The karma, which one is now acquiring and storing up by reason of one’s actions, deeds, thoughts and mental and spiritual relationships, will spring into operation in future lives, when the body (and environment) appropriate for its manifestation presents itself. One does not necessarily have to wait until a future life for the manifestation of karma of the present life. For if there comes a time when there is no obstructing karma from a past life, the present life karma may begin to manifest. The Karma brought over from past incarnations, which is not able to manifest at the present time owing to the opposition presented by other karma of an opposite nature, serves to hold the first in check. It is a well known physical law, which likewise manifests on the mental plane, that two opposing forces result in neutralisation. Of course, a more powerful karma may manage to operate, while a weaker is held in check by it.
There are two great principles at work in the matter of karmic law affecting the conditions of rebirth:
The first principle is that whereby the prevailing desires, aspirations, likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions, etc., press the soul into conditions in which these characteristics may have a favourable environment for development.
The second principle is that which may be spoken of as the urge of the unfolding spirit.
It is always urging toward fuller expression, and the breaking down of confining sheaths, which thus exerts a pressure upon the soul awaiting reincarnation. This causes it to seek higher environments and conditions than its desires, aspirations and general characteristics would demand.
These two apparently conflicting (actually harmonious) principles acting and reacting upon each other, determine the conditions of rebirth, and have a very material effect upon the karmic law. One’s life is largely a conflict between these two forces, the one tending to hold the soul to the present conditions resulting from past lives and the other ever at work seeking to uplift it to greater heights.
The desires and characteristics brought over from past lives, of course seek fuller expression and manifestation upon the lines of the past lives. These tendencies simply wish to be let alone and grow according to their own laws of development and manifestation. But the unfolding spirit, knowing that the soul’s best interests are along the lines of spiritual unfoldment and growth, brings a steady pressure upon the soul causing it to gradually kill the lower desires and characteristics thus enabling spiritual growth. It is that infinite love of the Absolute that is primarily responsible for the upward tendencies of the soul.
One of the greatest difficulties in the way of the seeker is the feeling that rebirth is being forced upon the individual, without any say on one’s part. However this is far from being correct. The soul is attracted toward rebirth by the essence of its desires.
It is reborn only because it has within itself the desire for further experience and opportunity for growth. It is true that the soul of one filled with earthly desires will by the very force of those desires be drawn back to earthly re-birth in a body best suited for the gratification of those desires. The earth-sick soul is not compelled to return unless its own desires bring it back. The sum of the desires of the soul, constitute the motivation to be reborn. Those who are reborn on earth are not reborn against their will or desire. They are carried into the current of re-birth because their desires have created longings that can be satisfied only by renewed life in the flesh. Although they are not conscious of it, they instinctively place themselves again within the operations of the law of attraction, and are swept on to re-birth, in exactly the environment best suited to enable them to live out and exhaust the force of desires. They hunger to satisfy their longings and until that hunger is appeased, the desires cannot be discarded.
This does not mean that every desire must necessarily be lived out, for it happens frequently that new insight and experience causes the soul to turn away from a former object of desire, and the desire thus dies a natural death.
But so long as the desire remains alive, it tends to attract the soul toward objects and environments which are likely to satisfy it. The soul, preserving its desire for things of flesh and the material life is not able to divorce itself from these things, and naturally falls into the current of re-birth.
The article is taken from the book Life Beyond Death by Anil Sharma