| Vol 02.006 | Pre-SaraNAgati Issues |
16 January, 1997
|
| In this Issue:
1. NOTE FROM THE EDITOR 2. Excerpts from Chapter 11 of "Hinduism Rediscovered" on Karma, Janma and Dharma | ||
1. NOTE FROM
THE EDITOR
Dear Bhagavatas,
In this issue we conclude our postings on Karma, Janma and Dharma.
Please feel free to offer your comments. In the forthcoming postings, we
will deal with the Purusharthas (Objectives of life).
Dasoham
Anbil Ramaswamy
2.
Excerpts from Chapter 11 of "Hinduism Rediscovered"
on Karma, Janma and Dharma
It is questioned whether it is not immoral to be held accountable for sins one had perhaps committed in previous life and had long been forgotten. Is it not true that if you want to discipline a child, the admonition should swiftly follow the wrong doing so that the child might remember for what it is punished and learns to avoid recurrence of the fault? Will it not render the disciplining act irrelevant and ineffective, if meted out long after the mistake had been forgotten? And, is not the punishment rightly resented? How can one develop a disposition of penitence for one's misdeeds, if one cannot even remember them?.
Quite true. Quite true also when applied to the parental practice for training kids. But, life situations are totally different. Modern psychoanalysts have discovered that it is these forgotten misdeeds lying buried in our subconscious layers that trouble us the most. We do have to pay the price for past misdeeds which we have long forgotten and this is where our likes and dislikes fail to have any effect.
It is easy to insult or injure a person and then forget about it. The greater the offense, the more ready I am to forget it (i.e.) ' to push it down the memory lane' into the unconscious. It is the person at the receiving end who will remember it for long - not the one who perpetrates. Justice demands that the act cannot go without being avenged, sooner or later, irrespective of whether I remember it or not.
You don't remember what you ate yesterday - something that does not agree with your system. Your system may not react immediately. In fact, it tries to generate antibodies to fight the toxic effects of what you ate. But, if the toxicity of what you ingested is quite potent, it will show up if not immediately - may be long after you have forgotten your consuming the 'forbidden fruit'. You cannot dictate to your system that it cannot revolt because you don't remember. If you don't remember what you ate yesterday, how can you remember what you did in previous life? If what you ate can give you an indigestion what you did in previous life can have an effect now - whether you remember it or not. Just as 'ignorance is no excuse in law' in the cosmic law forgetting is no excuse - whether you forget it willingly or otherwise. So also, the result cannot be blamed since it only follows the cause as 'a calf follows the mother cow'.
A non liberated soul is condemned to be reborn and as most human actions are corrupted by greed, malice and other undesirable Vasanas, the risk of being reborn in a lower condition may be as an animal or even an insect is more probable than of being born in an evolved state - unless one has consciously striven for controlling the evil tendencies and acquired the noble tendencies over a whole lifetime.
In Hinduism, It is SIN that is condemned - NOT THE SINNER Man is not punished FOR his sins. - but By his sins.
"It is Nature's kindness that we do not remember past births. What is the good in knowing in detail the countless births we have gone through? Life would be an unbearable burden if we carried such a tremendous load of memories. A wise man deliberately forgets many things as a lawyer forgets the details handled by him, as soon as they are disposed of." 14
Maybe some lawyers forget the details even before arguing a case!
The law of Karma are as relentless and demanding as the laws of physics. In a sense, we should be happy that it precludes any fanciful excursions from the routines that are at the basis of all universal functions.
John F Haught has this to say on the value of visscitudes of life: "When one has gone through a difficult life involving joys and tragedies, agonies and ecstasies, ups and downs of many sorts, it may seem at any particular point that one's existence has had little significance. Disappointment, monotony or disorder seems to rule at various times. It would have been better if somethings had gone along more smoothly. Or, it might have been better if certain other things had not happened. But in retrospect such twists and turns can contribute to the richness of life. We often meet elderly people who in the twilight of their years express the sentiment that they would not trade such a life for anything. They now value their lives including the rough spots, the precipices along with the heights from a seasoned perspective, they cherish their rough but adventurous journeys more thoroughly than life undergone without all the contrasts of joy and sorrow. They are happy that they have weathered the storms because their horizons have been widened, their vision of the world enlarged and their courage deepened in the process. They are 'at peace' and often they will say so explicitly".15
In fact, it has been held that no one is required to shoulder an amount of his past Karma any more than he is able to bear. This may be questioned by some experiencing seemingly endless misery too much for them to bear. But, somehow, most people do manage to survive the tribulations of life even though it had not been any easy. If you look back at your life, you will be amazed how you got over some of the hurdles, disabilities, financial and mental stresses and strains which loomed large and insurmountable at the time you passed through them - circumstances which appeared to be unbearably uncomforting and uncomfortable. And, every time you seem to derive strength in some mysterious way and profit by FACING rather than by FLEEING away from these intriguing situations.
