| The question
may be asked, how can it produce any enthusiasm to be told that something will be fruitful
in a future birth? We shall be born in the next birth without any memories of the past. We
do not now remember anything of our past lives nor will the memories of this life follow
us in the next birth. Therefore, it may be asked, what does it matter whether we do good
or evil. Let us seek the pleasures of the present moment. If I am born again I shall then be a different person remembering nothing of the
present’. When there is no continuity of memory there is no bond between him and me.
How can one feel an identity without continuity of memory? Why should I labour, renounce
or retrench my joy for one that will come to exist who is not me? For, with death
the memories of this life end.
Thus may the seeker of pleasure or student of human
incentives object to the teaching Vedanta about right conduct and self-control for the
sake of a future birth where unto the ego-memory is not conveyed. |
