Sunday, February 24, 2013

Spirituality behind brutality


Many shocking events happen in our society and we try to search for answers and are disappointed that there are no easy answers. It is at such times, that spirituality comes like a beacon of light and can shed light on the darkness surrounding such incidents. On recent horrendous incident has been the brutalization of a young woman in a moving bus causing her untimely death. I have been following various articles and reactions of people, most common of which are:

  1. Why did such an event happen to her?
  2. Why did God not intervene?
  3. How should society treat these criminals?
My answers to above are based totally based on spirituality and not based on any current laws or the existing morals in society.

To answer the first question, we have to turn to none other than Karma. We have a bunch of desires and the sum total of all the desires is Sanchita karma. A sub-set of that ensures we take birth in the current environment and that is Prarabdha. What we do in the current environment using our free will is Purushartha.

So, any environment that we face in life is due to a complex set of interacting desires. Now, the question would be, why would that girl have desired to be brutalized? Let’s understand this with some examples. Assume I am rowing a boat in turbulent waters, even though I am trying to row ahead, the boat may go in totally different direction because of the turbulence. So in spite of me desiring to reach shore, it may well end up that I fall off a cliff. This is easily understood because we see the forces arraigned against us.

Let me take another example. Assume a block of wood on a smooth surface. Assume that I have tied a string to this block and am pulling from West to East, the block will move towards East. Now at the same time, assume there is an invisible person who has tied a string to same block and is pulling in opposite direction. Further assume that both of us are invisible to the other. So, try as hard as I pull, the block will not move the way I want because of the invisible force in opposite direction. Let’s add more complexity. Assume there are more people with strings, all of them invisible to others, who are pulling the block in different directions. Each of them assumes that the block will move the way they are pulling. However, since they do not know that at same time, others are pulling in different directions, they are bewildered as to why the block is not moving the way they “desire”.

In exactly, the same way, for each of us, the driving force in life is some desire. Only because I desire to go to work, I drive a car. Only because I need money to support my family, I desire to go to work. Now, over a period of this life time and several earlier births, we accumulate desires, some of which are fulfilled and some are not. It is obvious to any of us that only unfulfilled desires propel us to do something. If I am fully fed, I won’t desire another sweet. So, at any point of time, the sum total of all the pressing desires come together to create an environment. As we have seen earlier, the actual state based on my perceived desire may be totally different from my required state due to unseen desires. So, for this unfortunate girl, a set of desires over several births created an environment where the outcome was likely to be totally different from what she would have desired.

Before we despair and say everything is pre-ordained, it’s good to remember that karma only creates an environment. What I do in an environment is totally my free will or Purushartha. So in the environment created in the above situation, the criminals took the action of taunting based on their free will and that triggered the series of actions that resulted in the tragedy. What if they had not taunted? What if the girl’s friend had not reacted and somehow found a way to call the cops? What if the girl somehow had called someone? These are all actions that could have been possible. But because of the free will of the criminals who took the wrong action, the whole environment turned deadly.

Next is the most common question as to what was God doing. Let’s ask ourselves, what did we expect? As Hindus brought up with stories of various Gods, did we expect that somehow Lord Krishna would turn up and kill the criminals with his chakra or somehow Hanuman would come and beat them to pulp. Similarly with the Gods from other beliefs, did we expect a physical God to do something? Much as we believe in God, I am sure we all agree that this expectation is too far-fetched  Again our concept of God may be the problem. God is like the petrol in a car. God provides the necessary energy for us to do whatever we wish. Just as petrol cannot prevent a bad driver from having an accident nor can it protect devotees rolling off a hill during a pilgrimage, there is no way God can prevent bad action nor can he promote good action. So, does this mean that all our beliefs about saviors or unseen angels are wrong. No, they are not wrong. Again, we have to turn to karma to answer this. We discussed briefly about individual karma. In exactly, the same way, there is a societal karma. Now, at the time that the girl was being brutalized, if somehow a cop had appeared and stopped the bus or if by some chance another vehicle had hit this bus, the tragedy probably could have been averted. These would have been the unseen angels. But they do not appear from thin air. For these angels too, based on their own complex set of desires, they would be brought into an environment, where they can save a life. So, angels are very much possible, depending on the collective karma at that point in time.

Finally, the question arises of how to treat these criminals. Legally, they should face the maximum punishment. No questions about it, at all. But how should we react to these people? Suppose instead of these people on the bus, someone by mistake had left a basket of poisonous snakes and they have bit the girl. What would our reaction be? Would it be based on hatred? We would just know that the cobra’s nature is to kill and we would have probably ensured the cobra was killed. But we would have done it not out of hate for the cobra, but out of a intellect that cobra’s behavior is to kill and our duty to society is to ensure that this cobra does not kill again and we would take the necessary steps. In exactly, the same way, there is no need to hate the criminals. We have to realize with our intellect that these people were a vicious victim of their own desires and acted that way. However, to prevent such actions, we have to ensure the necessary actions to put such criminals away from society. Taking such an attitude prevents the impact of karma on us. Without such an attitude, each of us gets an unfulfilled desire to eradicate such criminals and because it is an unfulfilled desire, it manifests in some form in some future birth in a situation influenced by competing desires and may lead to an outcome we do not desire.

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