Unfortunately, this resilience does not seem to operate as well when excessive good fortune favors people. Most of them fail to make the best use of their opportunities. Few, indeed, seem to be able to withstand the effects of say excessive wealth or power without abusing the opportunities - thus creating for themselves much new karma of an unfortunate kind from the results of which they can never escape.
It is a redeeming feature that happiness and suffering occur in some mysterious rotation that they seem to be alternating in some cyclical manner. Periods of misery are sandwiched between spells of joy and vice versa. The 'Wheel of Fortune' does not seem to stop rotating though it does its rounds but slowly. And, so slowly that spasms of 'agony and ecstasy' ( especially the former) at the time of experience seem to be almost interminable.
No person is subject to an unbroken tenure of torture nor an unbroken spell of absolute felicity. This mixture is well proportioned - may be to mitigate the boredom of excessive experience of either kind and perhaps also to bring in bold relief the contrasts between the two which can be better appreciated only under such a scheme of alternating experiences.
Nobody need feel despondent about the present state of misery. God holds the scales even. Even in the present state nobody is ABSOLUTELY HAPPY OR OBSOLUTELY MISERABLE.
Life is provided with full of compensations. Even among animals, certain compensating advantages and deficiencies are noticed. An advantage given to a particular limb is neutralized by a reduction in another faculty or vice versa. For every excess there is a corresponding deficiency; for every deficiency there is a corresponding excess of advantage. For every thing you lost, you have gained elsewhere and for everything you gained you lose somewhere an equivalent moiety. Nature does not tolerate monopolies and exceptions though we are not aware of it.
Like death which is a 'great leveler' life also has leveling circumstances. The petulant, the strong, the rich, the fortunate are cut to size almost on the same level with all the rest, may be in some other measure, in some other aspect which we do not see. This fact of nature must act to instill a certain humility in prosperity and a certain consolation in adversity.
"Say Not the Struggle Not Availeth says the poet 16
NOTES
ANNEXURE:
KARMA AND REINCARNATION THEORIES AS RESTATED BY VARIOUS THINKERS
(ORIENTAL AND WESTERN)
"It is only this doctrine that explains the mysterious problems of paradoxes, reconciles the real and apparent justice in life. When we observe the inequalities of birth and fortune, of intellect and capacities, when fools and profligates are honored while with all one's intellect and noble virtues far more deserving in every way perishing for want and of lack of sympathy - it is this blessed knowledge of 'Karma' alone which prevents us from cursing life"1
"All the great religious traditions have recognized this basic polarity. For the Buddhist, the recurrent cycle of births and deaths are subject to the law of interdependent origination, recognizing that the wheel is turned by man's own hand; for the Hindu, the inexorable law of karma, action which ever turns upon itself in reaction, operates throughout the universe; for the Christian, the assurance that "Whatsoever ye sow that shall ye also reap" is affirmation of a lawfulness pervading all universal processes"2.
"Many Christians believe in the second coming of Christ as a day-'the dies irae' - the day of judgment. This concept is only compatible with the Reincarnationist view. In fact, whenever difficulties attend the reincarnation doctrine, they apply exactly the same way to the indubitably orthodox Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body... Even Plato following the Pythagorean tradition accepted the ancient doctrine of incarnation very explicitly putting into the mouth of the SOCRATES of the dialogues... CARDINAL MERCIER is among the distinguished Roman Catholics who have declared that reincarnationism has never really been officially or explicitly condemned by the church......If reincarnation is not accepted, and out of mercy, God cannot send a sinner to hell, all sinners would have to go to heaven. In other words, this means that one can go on committing sins. 'Reincarnation' gives one more opportunity to become good (devoid of sin). 'Purusha yatnam' - Effort of individual soul towards evolution is given one more chance. It is not correct to call it a 'doomsday'. 3
It is a belief of almost all religions including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Even Christianity believed this till it was repudiated by the Nicene council in 787 ad. Even so, the belief in the 'Second coming of Christ' still held by a majority of Christians is a reaffirmation of their faith in reincarnation.
