2/17/18
“In countries where reincarnation and karma are taken for granted by every peasant and laborer, the belief spreads a certain quiet acceptance of inevitable troubles that conduces much to the calm and contentment of ordinary ife.
A man overwhelmed by misfortunes rails neither agains God nor against his neighbors, but regards his troubles as the results of his own past mistakes and ill-doings.
He accepts them resignedly and makes the best of them, and thus escapes much of the worry and anxiety with which those who know not the law aggravate troubles already sufficiently heavy.
He realizes that his future lives depend on his own exertions, and that the law which brings him pain will bring him joy just as inevitably if he sows the seed of good. Hence a certain large patience and a philosophic view of life, tending directly to social stability and to general contentment.
The poor and ignorant do not study profound and detailed metaphysics, but they grasp thoroughly these simple principles – that every man is reborn on earth time after time, and that each successive life is molded by those that precede it.
To them rebirth is as sure and as inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun; it is part of the course of nature, against which it is idle to repine or rebel.
When Theosophy has restored these ancient truths to their rightful place in western thought, they will gradually work their way among all classes of society in Christendom, spreading understanding of the nature of life and acceptance of the results of the past.
Then too will vanish the restless discontent which arises chiefly from the impatient and hopeless feeling that life is unintelligible, unjust, and unmanageable, and it will be replaced by the quiet strength and patience which come from an illumined intellect and a knowledge of the law, and which characterize the reasoned and balanced activity of those who feel that they are building for eternity.”
Annie Besant
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 