AN INFALLIBLE JUSTICE

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna,

Here is an article about the Law of Karma. The author is His Grace Gaur Hari

Prabhu. He is a PhD Scholar in Indian Institute of Technology, Powai. Since the

article is a bit long, I will post it in 3- 4 parts.

Your servant

Vidyadhar

AN INFALLIBLE JUSTICE - I

Why me! What did I do to deserve this?" The outraged cry that comes from a

person who feels he has been unfairly singled out for suffering by cruel

providence. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The perplexing question

that haunts the minds of many when they see pious people victimized by painful

reverses in life.

The Problem of Evil

"The problem of evil" has been the bane of Western theologians and thinkers for

centuries together. In simple terms, the problem is: Why does evil exist in the

world despite the presence of an almighty God?

The Vedic scriptures give a clear understanding of the problem of evil. They

explain that evil is not God's creation; evil comes upon us due to our own bad

karma. When we succumb to our lower nature, we exploit the resources of mother

nature in an unlawful way and / or cause suffering to other living beings just

for the fulfillment of our base desires. By such actions, we fix up

appointments with suffering in the future. (And all living beings share a

remarkable memory quirk - they forget their own wrongdoings very quickly) So

when our due suffering reaches us, we have conveniently forgotten the wrongs

that we did in the past. And so the indignant outburst, "Why me?"

Karma-Not so unfamiliar

Mr. Adams calls his family physician early morning, "Doctor I am having a sever

stomach upset." The doctor promptly asks, "What did you have for dinner last

night?"

Mr. Dull is having respiratory problems. After examining him, the doctor asks

him, "At what age did you start smoking?"

These are simple, everyday incidents, but all of them involve implicit

acceptance of the concept of karma. On seeing a particular effect, the person

involved desires to know its cause. This is what the law of karma actually is:

to every action there is a reaction. (Newton's third law, which deals with only

the gross physical level, is a subset of this general law of karma) Thus karma

is not a sentimental religious concept; its implicit acceptance forms the basis

of practically everything done by everyone from every walk of life. Just try to

imagine life without any cause-effect relationship! Chaos would reign supreme.

The Mystery of the world

Karma is a simple, logical and satisfactory explanation for suffering, but the

problem is observations of the world around don't seem to confirm it. Corrupt

politicians amass fortunes without being punished; criminal rogues live in

style as underworld dons; shady businessmen, who earn millions illegally, are

considered the success stories of the times. On the other hand, the upright

crusaders of truth are sidelined; the innocent is punished and the honest

languish in poverty. The question then begs itself: where is justice?

The renowned thinker Harold W Percival answers this question in his book

Thinking and Destiny, "Law and justice do prevail in human affairs. But effect

does not always immediately follow cause. Sowing is not immediately followed by

harvesting. The results of an act or a thought may not appear until after a

long, intervening period. The mystery of the world is created by the separation

of cause and effect."

AN INFALLIBLE JUSTICE II

REINCARNATION - THE BASIS OF AN INFALLIBLE JUSTICE - II

Reincarnation forms an integral part of the explanation of the Vedic scriptures

for the seeming contradictions in karma. They assert the eternality of our

existence; our life doesn't begin with birth or end with death. Each one of us

is an irreducible, infinitesimal particle of anti-matter - spirit. It is this

spark which animates the material body that we currently reside in. The body is

merely an external covering like a dress. And just as we give up old and worn

out clothes and accept new ones, the soul similarly gives up old and worn out

bodies and accepts new ones at the time of death. This is what we call

reincarnation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the greatest thinkers of USA, states in his

journals, "The soul comes from without into the human body as into a temporary

abode, and it goes out of it anew.. it passes into other habitations, for the

soul is immortal."

The soul is the active principle in the body. He is the doer of all actions -

good and bad and thus it is he who has to reap the fruits of his actions,

either in the same life or in a subsequent life. So we can understand that an

apparently pious person who is suffering greatly is reaping the effects of

impious activities performed in this or previous lives. Conversely an impious

person may enjoy temporary prosperity now due to his past pious credits. Of

course, irrespective of their present condition, the nature of their present

activities is certainly going to have its effect - the pious will reap benefits

and the impious will suffer, in due course of time.An analogy will make the

workings of the law of karma clear.

In villages, foodgrains are often stored in huge vertical containers; fresh

grains are poured in from the top and old stored grains are taken out from the

bottom. A farmer may have produced poor quality grains of say brand Z for the

past 4 years and stocked them in his container. This year he produces high

quality grains of say brand A and stores them from the top. Yet he finds to his

exasperation that from the bottom grains of brand Z come out. This is how "bad

things happen to good people".Thus the principles of reincarnation allow us to

view life with a much broader perspective - not from the standpoint of one

brief lifetime which is nothing more than a flash in time, but from the

standpoint of eternity. With this broader vision, we can understand how each

individual soul is alone responsible for his own karma. Understanding of this

universal and infallible

system of justice is the basis of lasting peace and real happiness.

