The Justice of the Law of Karma : Swami Chidananda.
Saturday. April 06, 2023.06:00.
From the Article "Awaken from The Slumber of Non-Awareness"
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Karma is not some terrible factor that has come down upon human society. The law of karma is a supremely just and supremely all-loving provision by the cosmic Being to enable the individual to attain his own supreme welfare. This law of karma that prevails is compatible with man’s self-effort and is not something opposed to self-effort. On the contrary, self-effort—if undertaken with the proper understanding—can be utilised for attaining man’s supreme divine destiny. Self-effort and the law of karma go together. Yet, you cannot stop the effects of the causes which you have already brought into being and which have already started to work. It is like an arrow that a hunter has shot from his bow that is winging its way through the air. He cannot recall it, and it has to end its flight and hit the target.
When we come into this body, we bring the entire karmic pattern as in a gramophone record. The life pattern unfolds from cradle to grave in the form of varied experiences. There is no choice in this matter, and one has to undergo these experiences. However, that is only a minor part of the law of karma, because what happens to you is not the essential thing. Experience happens even to the animals, and they suffer from hunger, thirst, heat and cold. The uniqueness of man is his ability to engage in purposeful activity and not be simply governed by the mechanism of instinct. He is an independent agent and acts with great freedom. What you get out of this life is not through what is happening to you, but through how you choose to deal with what is happening to you. As you undergo the experiences that are ordained by your own karmic pattern, you are still the architect of your own fate because of your ability to act.
All these experiences in the ultimate context are not imposed upon the individual by some extraneous agent that arbitrarily enforces a certain pattern. No. This karmic pattern with which a human individual comes into birth is the sum totality of the results of what he himself has engaged in during a previous period. Fate is the harvesting of the seeds that you yourself have previously sown. In the ultimate analysis you are yourself the creator of that karmic pattern. This does not contradict the omnipotence of God, for it is the omnipotence of God that has willed you to have this freedom of action. This freedom of yours is God-given. Within the scope of His omnipotence, you are a free agent. Man’s duty is to make effort, as though everything depended upon his effort. Do the right effort with all your heart and soul, but you always have the understanding that you leave the ultimate outcome in the hands of the all-intelligent Being. If It chooses to give you the ultimate effect that you desire, well and good, you may then take it.
Man can raise himself to the highest Heaven or damn himself to the lowest hell. It is all in his hands. If he recognises and is aware of the law of karma, he can utilise it in a meaningful way. If unfortunately he is completely ignorant of the law of karma, then he will be totally subject to its operation. Not knowing that it is his own action that has caused his present condition, he may be confused, he may shake his fist at God, and he may blame everyone else and make them responsible for his suffering. However, one who understands the law of karma cannot harbour resentment, for he knows that no one else is responsible. He knows that he has created the experience at some period in the past, and now he is reaping the harvest of the seeds that he has sown. He bears no ill will towards his fellow human beings, and he is able to accept his experience with a deeper understanding. If he is wise, he will try to learn something from the experience he undergoes.
How does one explain the fate of the Shah of Iran some decades ago? He summoned the heads of state of all the great countries of the world to Tehran, and for about two or three weeks he celebrated in a very grand and pompous way the 2,500 years of his dynasty. He must have spent millions on this celebration. He also had one of the most sophisticated armies that the United States could provide to protect him from his enemies, but then what happened to him? He was deposed from his throne, he fled to the one country in the world that would accept him, and soon thereafter, ignored and despised, he died a miserable death.
In a similar way, a farmer may slave day and night in his field for months, and then suddenly there may be an invasion of locusts or a cruel frost, and seventy-five per cent of his crop may just wither and perish. The outcome of karma is ultimately in the hands of a cosmic force in keeping with the law of compensation or retribution. Without the operation of the law, nothing will happen. This law may be hidden from the human gaze, but it operates based upon absolute justice, goodness and infinite love.
Let the intellect ponder, “Who am I? Whence have I come? What was my condition before I entered this body? When I leave it, where will I go? Let me know. That condition is far more important to me than this physical existence, for this is only temporary, whereas that is lasting and continuous. It existed before, and it will continue to be hereafter. If it is real, it must be present even now, covered over by something else—something that is temporarily superimposed upon it. Now let me know that real condition.” The highest function of the intellect is to ponder these questions and others like them. “I have been given this body and sent to live in this universe. Now in what way am I related to it?” This universe seems to be the handwork of some vast intelligence, for it is a perfect systematic whole. Everything moves here in rhythm and order. What is this vast intelligence endowed with unimaginable power that staggers the mind merely in imagining it?”
Thus pondering the ‘I,’ pondering the universe, and pondering the infinite, absolute intelligence behind both, man will rise gradually into a state of awareness in which the answer to all these questions becomes clear. To rise up and take flight in this higher investigation of the real nature is the proper employment of the intellect in the service of the soul. In this employment, man will acquire the knowledge of himself, and Self-knowledge will set him free.
End
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