Chinmayananda Saraswati

Karma - Part 8

Dear Ones,

With all the learning from the posts on Karma, we will try and address to the questions with which this subject was started earlier.

Question:

I am very unclear and confused. Bhagavan Shri Krishna says that all that is happening is predestined and nothing moves without His sanction. Then He says in BG 2.47 'Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion-at that time I descend Myself.'  Are these two declarations not contradictory in themselves? Does it mean that God creates all adharma and then descends to destroy adharma?? Why should He witness adharma in the first place at all?

Answer:

When Lord says all the happening is pre-destined, He does not necessarily say that the destiny is decided by Him. From the 3 karmas we learnt, we know very well that with every action in the present with the new arrows (arrows in hand, where we have the choice/ freedom to choose the direction and goal to shoot). So, we have decided our destiny.

Nothing moves without His sanction - By sanction, what is conveyed??? God sanctions the environment in which we have to be born, the people amidst whom we have to live and also, as Ramana said, Lord also sanctions the choice of white and red arrows which we have to carry with us, with His blessing, that in the process of undergoing experience while suffering due to the red arrows and enjoying due to the white arrows, we return to Him in this birth, more evolved spiritually, more nearer to Him than in our previous birth.

The arrows that we carry are ours. The sins and the virtues are committed by us. However, to help us in choosing the new arrows kriyamana karma, Lord descends from time to time, to show us, How to lead our life, How to practice values, How to be a master archer in aiming the new arrows on one hand and to under go the effect of the in flight arrows, prarabdha, no matter how harsh is our experience as a result of those arrows, by surrendering to the Lord. He gives us the strength (Shakti do mere Sai Shiva), to undergo the most painful experience due to our prarabdha, with smile, singing His glory and immersed in His thoughts.

Question:

Rather, the famous question we dealt in the post WHY GOD CREATED MAN - O Lord, if You have to create me, push me into the roller coaster of life, fill me with ignorance, make me take up so many actions out of ego, suffer for the actions again and again and at last after several births, to realize You and reach You, then why did You create me in the first place at all. With no creation, with ONLY YOU, how peaceful it would have been? (Gup chup tamasha dekhe, waah re teri khudayi, kahe ko duniya banayi????? Here we are suffering and you say, it is a sport for you to create us!!!!!) 

Lord answers

(From the Post dated 17/12/2016- God  says “No joy of the senses, no joy of possession, can match the joy of God. Though I had everything from eternity to eternity, I began to think, “I am all-powerful, and Joy itself, but there is no one else to enjoy Me. I will make souls in My image, and clothe them as human beings with free choice, to see whether they will seek My material gifts and the temptations of money, wine, and sex; or whether they will seek the million times more intoxicating joy of My consciousness.” )

“I created you as my image, to exist as ME, to come back to ME, to merge in ME, to get the experience of MERGENCE IN LORD, LIBERATION, which only you as a human can get, which even devas and Indra are deprived off. Did I ever command that you forget that you are ME and you are you, the ego and then to gratify your ego, undergo all actions with Raga and Dvesha, Attachment and Hatred????"

“By gone is bygone. Given moment is NOW. Start practicing MY instructions, aim your new arrows with perfection, gather all purer arrows from TODAY, THIS MOMENT onwards and I ASSURE you, this cycle of birth and death will soon be over!!!”

  

Question:

I have always been a pious man, given in charity and donated to the temple. Never thought of any harm to any one in my life. I am regular in attending weekly bhajans, take up little seva in my free time, visit holy shrines once in a year, regular in visiting temple etc. Then why am I made to suffer like this? On the other hand, I find people with no interest in spirituality, with no interest to do any charity, not following principles in life, prospering enormously in front of my eyes. Why this contradiction???

Answer: Professor Anil Kumar took upon himself, with his small ego, to recommend a case of a blind man to Swami and told Swami, "Swami, I have been observing this devotee for a long time, why don’t You cure him and grant him vision. Swami replied- “You know only his present, I know all his past, present and future. Do you want to know what all sins he has committed in his previous birth for which he has to suffer this blindness in his present birth??

Also, in this birth, He is aware of me, He visits parthi, he has few people to take care of his needs Suppose I cure him of his blindness in this birth, can you assure that in the next birth when he is born blind again, He will be near me, he will have people to help him????? Whatever he has to suffer, he must suffer and hence, if I cure him now, then later, in next birth, he has to be blind to clear his past karmas.

After Swamis words, do I need to say anything more?. Please read what Swami said above and get the answers for the question in ther depth of silence your self!!.

Question:

What is fate? Why is a person born in a particular place to a particular parents, some rich, some poor, some beautiful, some wise etc.?

Answer: Hope the post on  prarandha karma, the arrows in flight answers  this question more than adequately.  About our getting particular parents, environment, in that post, a truth revealed by Ramana on how and why God chooses a particular combination of good and bad arrows is given, which answers to the question.

