The Vedic teachings about reincarnation offer us an opportunity to understand our material circumstances more deeply, and those teachings answer questions that might otherwise yield no suitable answers.
- Why are living beings born in such a multiplicity of forms and circumstances? Not by chance but because of their previous acts.
- How is it that some people have extraordinary skills, even at an early age? How is it, for example, that Mozart was composing symphonies by the age of 4? If we accept the Vedic point of view, those skills may have persisted from a previous life.
- Even with ordinary abilities—some of us are good at mechanics, others at math—reincarnation offers explanatory value.
- Why do some of us have particular fears, others particular objects of fondness? One contributing reason may be the circumstances of a previous life.
- Why do some people feel they’ve got “the wrong gender”? Some men feel like they “should be” women, some women like they should be men. Why? Feelings persisting from a previous life offer, again, a contributing answer.
- The Vedic answer also virtually solves “the problem of evil.”
Why do the innocent suffer? Why do bad things happen to good people? How can a just God permit injustice in the world? As soon as we accept the Vedic view, the problem virtually dissolves. For no longer is anyone “innocent.” None of us is merely a blank slate. Each of us has to suffer or enjoy the results of our own past acts.
The International Bhakti Yoga Society 