Why Be Motivated If You’re Coming Back?

This is a question that is often asked of religious people of all types. What keeps you motivated in this life if you’re thinking about the next (whether that’s reincarnation or the idea of heaven)?

I believe in reincarnation. I tried not to once but I just couldn’t. It makes too much sense to me! So believing that my soul will return, why do I work hard in this life?

I work extremely hard at self improvement and barely give myself a moment’s rest in the quest for enlightenment. How can that be if I believe, as I do, that I’ll have more chances in the future?

Asking on my Facebook page, I found that my Hindu friends have similar motivations to me. Here’s what keeps me moving forward:

1. Life has a lot of pain in it. Do you really want to have to go through the heartache over and over and over and over and over forever?
2. I have respect for my past self and all the work that I’ve put in previously. I want to honor that work and continue it
3. Life now is fine, but there’s a grand and lasting bliss available if we work towards it.
4. Some branches believe that a human embodiment is rare. I think that all believe the human embodiment is the only one from which one can become enlightened (attain Moksha/Samadhi). When you manage to get a human body, it’s not worth wasting that opportunity

Here’s what friends on Facebook had to say…

“Perhaps it’s because of the average/expected length of a lifetime and the painful process we go through to be born and grow up and die…something that we don’t want to see happen in vain. Personally when I feel I am suffering I think, “I don’t want to have to come back and do this again, what can I learn from it now to prevent that?” But that’s negative/pain motivation, which is not the most high-level kind, and it’s probably aggravating my suffering to focus on it…”

“i think the biggest motivation should come from this – that there is no surety that i might be a human again !”

“If I get it *right* THIS time… I dont have to come back for another round of this crap and can move on to the next grand adventure.”

“To find the truth. To connect with it. To grow. My motivation spiritually is to grow and experience.”

” I don’t care about next life I m given this life so I have to do my Karma without thinking of results who knows Shri Krishna may give me moksha…”

“This is where suffering comes in. When one undergoes suffering in any form like bad health, stress, then one wants to end suffering for ever and just be happy and peaceful again. When one undergoes this suffering again and again, they start striving towards freedom from suffering altogether in the form of salvation or moksha. Just imagine undergoing this suffering again and again for counteless births. It is so much wiser to try to overcome it altoghter now in this human birth when possible.”

“Not coming back is a huge motivation! I’ll need a very long rest after this one!”