The famous author W Somerset Maugham remarks in The Razor's Edge, "Has it

occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a

justification of the evil of the world? If the evils we suffer are the result

of sins committed in our past lives, we can bear them with resignation and hope

that if in this one we strive towards virtue our future lives will be less

afflicted."

IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE

In the court of divine justice, a human being cannot claim innocence on the

grounds of ignorance. The laws of nature are impartial and inescapable. Fire is

going to burn anyone who puts his hand into it, even if he be an ignorant child.

Fire cannot be deemed cruel; the cruelty is on the part of the guardians of the

child who did notenlighten him about the nature of fire and stop him from

putting his hand into it.Similarly when out of ignorance we engage in sinful

activities, nature cannot be blamed as cruel for handing out to us our due

suffering. Rather it is our intelligentsia, our educational system which has

been blatantly cruel to us by keeping us in darkness about the higher

dimensional law of karma. Just see the absurdity, nay the tragedy, of what is

termed to be education. We are forced to remember truckloads of unnecessary

information such as the

fifth President of USA (God knows what he has reincarnated into!) in the name of

general knowledge, while there is not even a mention of the most essential of

all knowledge – the cause of our suffering and the way out of it.

And what is the consequence? When people find adversities striking them

(adversities which they have themselves created by their past karma), they

helplessly grope in the dark struggling in vain to understand why the world is

so cruel to them. Out of sheer frustration they embrace atheistic and agnostic

beliefs and engage in further licentious forms of behavior in order to find

some semblance of happiness. But such behavior in violation of divine laws

leads to severe karmic reactions, thus serving only to increase the suffering

in the lives of the masses. And all this is due to the ignorance which is

advertised as knowledge in our educational system. Kudos to Messrs Suffering

Manufacturers, ModernEducational System Inc.!

Infallible Justice – III

GOOD WITHOUT GOD?

"I of course believe in karma. But I don't bother myself with doubtful sectarian

religious concepts like God. I just believe in being good and doing good to

others; living honestly and not harming others." How often have we heard this

modern goodie-goodie philosophy? Lets see an analogy to understand what it

actually boils down to.

Once a gang of thieves robbed a bank and fled to the forest. In the forest, the

leader of the thieves turned to the others and spoke with utmost gravity, "We

should all be honest principled gentlemen. So let us not try to cheat each

other, but share this money equally among ourselves!"

Does this "honesty among thieves" carry any value? For the law they are all

dishonest bank robbers; their mutual honesty has no legal standing whatsoever.

Similarly we have not created even one of the things in the world we reside in,

not even the bodies we live in. All the things that we absolutely need for our

survival - the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat, the solar

heat and light that sustain us – are created by Mother Nature, who acts under

the direction of our Father God. The Ishopanishad, one of the most important

Vedic texts, therefore asserts (mantra 1), "Everything animate and inanimate

within the universe is owned and controlled by the Supreme Lord."

So when we neglect God, claim His property as our own and decide to be "good"

among ourselves without even acknowledging God, how are we better than "the

honest thieves"? In the eyes of the cosmic government, we are thieves and will

be penalized by the inexorable law of karma.

Thus goodness without God will not save us from the clutches of karmic

reactions. It is important to understand the definition of sin in this

connection. Sin is generally though to be any activity that harms others. But

from the absolute standpoint, sin is the willful disobedience of the laws of

God by disregarding His supreme proprietorship of everything. So even goodness

without God is sinful

GO BEYOND KARMA

In order to get rid of suffering once and for all, we have to stop doing bad

karma. And all karma which is not connected to God is bad karma - the

difference is just a matter of degree.

The Bhagavad-Gita explains that the art of work is to "see action in inaction

and inaction in action". We cannot become karma-free by giving up karma

(activity) because we cannot give up all activity. Firstly we cannot stop doing

activity forever; it is against our very nature as dynamic spiritual beings. And

secondly even while being supposedly inactive, we are killing so many microbes

just by our breathing, bodily movements, digestion etc. So inaction cannot free

us from karma. This iswhat it means "to see action in inaction".

On the other hand when we are not in gross ignorance, we can understand that

"Everything belongs to God, everything acts according to His laws, I depend

completely on Him for my very existence and I am completely under the control

of His laws." With such preliminary knowledge, we can begin to spiritualize our

work - by working for God. Then karma cannot touch us. For example, a soldier

may kill hundreds of enemy soldiers on the battlefield, but the law will not

touch him because he is working for the government. Far from being punished he

will be given an award of bravery. Similarly when we work for God, the divine

government, far from giving us karmic reactions, will award and glorify us.

(End).Vidyadhar M. Karmarkar

Graduate Research Assistant

Molecular Plant Breeding

419, Crop Science Building

Department of Crop and Soil Science

Oregon State University

Corvallis, OR 97331.

Phone: 541-737-5844