About disparity in the status, beauty, intellect amongst various people- the answer is – each one brings along with him, his own past karmas and to discharge the past karmas and experience the result/ effect of the karmas caused by each one in the past, each humam being is born with different attrbutues, in different environment, with different power, different financial status etc.

Question:

After we are born in this world with certain predetermined benefits (like being rich, wise etc), one has to lead an ongoing good life. At this juncture what is the role of God? Is He going to change my fate in my present life, or does He have no control at all, once fate is determined by my past actions? Why I should pray to God?

Answer:- Though this is going to be  explained after couple of posts, in one sentence if this has to be answered- PRAYING TO LORD GIVES US THE STRENGTH TO UNDERGO ALL THE SUFFERING WITH EASE. BUT FOR HIS PRESENCE, HIS LOVE, HIS GRACE, WOULD THIS WORLD BE LIKE THIS, WITH INFINITE HUMAN BEINGS SUFFERING DUE TO THEIR PRARABDHA???

Swami has given a totally different dimension to free will which is quite contradictory (apparently) to the purushartha, free will v/s destiny which we learnt in the previous post, absolutely opposite to what Swami Sivananda roared- “Dear friends! Man is the master of his destiny. Wake up now from the deep slumber of ignorance. Never become a fatalist. Think rightly. Act rightly. Lead a virtuous life. Never hurt the feelings of others. Mould your character. Purify your mind. Concentrate. Thou art Nitya Mukta Purusha. Tat Tvam Asi-Thou art That.”

Don’t try to google and find out what Sai said about free will. Even if you do that, 90% chance is that you will be totally confused as it does not match with the purushartha which we learnt just a while ago.

Well, live with that confusion if you have to, for couple of days until Swami’s answer to free will shall be dealt exclusively where we, of course with HIS GRACE, would try and absorb His answer in the exact way He meant while  giving that answer.

And, at the end of that post, I shall repeat the above question and would leave you to easily get the most satisfactory answer from Bhagwan Himself, in that post.

Question:

How can I do my duties if everything is predestined? I want to do them and I want to follow the teachings of God, but circumstances prevailing at certain times sometimes push me to take any optional decision which ultimately proves to be disastrous.

Answer: This was addressed in an example of landing in Kolkata station and having to decide between a wrong street and the place of Thakur, Dakshineswar. We have to have the conviction, we have to have the strength, we should close our eyes, draw ourselves within and without our ego peeping in, we have to ask ourselves and our conscience will always give us the correct answer as to which way we have to proceed. What is right and what is wrong.

The problem arises only due to one single reason. When we are week internally, the impact of all the sufferings which we undergo due to our prarabdha karma has a direct influence  on our power/discrimination to aim the new arrows of agami karma and to shoot them to perfection in accordance with the teachings of Masters, of the Lord.

For example, if one has some one suffering from cancer at his home/one is child less/one stands with all his property seized by some one whom he believed as very near to him, one whose child/near one suddenly met with an accident and lost his life and to that someone, if a sadhu walks in and says, what ever you are undergoing should not at all affect your sincere sadhana. You should start reading scriptures, practice meditation, visit temple, get inward.

How many would have the ear to listen to the advice of that sadhu, though what ever he says is perhaps the only remedy for the one who is undergoing all the pain.

The pain due to one of the incidents cited above makes the one so week, so demoralized that he cannot take new actions, shoot new arrows of agami karma, with conviction and positivity. This happens even if the person sincerely believes in Sadhu’s words. (I want to do them and I want to follow the teachings of God, but circumstances prevailing at certain times sometimes push me to take any optional decision which ultimately proves to be disastrous).

In the last 5 years, the author would have witnessed at least a dozen human beings who came to him, attended few or many sessions and then returned, saying that “we believe  in your sessions, we believe in your teachings, but we are not able to pursue them due to our own situations”.

Dear Ones,

Sivananda’s words in the previous post –“ Do not weep. Do not cry over spilt milk. There is no use. You will not gain anything by so doing. Instead of weeping over the failure of crops during last year, go on ploughing this year. You will get abundant rain this year and rich harvest. Do virtuous actions now. Think rightly. Act rightly. You will have a brilliant and a glorious future."

What ever may be the experience our prarabdha fetches for us, those experience must be undergone separately and they must never ever be allowed to influence/demoralize us and make us take a wrong aim in discharging the new arrows, our purushartha, the agami karmas!

Question;

Some people claim that what is to happen in this life is already determined by God (i.e. fate). Their idea is that we do not have much control on our life. We are under the illusion of Maya. Others think that only because of our intelligence and our carefully executed efforts, we achieve desirable ends. My question is, do our efforts really matter?

Answer: Adequately answered in previous question. Still, learning of 4 purusharthas, learning of our role in various ashramas in life from youth to old age, to be taken up in the next posts, will further add to clarity for getting answers to this question. Also, regarding the use of intellect, a separate series of posts under the label “Anthakarana - Manas, Buddhi, Chitta, Ahamkara” awaits you in future.

Love.