Rāma now shows the immediate and remote results of being immersed in truthfulness [as taught in the scriptures] as well as attainment of hell by being devoid of truthfulness.

NOTE. One controls the whole world and another controls only his family. This is visible to one and all. The reason for such a diversity since birth is most reasonably explained by the law of karma, which is explicated in the Vedic scriptures.¹

The Āyurvedic text Caraka-saṁhitā notes that reincarnation according to one’s karmic backlog can be sensed on the basis of the following commonplace recurrences:

Parents having very dissimilar children

People having similar births with numerous distinct characteristics in terms of complexion, voice, shape, strength, intelligence and fate

Some are born in [economically] superior families and others in inferior ones

Some are servants, others opulent masters [since birth or despite equal endeavor]

Some have a happy lifespan, others unhappy

The lifespans themselves differ

Some get benefitted in this life for their good deeds, [others don’t]

Even untrained children know [when and how] to cry [to call for attention], drink their mother’s milk, laugh, panic and so on

Each has unique bodily features

For the selfsame action, different persons get different results

Some have natural skills to perform certain actions, others don’t

Spontaneous remembrance of past lives, such as “I was here,” etc.

Instinctively liking someone immediately after meeting them or disliking them.²

In Tattva-sandarbha (53-55), Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī gives four logical arguments for the existence of a nonmaterial conscious soul:

anvaya-vyatirekākhyas tarkaḥ syāc catur-ātmakaḥ
āgamāpāyi-tad-avadhi-bhedena prathamo mataḥ

draṣṭṛ-dṛśya-vibhāgena dvitīyo ’pi matas tathā
sākṣi-sākṣya-vibhāgena tṛtīyaḥ sammataḥ satām

duḥkhi-premāspadatvena caturthaḥ sukha-bodhakaḥ

“There are four arguments [showing the difference between matter and spirit], using the logic of positive and negative comparison. The first proceeds from the distinction between what comes and goes and what is the ultimate ground of both coming and going. The second proceeds from the distinction between the seer and the seen. The third proceeds from the distinction between the witness and the witnessed, according to the opinion of saintly authorities. And the fourth, which reveals [the nature of] happiness, proceeds from the distinction between being unhappy and being a reservoir of love.”

The first argument is that the body and mind undergo changes while the conscious observer remains intact as the same entity despite the changes undergone by the body; in other words we can understand that we as conscious selves have not changed despite the changes of the body—we are aware that we are the same individual person perceiving the ever-changing body. The second argument is that the body is perceived while the conscious entity is the perceiver; this should be obvious. The third argument demonstrates that the conscious entity witnesses its own existence during the state of deep sleep (that is distinct from dreaming and wakefulness) by an experience of happiness that is not derived from the body (or the mind), while the body is the witnessed.³ The fourth argument is that matter is intrinsically not productive of happiness to the conscious observer while the conscious observer is the reservoir of selfless affection.⁴

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