(ACTION)
by Swami Avdhutananda
Ex Acharya,Chinmaya Mission-sikkim
Every religion has got a fundamental doctrine or a set of doctrines on which the edifice of the whole religion and its philosophy is built up. In the case of Sanaatana Dharma (wrongly known as Hinduism, a word coined by the foreigners) there are two such fundamental doctrines which are the corner stones of Sanaatana Dharma. They are: - (1) The doctrine of Karma and (2) The doctrine of Re-incarnation.
Both these doctrines are inseparably intertwined. It can be seen that they are the only reasonable and logical explanations of the facts of life, powers, justice and mercy of the Supreme Cosmic Intelligence which is commonly known as “God”.
Life can be understood only on the assumption that each existence is bearing the penalty or enjoying the fruits, of vice or virtue, earned to our debit or credit in some former period or prior existence and that is the only logical explanation for the disparity between man and man, his environments and his experiences. No deed small or great, good or bad can be without effect: this is the Law of Karma; the Law of Deed, the Law of Causality, Compensation and Retribution, in the spiritual world.
One man is born a prince, while another is born a pauper. One is strong while another is a weakling. One is handsome and attractive, while another is ugly and repulsive. One is saintly while another is satanic. One lives up to a hundred years, while another faces death in the prime of life or even in infancy. One rolls in luxury throughout his life, while the other drags on a miserable existence from the womb to the tomb. One is loved by all while another is hated by millions. One meets with a happy and natural death surrounded by his near and dear ones who bestow all love and care on him, while another dies despised as a criminal on the scaffold. The whole nation mourns the death of one man, while another dies unknown, unwept, unhonoured and unsung. One baby has a perfect physique, while another is sadly deformed at birth. Why all this disparity? Is God partial to one and prejudiced to another? We cannot attribute motives or qualities to God. If so, He is no God at all, as partiality, prejudice, anger or any other quality are imperfections and cannot exist in Perfection itself, which is God. If so, what can be the cause? Each man gets what he has asked for, by his own actions and thoughts. The past has decided the present.
If it is conceded that the present is the effect of the cause that was the past, it necessarily follows by the same logic, that the past and the present together decide the future. The past has already been lived and therefore cannot be unlived, but the effect can be exhausted without accumulating further causes which may produce undesirable effects in the future. To that limited extent, may be our future can be said to be in our own hands.
The Law of Karma says: “As you sow, so you reap.” Then there must have been a period when the seed was sown, even before this existence started as the very present existence starts with the disparities mentioned above, which conclusively proves that we had a past. This takes us to the doctrine of Re-incarnation. So, one doctrine necessarily follows the other.
The mind may be considered as constituted of two distinct sides—one facing the world of stimuli that reach it from the objects of the world and the other facing the “within” which reacts to the stimuli received. The outer mind facing the object is called the objective mind—in Sanskrta we call it the manas and the inner mind is called the subjective mind—in Sanskrta, the buddhi.
At every moment, man meets with different patterns of stimuli and thus constantly gathers new impressions in the ‘subjective mind’. Every set of impulses reaching it not only adds to the existing layers of impressions already in it, but also gets coloured by the quality of these vaasanaa-s* (*the compelling deep-urges in us, gathered in our past fields of action—that now determine our present emotional profile, are the vaasanaa-s / impressions / tendencies) stored within. When these are translated into action, the actions carry a flavour of the existing vaasanaa-s in the ‘subjective mind’.
The ‘subjective mind’ gets increasingly granulated by overlapping signatures of our past moments. These granulations make the ‘subjective mind’ dull and opaque and form, as it were, an impregnable wall between ourselves and the spiritual Divinity that shines eternally as pure Objectless Awareness in all of us deep within the core of our personality.
The theory of Vedaanta repeats that reduction of the vaasanaa-s is the means of volatalising the mind. When one looks into a mirror and do not see one’s face in it, it is not because the mirror is not reflecting the object in front of it, but because the reflected image is not perceptible to one’s vision due to, perhaps a thick layer of dust on the mirror. With a duster, when one cleans the mirror, the act of cleaning does not create the reflection of the face, but it only unveils the reflection which was already there. Similarly, man is not aware today of his divine spiritual nature because the ‘subjective mind’ reflecting it is thickly coated with dull vaasanaa-s gathered by it during its ego-centric, passionate existence in the world.
To bring the subjective and the objective aspects of the mind together into a happy union where the ‘objective mind’ is well-disciplined to act faithfully as per the guidance of the ‘subjective mind’, is the yoga pointed in the Geetaa. This is accomplished only by the removal of the dividing factor—the ego-centric desires. Through intelligent action, an individual can exhaust his existing impressions and ultimately redeem his ‘subjective mind’ from the granulations and make it more clear and crystalline. Selfless activity, performed in a spirit of egoless adoration and reverence to the divine ideal, would ultimately result in inner purification.
