Using bank balance as an illustration of impact of karma

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

-----------------------------------------------------------------


I am sure every day we are faced with situations where we
ask ourselves, Oh God, why is this happening to me? We also read news about
barbaric activity and wonder, why is God not doing anything? We see young
babies being born deformed and wonder, whether God is so unkind? How often have
we asked such questions and finally given up because we did not get convincing
answers? Even I used to struggle with such questions and in the frustration at
not getting answers, in my absolute ignorance, started believing that God is a
myth and had turned into a non-believer of anything. Only in the recent past,
as I read spiritual books and attended lectures, the concepts slowly started to
sink in and some of the examples in the teachings helped me form a better
concept of what was happening. Let me try and explain that here.

When I first started earning, I was earning a princely sum of Rs 2,350 per
month. As a bachelor with no bad habits and no girl friend or wife, I used to
spend a maximum of about rs 1500 and watched my savings grow steadily to almost
Rs 25,000. At some point I got married and the demands of married life meant
more expenses, which actually exceeded my monthly income, and one fine day I
was shocked that my balance had turned zero and I still had to make payments of
about rs 5000 which I borrowed. So from a surplus of about rs 25,000 I was in
debt for about rs 5,000.

Let us analyze this. Who is responsible for me hitting a positive or negative
balance? I was totally responsible for the result because I had taken the
actions, which led to it. The situation that had been created was totally due
to me and not due to any outside agency. In exactly the same way, any situation
in life that we face is totally due to our past actions. If I find myself in a
situation which gives me happiness, that means I must have done some action in
the past which created this situation and similarly for a situation which
created unhappiness. So, if we see a situation, where we see a couple having a
deformed child, it is clear that the three of them together had done some
action in the past because of which they were in the current situation. It is
to be noted here that past includes past births. Without an implicit acceptance
of past birth and consequences of actions in past birth, it is impossible to
explain several realities. What creates a child prodigy? What makes a
particular child in a family to be born deformed? What makes some parents lose
a child?

Let us continue with my example. Assume that I fell down the
stairs and was in a coma and forgot everything. Even when I was in coma, though
I was not aware that I was a debtor, the debt did not go away just because I
lost my memory. In exactly the same way, death does not take away consequences
of thoughts/desires/actions.

Now that I know I am in debt, what can I do? One option is
to do nothing. By not doing anything to clear my debt, I am letting the
interest on the loan accumulate till such time as the interest itself becomes a
big burden. In exactly the same way, we are faced with situations including our
birth in this life, our loss of job, an unhappy marriage, bereavement etc.
Overcome by ignorance/sloth, we can blame it on the unseen forces of nature and
do nothing, just blame karma. So what happens? Karma continues its inexorable
journey just based on past actions.

Now given that I am in debt, I can take action to change the
status. I can either continue doing exactly what I was doing which will further
increase my debt or I can change my spending habits, which will reduce my debt.
This act of “acting” is called purushartha. Purushartha is my response in a
given situation. Let’s assume that I have been diligent and actually am saving
rs 100 every month. So after one month, my debt has come down from rs 5,000 to
rs 4,900. But I am still a debtor. So, even though I am doing the right thing,
from a situational perspective, I am still a debtor.  Inexactly the same manner, even though I am the best person, very
charitable, honest etc, I may still be in trouble because the burden of past
karma is so onerous. So here is the answer when people say, why did such a bad
thing happen to me? I have not hurt anybody etc. The answer is, yes, you are
doing the right thing now to reduce your past bad karmas. But till the bad
karma is totally gone, the situation will continue to be bad.

Now I have taken just one example of bank balance to show
how my action influence my net worth. In exactly the same way, bad habits like
drinking, smoking etc bring situations and may even interlink with other situations.
Because I drink a lot, I may end up becoming a debtor. Because I am in debt, I
may take to drinking to relieve the pain. These are examples we can relate to.
So imagine, the number of actions/desires that we would have had over several
births. Each of them by itself leads to a particular situation, but when
intermingled will create complex situations, which we cannot fathom.

So what should we do in a situation? If I know I am a
debtor, I can start saving money. But in life’s situations, it is difficult to
know what we had done previously to result in our current situation. The best
thing is to act every moment with action selflessly without expectation of
fruit, to act every moment with an attitude of gratitude and finally to act knowing
that we are playing just a role in this world of illusion and we play that role
knowing that in reality we are the Supreme.