" Thinkers west of India who have entertained at best the idea of the cycle births and deaths ( usually referred to as the transmigration of souls) - if not also the idea of breaking the chain when one achieves Moksha- includes PYTHAGORUS, EMPEDOCLES, PLATO, CICERO, JESUS ( who said that John, the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elijah: - Vide Mathew xvii / 12 and 13 ), PLUTARCH, ORIGEN, PLOTINUS, BRUNO, HUME, GOETHE, NOVALIS, KANT, FICHTE, SCHOPENHAUR, WORDSWORTH (who said 'Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting'), EMERSON, THOREAU, NIETZSCHE, TOLSTOY, CHARLES RENOUVIER, C.D. BROAD and C.J.DUCASSE" 3A
Dr. Coomaraswamy referring to the wheel of Karma and the momentum of antecedent karma refers to "the brilliant simile of the potter's wheel which continues to turn after the hand of the potter is removed"4.
"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". This is sometimes thought to be a statement of the law of Karma. But, Newton's three laws of motion consider only physical force, matter and motion. Karma includes life, consciousness and motive as well as physical force and matter."5
"Every event in our lives, at whatever level is linked to a precedent cause, and generally also to a succeeding result, so that life appears to us to be a continuous flow of events"6
Linton in his "The side blows of Karma" cites the example of a fatal road accident in which X runs into Y, a total stranger and kills him. He argues that perhaps they were not such 'perfect strangers' as it appears at first thought. And, the two entities who are functioning on the physical plane as X and Y have met before in some previous incarnation, perhaps 'X' is settling some past score in which 'Y' has been involved and has to account for. He believes that whatever the reason, there must have been some antecedent cause for the occurrence, if one is to believe the moral law of universal justice operating in the world ...
"Or, again some chance meeting" he continues - "may bring about a lifelong friendship or some other good fortune for no apparent reason. Again, appearances may be deceiving and what appears to be accidental may be really the fulfillment of some cause set in motion earlier"7.
"As no cause remains without its due effect from the greatest to the least, from a cosmic disturbance down to the movement of your hand and as 'like produces like', Karma is that unseen and unknown law which, 'adjusts wisely, intelligently and equitably' each effect to its cause, tracing the latter back to its producer. Though itself unknowable, its action is perceivable"8.
"It is a law that brings every action to its right adjustment; a law that can be used beneficially in all of life's situations; But, through human ignorance, it is a law that, more often than not, operates to cause suffering, sorrow or destruction. Divorced from the element of superstition, Karma may be more truly conceived perhaps in a modern terminology as the 'feed back' system of the functioning universe, it automatically rectifies inefficient or disharmonious use of the machinery of existence"9.
"Karma gives back to every man the actual consequences of his own action. It is an unfailing redresser of human injustice; a stern adjuster of wrongs; a retributive law which punishes and rewards with equal impartiality. It is no respecter of persons and it can neither be propitiated nor turned aside by prayer to it. Inexorably, thus, it achieves not only Mikado's sublime object of letting "the punishment fit the crime; It also compliments it justly by making - "the reward for the merit"10.
"If your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven" (Mathew 19 of Jerusalem Bible). These words from him whom Christians acknowledge as Lord and acclaim as Savior and redeemer, leave one in no doubt that no Christian dare pretend to a means of bypassing the moral law which Jesus describes in almost exactly the same terms in which one would describe the law of karma".11
"A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. The dice of God are always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication table or a mathematical equation, which turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded; every wrong redressed in silence and certainty... Cause and Effect, means and ends, seed and fruit cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the Seed...
The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem - how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual bright from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair, that is again to contrive, to cut, clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless, to get a one end without an other end".12
Dr.Whitmont draws a parallel with the development of action in a drama - using the concept of Greek tragedy as a 'mirror of soul'. He points out that the sequence of events on the stage works out as cause and effect-" If our past life is Act one, may be our present life is Act three depicting the denouement" 13.
Chaudhry observes
"It is thus the law of harmony which constitutes the ultimate foundation
of both Science and Religion. On the one hand, it guarantees the conservation
of all energy which is the cornerstone of science, on the other, it guarantees
the conservation of all values which is the cornerstone of ethics and religion.