The ‘subjective mind’ is thus a secret weapon in man to be used as an outlet for the existing impressions that have come to be stored up in it. But the tragedy is that an average man, in his ignorance, misuses the dangerous weapon and brings about his own destruction. He uses it as an inlet and creates, during his selfish activities performed with low motives, a new stock of mental impressions. In order to exhaust them, nature provides new equipments (bodies), in which the same ego comes to live, repeatedly life after life. This creates karma bandhana (kaarmik bondage).
We have karma bandhana with all the people who come into our lives. They may be parents, siblings, spouse, relatives, friends and foes, neighbours, school and college batchmates, colleagues, strangers etc. We have some some kind of ‘give and take’ with these people, which we need to exhaust. This ‘give and take’ may be in terms of wealth, sevaa (service), emotions and feelings and knowledge. We need to make our ‘give and take’ accounts with these people ZERO and at the same time not create new karma bandhana. Moreover we also need to eliminate the existing vaasana-s without creating new ones. The saadhana for accomplishing this is viveka (discrimination between real and the unreal), vairaagya (dispassion) and nishkaama karmayoga (selfless activities).
No one can live without engaging in some kind of activities. Even to keep the body alive one has to act. We perform innumerable actions from birth to death. Every action produces result. Actions are of three types, depending on the fruits they yield at different periods of time. According to Tattva Bodhah: “karmaani katividhaani santeeti chet aagaamisanchitapraarabdhabhedena trividhaani santi” (“If it is asked—how many kinds of karma-s are there, (the reply is) there are three kinds of karma-s viz. aagaami, sanchita and praarabdha”).
Aagaami Karma: “jnanotpattyanantaram jnaanidehakrtam punyapaaparoopam karma yadasti tadaagaameetyabhidheeyate” (“The results of actions, good or bad performed by the body of the realized soul (jnaani) after the dawn of knowledge is known as aagaami.”).
As we sow, so we reap. What we sow today, we reap tomorrow. The fruits of what we do today come as aagaami in the future. The results of our actions may bear fruit immediately, after a period of time or in a future life. The fruits of actions follow the doer of actions. To a lay person, it may appear that one acts, while someone else enjoys or suffers the fruits of one’s past actions.
Animals are also identified with the body, but perform actions without doership notion. They act according to instincts, programmed by what one may call nature or God. We are identified with our body, act with doership notion and seem to have some limited choice in action. We may act, may not act or act otherwise. A jnaani (Self-realized Master) is not identified with his body and therefore has no doership notion, yet he may appear to be performing actions through his body. As far as he is concerned he is the pure Self, free from doership notion and therefore the fruits of action. An action in itself is neutral—neither good nor bad. The fruits of actions depend primarily on the motive behind the action. A positive motive results in merit (punya) and a negative one in sin (paapa). Those actions which result in sorrow, misery, tension, stress, guilt or regret is papa (sin), while those which give joy, happiness, contentment and a feeling of fulfillment is punya (meritorious). That action which springs from selflessness, with a concern and love for others and is one’s own dharma (duty) is punya. Those actions, which spring from selfish or malicious motives and are prohibited is paapa. Whether an action is paapa or punya, also depends on time, place, person, situation, circumstance and environment, besides the most important one—the motive. So an action which may appear as punya at a particular time, place and environment and performed by a particular person may appear as paapa at a different time, place and situation and performed by the same person or another person and vice versa. Therefore one must always be aware and perform only meritorious deeds if one wishes to live peacefully. Since a jnaani has no doership notion, there are no good or bad actions for him.
Sanchita Karma: “anantakotijanmanaam beejabhutam sat yatkarmajaatam poorvaarjitam tishthati tat sanchitam jneyam” (“The result of actions performed in (all) previous births which are in seed form to give rise to endless millions of births (in future) is called sanchita (accumulated) karma.”).
The word ‘sanchita’ is from the verbal root ‘chi’ which means to collect. Sanchita is that which is well collected. The jiva (individual) from beginingless time has taken innumerable births in a variety of bodies. In these bodies he exhausts his stock of karma-s, but does not create any new karma-s. In human form, he not only exhausts karma-s done in the past but also creates new karma-s. Actions done in the present are accumulated in our account, whose fruits are to be experienced in future births are known as sanchita karma. Every one of us already has a good stock of karma-s and we keep continuously adding to it. This stock of karma-s is enough to give us millions and millions of birth in a variety of bodies.
If we learn the right way of performing karma-s, we would be able to exhaust our karma-s without creating new ones for future experience. If we are accumulating karma-s we should accumulate only those that would give us happiness in the future and lead us to higher spiritual evolutionary level.
