We often look at our lives from a very myopic viewpoint i.e. we are born, we live and then we die and there is nothing before or after that. However, according to Spiritual science, our life is but a part of a continuum of many lives from our first birth till we finally realise God or until our dissolution. In other words, we all come from God and finally have to go back to God. Every time we are born on Earth, it is an opportunity to make spiritual progress so as to move closer to our final goal i.e. becoming one with God. From the standpoint of spiritual growth, the opportunity to be born on Earth, if used well, can result in our rapid spiritual growth. Refer to point 3.2 in the article ‘Where do we go after death’.Every time we are born on Earth, we learn afresh the various worldly activities such as walking, talking, pursuing academic studies or a career etc. When it comes to spiritual understanding and growth, we start where we left off in our previous lifetime. Our deeds and spiritual practice done in previous lifetimes, either on Earth and/or in other subtle regions of the Universe, pre-decide the major events of our current life and the happiness and unhappiness we are due to experience. This is known as our destiny and in current times it makes up 65% of our lives. Refer to the article on, ‘What is destiny and wilful action?’
When people enjoy tremendous worldly success or happiness, it is generally due to merits from a previous lifetime. Worldly success does not raise any eye-brows from a spiritual standpoint. However, when a person pledges to donate a substantial amount of his fortune along with his complete time to help the world, it does raise interest from a spiritual standpoint. There are very few people who are able to walk away from their wealth and also devote their time to help society. It is for this reason the Spiritual Science Research Foundation proceeded to find out through spiritual research, the contributing factors