By harmonizing seemingly conflicting forces such as matter and life, nature
and spirit, body and mind, existence and essence, fact and value, it provides
the right kind of environment within which the process of creative evolution
may go on and the precious fruits thereof be duly preserved...
Be it noted here in passing that karma does not mean any external coercive agency. It does not mean the kind of supernatural fate which was illustrated in the tragic dramas of the ancient Greeks. Nor does it mean any arbitrary fiat or predetermined command of the divine will (Kismat). That would be a violation of the ethical order of life (ritam) which the law of karma presupposes"14.
Hanson describes the Karma theory as "a making perfect process or perhaps
a more descriptive term would the invincible divine will to perfection
eternally in action...
This gets away from the idea of something static and motionless or
of something wholly mechanical. Rather it would seem to be perfect rhythm
and perfect harmony or balance in simultaneity. The will to perfection
is conceived of as the logical will, and its operation in maintaining the
equilibrium of the universe is, one might say, sketched out in time and
space. This might be termed 'Universal or Cosmic Karma"15.
Linton remarks:
"When we get an acid stomach, we seek to overcome the difficulty by
taking some patent medicine, rather than finding out what is wrong with
our eating habits and correcting them or again, we raise our taxes in order
to provide treatment and care for chronic alcoholics, while at the same
time spending millions of dollars promoting the sale of alcoholic beverages,
thus encouraging people to become alcoholics.....
In general, few people stop to consider the underlying causes of many of the things that happen to them, being content to attribute these to circumstances, chance or fate. They are content to deal with results rather than to seek for basic causes . Life in the Western world today is so busy and hectic that few take the necessary time to analyze things and find out the why of them. In fact, few would be willing to admit that they are living and operating within moral and spiritual energy fields, the laws governing which are as unerring, impersonal and predictable as the laws governing the gravitational and electromagnetic fields. Many in fact would be loath to acknowledge that everything that happens to them is the result of actions which they themselves have set in motion at some time in the past either in this or in some prior incarnation"16.
"Freud tells us to blame our parents for all the shortcomings of our life and Marx tells us to blame the upper class of society. But, the only one to blame is oneself. That is the helpful thing about the Indian idea of 'Karma'. Your life is the fruit of your own doing; you have no one to blame but yourself" -16A
SECTION 3 : CONCLUSION
While writing the horoscopes, our ancestors used to commence with a
stanza which says that "the position or status of a person in this life
is solely and squarely due to the spiritual merit (Punya) inherited by
that person in a previous life".17:
Though it is true that those who talk about heaven and hell have not seen them (in the sense that they are still alive contemporaneously with us) and those who had perhaps gone there cannot narrate their experiences to us (since they are already dead and gone) - one thing is certain :
Whether there is Heaven or Hell or not, Hinduism points to a disciplined way of Life to make this earth a better place to live.
NOTES FOR ANNEXURE
1.Blavatsky, Mdm, in ' Secret Doctrine' (p.19-20) article in 'Karma,
the Universal law of harmony", pub : TPH
2 Mills, Jay in the foreword ( p.viii) to (1) above.
3. Mac Gregger, Geddis in 'The Christening of Karma' (pp.13,14 and
7) Article in (1)
3A. Gerber, William in Introduction' The currents and courses of Indian
Philosophy' In " The mind of India"( p.xxi)
4. Coomaraswami, Anand in 'The wheel of Karma'(p.85)Article in (1)
above
5. Newton, Isaac, his third law of motion
6. Besant, Annie
7.Linton, George(P.141) in his Article' The side blows of Karma' in
(1) above
8. Blavatsky, Mdm in ' The womb of Time' (p.24) Article in (1) above
9.Perkins, (p,33) in (1) above
10.Smith, Leslie, Editorial staff of "TIME" in his Article in (1) above
11. Mac Gregger, Geddis in his ' Christening of Karma' (vide 3 above)
12. Emerson,i n his 'Compensation (p.101)
13.Whitmont, Dr. in 'The other face of Karma' (p.157) in his Article
in (1) above
14. Chaudhari, Haridas in 'The meaning of Karma in Integral philosophy
'(p.135) in (1)above
15. Hanson, (p.155) pub: TPH
16. Linton, George E in 'The side blows of Karma'(p.142-143) Article
in (1) above.
16A. Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers in 'The Power of Myth' p.202
17. Traditional verse written on horoscopes in Hindu households. Janani
janmasoukyanam vardani kula sampadam/ Padavi purvapunyanam likhyathe janmapathrika".