Praarabdha Karma: “idam shareeramutpaadya iha lokay eva sukhadhukhaadipradam yatkarma tatpraarabdham bhogena nashtam bhavati praarabdha karmanaam bhogaadeva kshaya iti” (“Having given birth to this body, the actions which give result in this very world, in the form of happiness or misery and which can be destroyed only by enjoying or suffering them is called praarabdha karma.”).
That which has started well is praarabdha. From the total stock of sanchita karma, those karma-s which have fructified to give us the present birth and the experiences in it are praarabdha karma. Praarabdha decides our parents, time and place of our birth, gender, the type of body mind and intellect equipment we get, the environment in which we live, the quota of joyful and sorrowful experiences, our life span etc. It is commonly known as destiny, fate or luck. The Padma Puraana (one of the texts of Sanaatana Dharma) says that the fate of five things in one's life is already decided at the time of one's conception in the womb—education, one's occupation, the aggregate wealth one will acquire, lifespan, and when, where and how one’s body will drop or disintegrate, or in more common parlance “die”. Happenings associated with these five are preordained and will come to pass, no matter what, and can be termed one's destiny. One's character, moulded by one's samskara-s, will then make one act in such a manner that events play out as destined. One should not consider praarabdha with a negative attitude such as—‘Maybe God decided my fate. Now I am helpless. I will have to experience it. There is no use in doing anything, everything is decided, we can’t change.’ In fact by understanding that ‘what I get now is because of what I have done in the past’, I stop blaming one and all for it and take full responsibility for my life and experiences. Understanding that I deserve what I get, I strive to deserve better. I have chosen what I got with my karma. Now I should have the right attitude with which I receive it and in what I do with what I get. Param Pujya Gurudev Svaami Chinmayanandaji said, “What I get is His gift to me, what I do with what I get is my gift to Him.”
The enjoyment of pleasure and the suffering of pain (bhoga) in this physical body—the Hall-of-experience—is determined by our past karma-s. Thought by thought, action by action, we have demanded the present body, mind and intellect equipment. In fact even while we are alive and acting here, now, we order the shape of the future life to be. Unless we conquer the bad vaasana-s by right conduct, and practice systematically the righteous values of life, we do not come to live in an atmosphere in which our thoughts and actions are sufficiently divine and to be directly helpful for our own evolution on the spiritual path. It, therefore, now rests with us to make or mar our progress to get a better life with plenty of opportunities in which we can slowly and steadily go forward and ultimately come to realize the Absolute Truth, or get a wicked one in which we can dive ourselves into a greater gloom. With our own actions we give a blue-print to the Supreme Cosmic Intelligence, commonly known as God, ordering the exact shape of our destiny, and according to the specifications given, the body, the hall-of-experience, is built and handed over to each one of us by the All-merciful, Omnipotent, Divine Creator.
A growing fruit reaches its full maturity and then disintegrates. An arrow that has been shot from the bow, reaches its target to exhaust its momentum. It cannot be withdrawn half way. Similarly, those karma-s which have started fructifying can be exhausted only by experiencing their results. One has to experience the fruits of one’s actions, whether one likes it or not. These results come to us as favorable or unfavorable situations. A jnaani too has taken birth in his body due to praarabdha. At the time of birth he had not realized the Self. Even after realizing the pure Self, the praarabdha of the body continues. Therefore we see that even a jnaani may get cancer or heart disease. Great Masters, Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Nisargadatta Maharaj both suffered from throat cancer. As far as a jnaani is concerned, he doesn’t have doership or experiencership notion. But from the standpoint of the ignorant he too is seen to undergo various positive and negative experiences of joys and sorrows. A jnaani and an ignorant person both suffer. When miseries come an ignorant person becomes miserable, but a jnaani doesn’t become miserable because he has no identification with the body. He revels in the bliss of pure Self. The body of the ignorant as well as that of the jnaani is ultimately destroyed.
Freedom from the Bondage of Karma: “sanchita karma brahmaivaahamiti nishayaatmakajnaanena nashyati” (“sanchita karma is destroyed by the firm knowledge, ‘I am Brahman alone’.”).
A person commits many crimes and is therefore wanted by the law. There are many criminal cases pending in the courts. But when he dies, the entire file is closed. The one who committed those crimes is no more available to be punished. Similarly, the jiva is a finite entity which identifies with the body, owns all its actions and accumulates its results to be experienced in the present and future births. This feeling of finitude is born from the ignorance of one’s true Self. On gaining the knowledge, ‘I am the infinite Consciousness’, the false notion that I am the finite, changing, suffering entity is destroyed. There remains no individuality / ego that owns karma-s or identifies with the body to enjoy or suffer them.
Therefore the entire stock of karma-s becomes null and void. It cannot fructify anymore. It can be compared to roasted seeds. Once roasted, they can no longer sprout.
