a sadist or compassionate, it does not affect Him at all. As we had written in our earlier e-mail to read some books, please do read those along with other books of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda-Vedanta Literature, for example, “Karma YogaÓ, ÒBhagavad Gita” (Chapter 3, 4). This will help you to keep up your spirit and also help you gradually to reduce the bad thoughts; this also will enable to clear your doubts gradually in the life. These books or some scriptures are to be read and also contemplated on the sublime ideas; along with this, spiritual practices are to be done – these will help you understand gradually the subtler things in the world. Through the grace of the God and these Spiritual Practices, one realizes his Real Nature and becomes free from the sufferings as well as from the chain of birth and