Hari
OM
Story-day is for cultural exploration, puraanas and
parables and finding out about leading lights in spiritual philosophy.
If there is no God, are we not wasting our time trying to be good?
Again, if there is a God He must be far too good natured to want to punish us
if we act wrongly. So either way it hardly matters how we act. We might as well
have our cake and eat it too! This is the argument projected in seeking
complete freedom in morality. The busy man of the world has perhaps forgotten
that it is not because there is a God above who is too mean to allow us to get
away with all our bad deeds, but perhaps he is too good not to give us what we
demanded, and that we get “rewarded” or “punished”, or get conducive or
non-conducive results by the very fact of our choosing to act in a particular
way. It is within a certain freedom that we carve out our own future.
SWAMI CHINMAYANANDA here explains very clearly the Law of Karma
which is so much misunderstood by some.
“Each moment of our life, we are not only living the fruits of the
past actions, but also creating those of tomorrow. Each of our actions has got
its own time-limit for its fruition. Every action has got its own reaction;
certain actions give their reaction immediately while others will provide their
reactions only after interval. The Law of Karma is based upon the final
conclusion that this life is not an end in itself but is just one of the little
incidents in the Eternal Existence of each of us. Let us suppose that we have
just “fallen” from truth or Reality into this momentous and calamitous
misunderstanding, then we should not have such a dissimilar scheme, of each Ego
living its own life of special joys and woes. When we enquire why there are such
differences, we are driven to the conclusion that, having risen from different
“causes”, each of us should manifest as a different “effect”. Effects depend
upon their causes. This life in which we are living is only one of our
incarnations, the result of our past actions, but we do not appreciate it or
understand it because we are viewing life from a very circumscribed point of
view.
Now, from where does purushaartha (self-determination) come in if
praarabdha (destiny) orders every action? That we have been given by the Divine
Being a limited freedom is the truth. For example we cannot bend a piece of
rail as it is, but supposing this rail-piece is beaten out and made into a
chair, the rail matter becomes very easily pliable. Similarly, man, though he
has taken his body to live a fixed praarabdha, can reach the Supreme Goal of
life by living the freedom allowed to him from moment to moment. There is
provision for us to discriminate and act rightly. For example, is there not a
certain amount of freedom in choosing whether we should go to a cinema or a
satsang? There are two ways to deal with each challenge. Two distinct paths are
open to us. The path of the Good and the path of the Pleasant. Often we are at
a loss to decide which path to pursue. There is a tussle between Satan and God
within us at such a moment of trial.
Man is his mind. When one does some actions, repeatedly, one’s mind
gets fixed with certain impressions. It is in a world of reactions related to
the outer world-of-objects that we live. The quality of one’s experiences
depends upon the quality of the mind which one brings up to undergo the
experience.
The future is not a mystery, an unknown miracle that man must wait
for its stunning revelations. The past modified in the present alone is the
future. The freedom to modify the past with action in the present, and thereby
create a future for the better or for the worse, is purushaartha: self-effort.
Thus, the Law of Karma when correctly understood is the greatest force of
vitality in our philosophy. It makes us the architects of our own future. We
are not helpless pawns in the hands of a mighty tyrant, God, who, it is
believed, has created us so weak or fearful to live of our lives of limitations
and pains. If we are weak or sorrowful it is because of our own willful
actions. In our, ignorance, we in the past had pursued certain negative values
of life, and like a Frankenstein, their fruits have come up now to give us the
pattern of circumstances we are living today.
Never mind. Take heart. By careful, self-policing, detect the wrong
tendencies. Eliminate them through constant and willful effort. Develop
positivity and thus come to be the God of your own future life. “Be a God I”.
