LAW OF KARMA
(Law of Cause and Effect)

Death is only a special kind of variation.  It is a mere dissolution of the elements that the mortal coil is composed of.  The real man – the soul – never dies.

The Jivas when embodied (human beings) are subject to the Law of Karma.  All beings must reap the consequences of their actions.  No action goes in vain.  No effort is lost.  As one sows, so one reaps.

Our actions are our only property, our title deeds, of which we cannot be disinherited.

Consequent on death, when the soul gets liberated from embodiment, it does not travel alone to the beyond.  It is also not correct to assume that it carries nothing out of the world.  Our actions follow and accompany it beyond the grave.

Karma is an aggregate of our acts, both in the present life and in the preceding births.  It covers our present, our past and our future.

Actions have full weight in the balance-sheet of eternity.  The balance-sheet of good and bad actions determines the destiny in the life to come.  Destiny is thus the net product or effect of the actions in the previous births.  It forms only one arm of the Law of Karma.

Whatever a man today is, it is because of his past actions.  His present status is caused by his past.

Conceding that man is the product of his past actions called Karma, it does not mean that he is a helpless victim of his destiny over which he has no control.  Such thinking will make the Law of Karma an inert philosophy.  If it were so, there will be no new action, which shall determine the future destiny.  Thence man will be no better than other living creatures are blindly yoked to the destiny to live a life of Bhoga Yoni – run-of-the-mill existence – merely putting up with and perforce insensibly and passively bearing all that is ordained for them.

On the other hand, the True Master teaches that the Law of Karma is a vital force that affords man an opportunity for dynamic thinking to achieve the fore-most aim of human existence.  Unlike other creatures, he is gifted with intelligence, ability, reason, wisdom and will power to exercise his judicious discretion and measure up to the challenge of destiny.  As such, he is rightly acclaimed as Ashraf-ul-Mukhlukaat – the highest being of God’s creation.

Man has the capacity to choose his action.  He has the faculty to discriminate (viveka) between right and wrong and adopt the path of his choice.  Through self-effort (purshartha), he is in a position to change the influence of his destiny – the effect of his past actions.  Right thought and right action can reduce or neutralize destiny.  Thus, the freedom to modify the effect of the past and create a future, better or worse, depends on man’s self-effort.

What man meets in life is destiny; how he meets it through self-effort becomes Karma.  This leads us to understand that man can act to shape his future by regulating and channelising his self-effort in the right or wrong direction.  Time spent in the company of the wise and the noble leaves an edifying impact on one’s thought-force.  He is more than likely to reflect similar virtues in practical life.  But a person, who seeks and keeps the company of the vicious and the wicked, is bound to be influenced by evil tendencies.  It is up to the man himself to decide upon the course he likes to adopt.  He has the liberty to engage himself in self-effort which, in turn, helps him to make or mar his destiny.  In other words, destiny is of man’s own making.

The self-effort of today becomes the destiny of tomorrow.  Man’s duty is to act and perform right actions by resolutely turning the mind away from antagonistic forces.  Destiny yields to consistent application of self-effort.  But man has got to develop a new judicious vision, undaunted spirit, firm determination, unbending will power which equip him with integrity, character and right thoughts that materialize into right actions.  It is not proper to grumble that Karma has brought about all this or that.  Virtuous deeds of past life do help to create a good environment in the present life.  Exert and concentrate on self-effort and change the unfavourable into favourable possibilities.

The wise and the noble have ever emphatically exhorted human beings to be good and do good in life.  This presupposes their faith in the capacity of human spirit to act and perform righteously irrespective of what the destiny provides.

Man has to pay for all his deeds.  This explains why even a person leading a noble, pious and chaste life has to suffer, may be for something he had committed in earlier births though he might be ignorant of the same.  But his ignorance cannot prevent the operation of the Law of Karma.

Relevantly it may be asked as to why the Great Masters undergo suffering.  Outwardly, the holiest of the holy seem to be worldly men like other earthly beings engrossed in performing their domestic and social obligations, but inwardly they are not at all attached to the world.  They appear on this earth as divine apostles at a critical juncture when evil forces are on the ascendance and the socio-spiritual order is on the decline.  They have the divine mission to combat and contain the spreading influence of evil and to restore righteousness.  They look upon themselves as mere instruments of God, engaged in alleviating the suffering of ailing humanity plagued with rampant immorality, unrighteousness, falsehood and repression as also to guide and help human beings to reclaim and sustain spiritual values and human dignity by enlightening them through their teachings, preachings and exemplary truthfulness.  With highly seasoned spiritual prudence and transcending the self, they do everything in the name of God and for God.  Imbued with matured innate sense of self-effacement, self-surrender and non-attachment, they never claim any credit for themselves for whatever they do, rather egoless as they are and true to their infallible devotion, they ascribe their faring to God with profound spontaneous joy and fathomless gratitude.  In the process of carrying out their sacred mission, they have to meet with stiff opposition from the misguided and the vested interests but the holy beings, on their part, never shirk or shrink from resolutely and fearlessly pursuing the chosen path of truthfulness and selfless service to God’s creation, come what may. No wonder, if in the tussle that ensues between good and bad, right and wrong, noble and ignoble, they have to bear untold hardships and inhuman brutalities even at the cost of their precious lives to determinedly resist the fictitious and the fallacious.  Despite victimization and gruesome tragedies, they never allow their conscience to be soiled and stigmatized by surrendering to the agnostics and the avowed opponents.  They are totally unmindful and not the least worried about what happens to their mortal coil.  With their total surrender to God’s Will, they bear the consequences willingly and cheerfully with evenness of mind and complete composure without any resistance or grumble.  Consequently, their spirit of truth and selfless service survives all oppression and remains invincible.  All their actions are purely in the nature of dedicated self-effort with the sole pious aim of fulfilling their assigned mission to rescue and redeem human beings in distress.  Obviously, their suffering is matter of their right choice of action for the good of others as well as in deference of truth.  The sufferings of the holy masters never go waste; rather prove a blessing in disguise.  Their sacrifices serve as lighthouses to show light to the misguided with blindfold conscience.  Such illustrious celebrities ever live in the hearts of posterity and are remembered with unbounded love and reverential gratitude.  And the peak moment of their spiritual splendour comes when they consume hateful tirade with love and graciously bless even those who have sinned against them.  They pray to the Lord for enlightening them and to show mercy to them.  Spontaneously they invoke:

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

- BIBLE (LUKE: 23:34)

The Law of Karma is governed by cause and effect.  The effects experienced in the present must have had their causes in the past, and the causes of the present shall grow into the effects of the future.

Destiny refers only to our past action, making man its victim, but the Law of Karma infuses the spirit of action the urge to work and progress by focusing attention on a better future through self-effort.  It is the basic formula for right and purposeful living:

Some ignorant people says: Karma does everything.  It is all destinies.  I am destined by my Karma to be all this or that.  Why then I should exert?  It is my destiny only.  This is fatalism.  This is a fallacious argumentation.  An intelligent man will certainly not put such a question.  You have made your own destiny from within by your thought and action

- VIVEKANANDA

Shallow men believe in luck.  Wise and strong in cause and effect.

- PLATO