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Chapter 2
The beings' unhappy fates are not a "punishment" for "sins" committed
All unhappy fates are thus solely effects of the concerned beings' previously committed wrong manifestations of will or conduct. But as the beings' present fate does not consist solely of the effects of mistakes made in their present life but also consists of the effects of the mistakes they made in previous incarnations or former lives, these beings do not, as a rule, have any understanding at all of the most profound cause of their own unhappy fate. They cannot see any justice whatsoever in the part of their fate that they experience as unhappiness and suffering. At worst they therefore regard their fate, their unhappiness and suffering as effects of chance forces, and at best as punishment from God for having lived a "sinful" life. While the first notion is of course completely absurd, the second, when we remove the word "punishment", is closer to the truth. The unpleasant fate is not a punishment for sins but, as previously mentioned, is solely the result of its misactions or wrongdoings. But as these actions are in reality consequences of their sources' cosmic ignorance, these sources cannot be sinful either in the sense of deserving punishment. A being cannot act on knowledge that it does not have. If it could, mistakes could never occur. But mistakes are the foundation of all terrestrial human evolution. From the effects of mistakes the human being learns to act correctly. They give rise to wisdom, which in its highest appearance is the same as "cosmic consciousness", which is in turn the foundation of the very highest form of life experience and the ensuing culminatory experience of joy in living.


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