In the Hindu view of life, the soul is not permanently attached to one body. A soul first enters the world in the body of a simple life form – not a human. When that first body dies, the soul moves on to a more complex life form and is reborn there. This has been compared to the way people outgrow clothes and need new ones. The process of rebirth is called samsara, The Bhagavad Gita, part of a Hindu epic, says:
Worn-out garments are shed by the body; worn-out bodies are shed by the dweller.
When the soul has reached a certain level of development it enters a human body. It continues to pass from body to body, but the choices the soul makes in each life affect the next life. Unkind acts in one lifetime may mean hardships in the next lifetime. In this way, the soul creates its own future. If bad things happen to us, we have no one to blame but ourselves; these bad things are caused by our own negative acts in past lives.
If people are responsible for their own futures, what would be the best way to act in this lifetime?