The gross body of the ignorant and that of the jnaani at death disintegrate to merge with the five gross elements here itself. The subtle body (the mind-intellect equipment) of the ignorant man, propelled by the causal body (ignorance) takes up a new body according to the fruits of karma-s that have fructified. The subtle body of the jnaani merges with the tanmatra-s (the natural state of five elements) as there is no propelling force to give it direction or hold it together. The causal body, the cause of the gross and subtle bodies of the jnaani, is destroyed by the knowledge of the Self. There is no more birth for him. Space appears conditioned by a pot. Once the pot breaks, the pot space merges with the total space. There is no actual merging. The space was always one and all-pervading even when the pot existed.
“aagaami karma api jnaanena nashyati kincha aagaami-karmanaam nalineedalagatajalavat jnaaninaam sambandho naasti” (“The aagaami karma is also destroyed by knowledge and the wise man is not affected by it—as a lotus leaf is not affected by the water on it (padma patra ivaambhasa)”). The jnaani takes no more birth. The praarabdha karma too does not affect him, as he has no identification with the body. After realization, while exhausting his praarabdha karma, a jnaani continues performing actions in the present. Since the very notion of doership dies, there remains none to experience the results of actions done by him in the present. Remaining in the midst of actions, a jnaani is untouched by them like the lotus leaf in water. The lotus leaf remains in water yet it never gets wet.
Once Buddha was abused as he was asking for alms. The disciple got angry and said, “Shall I give him a piece of my mind?” Buddha said, “If you have taken anything, you have to return it. Since I have not taken anything, I do not feel the need to give anything back.”
But karma-s performed by the jnaani must also give results. If they do not go to the jnaani, to whom will it go to?
“kincha ye jnaaninam stuvanti bhajanti archayanti taanprati jnaanikrtam aagaami punyam gacchati / ye jnaaninaam nindanti dvishanti dukhapradaanam kurvanti taanprati jnaanikrtam sarvamaagaami kriyamaanam yadavaachyam karma paapaatmakam tadgacchati / suhrdah punyakrtyam durhrdah paapakrtyam grhnanti” (“Further, to those who praise, serve and worship the wise man, go the results of good actions done by the wise man. To those who criticize, hate or cause pain to the wise man go the results of all unpraiseworthy and sinful actions done by the wise man.”).
Every karma has two sides—if its good effects by far outweigh the bad, we call it a good karma. The surgeon performs surgery on the patient and causes him pain and his relatives, tension, yet it is a good karma. When bad effects dominate, it is a bad karma. The jnaani’s karma-s always spring from good motives, but they may appear to have bad effects also. Since the jnaani is not the enjoyer or sufferer of good or bad results of the karma-s performed through his body (due to non-doership and non-identification with his body, mind and intellect—BMI), whom do the results of his karma go to? It is said that the good results go to those who love, serve, praise and worship the jnaani and the bad ones go to those who criticize, hate or cause pain to him. The jnaani himself has no likes and dislikes, friends and foes. He sees everyone as his own Self; therefore, he does not will that the fruits of his karma should go to any particular person. The karma-s done by him are the will and demand of the Totality. The results are therefore distributed according to the will of the Totality. The mind of the one who loves, serves and worships the jnaani is purified and therefore attracts the fruits of his good karma-s. The mind of the one who criticizes and hates the jnaani is negative and therefore attracts the results of his negative karma-s.
Those who have value for knowledge and ideals, whose mind is pure and subtle, recognize the greatness of the jnaani. They revere and serve him not for getting merits but for the supreme knowledge or out of gratitude for having received it or out of gratitude for the transformation in their lives. Some look at the jnaani from the standpoint of their ignorance and superimpose their own prejudices on him. Some go to him with expectations and if they are not fulfilled, criticize him. Some with evil minds hate anyone who is good and even try to harm them. The jnaani however is equal towards both—the one who loves him and the one who hates him.
If one is not able to see greatness in the jnaani and is not able to love, serve and revere him, one must stay away from him and not criticize him or create hatred or dislike for him. Otherwise one brings about one’s own downfall through that. The examples of Raavana, Kamsa etc. are well known in Hindu mythology.
When the true Self is not known due to the veiling layers of ignorance, the misapprehensions of the Self, as the various matter envelopments (body, senses, mind and intellect) start. Identifying with these layers the delusory sense of individuality arises and this ego suffers the pains and agonies of samsaara (the entire limited realm of time, space, objects and causation). If the mere non-apprehension doesn’t create any misapprehension, then it is a condition of relative joy.
“tathaa chaatmavitsamsaaram teertvaa brahmaanandamihaiva praapnoti / tarati shokamaatmavit iti shruteh”
The knower of the Self, having crossed samsaara, attains supreme, infinite Bliss here itself. Limitations cause sorrow. The knower of the Self goes beyond the limitations of time, space, objects and causation and therefore goes beyond all sorrows.
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