The Spirit Of Spirituality: Karma - The inexorable law of the Universe

This is one of the articles in a book I have written on spirituality. The book is available on Amazon.com.

The Spirit Of Spirituality

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All of us in our day to day lives are bound by numerous laws either knowingly or without our knowledge. The laws can be broadly classified as:

1. Universal and intuitive
2. Non-universal and intuitive
3. Non-universal and non-intuitive
4. Universal and non-intuitive

Universal and intuitive : These are laws which are applicable anywhere and to everyone and at the same time, they are very intuitive. Though there are physical laws which govern them, it is not necessary to know the physical law to experience the impact of the law. We know that what goes up must come down. Even a child of reasonable age will quickly realize this. Even though we know that this is based on the law of gravity, the knowledge of this law is not needed to realize what it does. Hence it is intuitive. It is universal since the law applies everywhere(not counting anti-gravity chambers!!). Hence I classify these laws as universal and intuitive.

Non-universal and intuitive: These are laws which are applicable only in some places or some time or to some people and they are very intuitive. On a South directed one way road in USA, I know that I cannot make a left turn. There is a legal law preventing this, but it is intuitive to any driver in USA. However for a driver in India, the opposite is true. On a South directed one way road in India, I know that I cannot make a right turn. There is a legal law preventing this, but it is intuitive to any driver in India.So these laws are intuitive but not universal.

Non-universal and non-intuitive: These are typically man made laws which made sense in a particular environment, but are totally non-intuitive and are not universally applicable. For example, I read that in one of the cities of USA, it is illegal to buy ice cream after 6:00 p.m. This is totally local to that city and is absolutely non-intuitive.

Universal and non-intuitive: This category of laws are those which are applicable everywhere, but are not intuitive. As an example of the physical world law for this, most of us know of centrifugal forces because of which an object moving on a curve tends to move away from the center of the curve. If a driver drives fast around a curve, whether he is in USA or anywhere in the world, it is likely that the car will veer off the road. This physical law is not intuitive, but gained by experience and is universal.

One important thing about the laws is that ignorance of the law is no excuse for the consequence of breaking the law. Just because I do not know the law of gravity does not mean that I can jump off the Empire state building and I will not fall down.

One such non-intuitive and universal law which very few people know is the Law of Karma. This is a law much more powerful than all of the most powerful laws in the world. Ignorance of this law makes people commit the same mistakes over and over with disastrous consequences, whereas knowledge of the law with full comprehension and abidance will enable people to live a fruitful and blissful life.

What is the law of Karma? At the core of it, the law says, you reap what you sow or every effect has a cause. This is seen in the physical world as every action has an equal and opposite reaction. However we are not talking of laws within the physical universe. We are talking of laws which go much beyond the physical phenomenon.

It answers questions like why am i here? why did a particular good/bad thing happen to me? where will i go from here etc.

The law of Karma posits that every action/thought that we have creates its own effects. Whatever we do in our daily life is driven by some form of desire. We go to work to earn in desire of a better life. We marry with the desire of a good companion. We buy costly things with a desire to show others that we have arrived or even to satisfy our own desire of being someone in this world. Desires can be at physical level to acquire things, at emotional/mental level to get emotional gratification or at the intellectual level to get gratification like status(I am a top nuclear scientist, I am a great poet etc). So at every stage, there is some desire driving us and at any point we know there are several other desires lurking just waiting for the most pressing dear to be consummated. The physical body dies after a period of time and is consigned to elements. Matter has changed form one type to another. But what of the thoughts/desires of a person?

Every desire of ours is recorded by the Universe and it is put against our "account". This accumulation of desires, when unfulfilled, leave a void which the Universe has to fill and that is the reason for rebirth. Whatever desires are unfulfilled or whatever actions have been performed without an equal and opposite reaction have to be adjusted in full against the individual's account. Whereas physical law stops operating on the death of an individual, the law of karma dealing with unfulfilled desires or actions for which equal reaction has not been got in a life time will surely and certainly be met or delivered in succeeding births. In the physical world, suppose I take a big loan and at end of year, I pay it off, I carry no burden. But in the law of Karma, any bad act or bad desire that I have will not be negated by good act or good desire. The physical laws can be a zero sum game, but the law of karma is not a zero sum game. Every desire and every intention driven act will meet its fulfilment or reaction in the same birth or subsequent births. For every fulfilled desire we have hundreds which are lurking behind. The sum total of all these accumulated desires which have to find fructification at some stage are called as Sanchita Karma or accumulated karma. From this vast set of accumulated karma, a portion of the most binding desires result in us taking birth in a particular form. This smaller sub-set of karmas is called Prarabdha karma and it is what gives us the environment in which there is a chance to fulfill the desires or get reaction for some of the actions we had done and did not get reaction in our earlier lives.The karma or desires that will be fulfilled in future are what are called as agami karmas.

Now a question arises, if everything is ordained, why should we do anything. This is a very common misconception wherein we blame something else for our misfortune.This is a very common misconception wherein we blame something else for our misfortune. However the human being is endowed with a unique capability to think and do the right thing. That is called purushartha. Karma creates an environment in which past desires can be fulfilled and reaction for past action has to be experienced. But through purushartha, a human being can handle situations.

Let us take an example of a super-rich man who is a reckless spender. Through his recklessness he spends all his money and some more. That is an action that he is doing. As a result of that action, he is brought to a state of debt. The action of recklessness has begot a reaction of debt. Similarly any action/desire that we harbor will have a reaction. Now this debt-laden person has been given an environment of debt by his past action. He has to perforce experience that situation. At the same time he has a free will to stop spending and start saving which will reduce his debt. That is his purushartha. Similarly any human being experiencing whatever situation in this birth should realize that he is experiencing it because of something he has desired or done in the past. It is unto him to fulfill that desire and create new desires or nonchalantly accept the situation and do what ought to be done without getting any further desires.

So what is the way to avoid getting caught up in this karmic cycle? The key is to realize the law of karma and the absolute certainty that anything done with desire be it good or bad will come back and the individual has to take multiple births to be freed of the karmic influence. As Lord Krishna says in the 3rd Chapter of the Gita, which deals with Karma Yoga, the solution is to do every task with a non-attachment to the fruits of the act. Once an act is done because it ought to be done, without a feeling of ownership for the work, then the action will not have any karmic influence. Does non-attachment to fruits of a work make us under motivated? Certainly, not.

We know of Mahatma Gandhi who helped India get freedom without desiring any position. He did it because it was the right thing to do. A soldier fights a war and kills people knowing fully well that it is his duty and he has to do the right thing of defending his country. These types of acts done for a higher purpose will not have karmic influence. Then the question is what about desires?

Since desires cause karmic rebirth, should we stop desires? Stopping desiring is impossible. The only way a desire falls off is when a higher-level desire comes. As young kids we desired toy bicycles. As adults we do not desire cycles. A desire for a higher item--car has overtaken and totally subdued the desire for a bicycle. Similarly, as desire moves on for higher ideals like country, world etc., the lower selfish desires gradually fall off. But even the higher desires have karmic influences. The desire has to focus on universality of all and the desire for seeking union with the Lord as the final desire. At the end, just as a pole-vaulter throws off the pole that helped him vault, even that desire for spiritual union should fall off and karmic influence ends when man attains nirvana.

I have tried to present my understanding of karma and humbly look forward to any corrections in my understanding.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.

1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality