The evil debts came from the evil deeds of our past lives. By looking at a person, a good fortune teller can read him like a book. For this very reason we see people from the very fortunate to the very unfortunate. The two opposites, be it in appearance to practically anything we can see in a human. The saying of "What we are experiencing in this life is the effect of what we have done in our previous lives" is very true. Just like what we do today affects our tomorrow. For a better tomorrow we must know what to do today.

Since the time we are born, we are slowly deviating from our inborn virtuous nature. We do a lot of things that may not be according to our conscience and thus create a lot of sins. This is the reason we have to go through the endless cycle of reincarnation during which we are bound to commit even more evil deeds.

For example:

1] Cheating others of their money or borrow money without returning. All these will create monetary debts.

2] Use one's power to oppress others or disregard the law and ill treat others. All these will create debts of grievances.

3] Kill animals for consumption or murder somebody for his money. These will create live debts.

4] Being cunning and instigating others to have dispute. These will create vile debts.

Other examples are; separating parents from their children, breaking up other people's marriages, ruining other's reputation and moral integrity, profiting at the expense of other's, seizing other people's love, preventing other people from performing charities, leading other people to commit sin and etc. All these are the causes of evil debts.

The common saying, "Return money to settle debts and pay with our lives for killing."

The most sinful among those mentioned is killing. It creates the deepest hatred and there is no way of escaping. This is especially true during this last stage where not a single debt will be left unclaimed by the unseen creditors or revengeful spirits. There are many strange happenings nowadays and calamities for example like wars, fire, flood, diseases, famine, typhoon, hurricane, tsumani etc. Man's heart is becoming incomprehensible and almost everyday we can see heinous crimes in the papers. People just die very tragically. This is because of evil debts of the past lives ripen if one did not commit it in this life. It is just unexplained to most people who cannot understand why such a good person can die in the painful manner.

Can we settle the evil debts? In order to settle the evil debts, we must know that evil deeds are performed with our mortal body and the evil thoughts are initiated from our mind. If we do not eradicate them ourselves but instead ask others to eradicate them for us, then it is like climbing the tree to catch the fish - a fruitless attempt.

We have planted the seeds in our past lives and now we are tasting the fruits of these seeds. It is very natural and sensible that if we owe a debt in our previous lives, we will have to repay it in this life. If we are bullied now, we must deem it that we have bullied others in our previous lives. If we have to pay back any debts in this life, we must do it with equanimity. We must not blame anyone and should pay back willingly, then we will be able to settle our evil debts.

However, if we do not understand this, then we will begin to harbour resentment, and instead of settling the past debts, we are creating new debts.

If we did not cultivate in our past lives, then we may be living in poverty and destitute and suffering from illnesses throughout this life. We may be cheated or slandered and are unsuccessful in all undertakings. We may also meet with disasters and accidents. We may have planted the seeds of evil in the past and now we are tasting the fruits! Thus going through our present lives, we must not forget to repent and work hard to overcome all hardships without grievances and fear. In this way we will be able to settle some of the evil debts and at the same time plant good seeds for the future lives.

Author: T.A Chew