The following is an extract from my new book Coping with Suffering.
For more, order your copy here.
Your suffering is your choice to a great extent
in Hinduism. Your karma determines what comes your way. Karma is the principle
that governs the unfolding of events in your life. Your karma depends on the
integrity with which you lived your previous lives. It is not a punishment
because unlike in the Abrahamic religions there is no punitive God sitting in
any heaven meting out retribution to people. Karma is the unfolding of the
moral law that drives the whole universe. As Dr S Radhakrishnan put it, “The
working of karma is wholly dispassionate, just, neither cruel nor merciful.” It
is not about cruelty or mercy. It is the natural consequence of what you do. If
you eat salt, you will drink water. Quite as simple as that.
There is no escape from it
because it is part of the eternal law of the universe which is applicable to
everything and everybody in the universe without any discrimination. The high
and the low, the mighty and the weak, the animate and the inanimate, all are
subject to the eternal law one way or another.
God is the eternal law. We may
even say that the eternal law is god. Brahman (God) is the infinite reality,
the all-encompassing existence. Your ultimate deliverance is a merger of your
being into that infinity. For that you need to achieve purity by liberating
yourself from your ego. Only the pure self can dissolve into the infinite
reality.
The infinite reality pervades
everything. Nothing exists outside that. But evil is not a part of that pure
reality. Evil belongs to the impure, imperfect material reality. Concepts like
good and evil, bliss and suffering, are not applicable to the infinite reality
which is beyond all such limited and limiting notions.
Evil and suffering are our
creations, in short. Our anger, greed, delusion, etc bring much suffering to
ourselves as well as others. Other people, beasts, reptiles and so on can cause
suffering to us. There is also a kind of suffering caused by forces beyond us
like natural disasters.
There is no material life
without some evil and suffering. That is precisely why our ultimate goal is to
liberate ourselves from this existence and merge into the infinite reality
which is beyond all sensations and feelings, beyond any possibility of
suffering.
Krishna of the Bhagavat Gita
advises us to live without attachment to anything here on earth if we wish to
escape the cycles of birth, death and rebirth, the cycles generated by our
karma. Attachment is a desire for things you don’t have and a clinging to
things you do have. This attachment is the primary stumbling block to achieving
moksha, liberation. This attachment
brings unnecessary suffering to human beings.
You have to rise above the
joys and sorrows brought by this attachment. As Krishna tells Arjuna on the
battlefield of Kurukshetra, “You must learn to endure fleeting things – they
come and go! When these cannot torment a man, when suffering and joy are equal
for him and he has courage, he is fit for immortality.”
It is the nonchalance of the
ascetic that Krishna is asking Arjuna to acquire. It is not the listlessness of
the weary person. It is not the apathy of the unconcerned. It is an enlightened
state of mind which shows you the illusory nature of the things to which you
feel unwarranted attachment. It reveals to you how like a moth you are flying
into a flame that will scorch your wings when you have the option to fly higher
into the pure and blissful light of divinity.
How do you do that? How do you reach that higher
realms and attain eternal deliverance?For more, order your copy here.
I completely agree that Karma determines everything, but then there are certain instances in life where I think that this one is attributed to which karma so that we can correct it...is there a way to do so
ReplyDeleteWe have to correct whatever is wrong. Karma can't be an excuse for anything. This is just an extract. The chapter continues in the book.
DeleteKarma, you can one level say cause effect. that would make it a bland equation. But Karma is more importantly how you judge yourself. How I judge myself depends on a whole gamut of things, like my social, economic, education and religious background. My experiences in life and what meaning I have attached to it.
DeleteIf you eat salt, you'll drink water - as they say in Kerala. Cause - effect. But as you say, there's a lot of complexity too.
DeleteSo beautifully explained! "If you eat salt, you will drink water." ~ I just could not stop myself from reading the full post, after this simple, yet impactful line.
ReplyDeleteIn fact that salt - water analogy comes in the book from which this post is extracted.
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