Question: You said that the soul chooses the family in which it is going to be born. What happens to the soul if it chooses a bad family?

Sri Chinmoy: Let us take the soul as the owner of the house and the family as the house. As the owner, if you feel that this particular house is not giving you joy or not fulfilling you, then immediately you will try to get another which will give you fulfilment. When the soul is disgusted with a particular family, it may leave its present body and enter into some other body. Since the soul has wisdom and light, it will come back in a place with a better environment, one that offers more fulfilment. If the house is all right, then the soul does not have to move. When you have a nice house, you do not want to change it; you want to get as much as possible from that house. When the soul gets a proper house, that is to say a good environment and a good family in which everyone is aspiring, then naturally the soul will stay there.