HINDUS ACKNOWLEDGE THE LAW OF KARMA

By Stephen Knapp

The understanding of reincarnation is not complete without understanding the law of karma. So followers of Sanatana-dharma also accept the Biblical concept “Whatever a man soweth, that shall he reap”. The doctrine of karma has been elaborated since the days of the Rig Veda and it is very well explained in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Every action and every thought has a reaction. That is the basis of karmic law. This is also the second law of thermodynamics: that every action has an opposite and equal reaction. On the universal level, this is the law of karma. Applying the law of karma to individual development means that every thought and every action produces a reaction of some kind that will manifest in our lives. It is weighed on the scale of eternal justice. The law of karma is one of cause and effect. Nobody can escape from any karmic debt since it follows you throughout the universe.

So if you act piously and righteously, such action produces good or heavenly reactions. If you act cruelly, such acts produce bad or even hellish reactions or reversals in life. So whatever we do in this life is felt in the form of good or bad reactions later in this or the next life. In the same way, our present life is based on a combination of good or bad reactions to what we have done in previous lives. So the idea is to become free from such reactions, whether good or bad, so we can become free from taking any more births in this world. Then, with a spiritualized consciousness, we can reach the spiritual domain.

According to Vedic knowledge, the body alone dies, and the soul never dies. But past actions are attached to the soul and they decide the path of the soul’s travel. So if you are born rich or poor, it is because of your actions in a previous life. If you are born with the disease, that also is the result of your past actions done in previous lives. After death, the soul carries a heavy load of karma and seeks an ideal body to be born in again. If you had lived as an evil individual in your last life, then the soul will take birth in a home where people may be leading evil lives. You will be forced to endure the consequences of your nefarious activities. However, if you had lived a pious life, then you will be reborn in an ideal home where both parents will be pious and happy. On the other hand, if you are born in a good and rich family because of your pious acts from a previous life, yet all you do is engage in selfish or cruel activities in this life, then you will simply use up all your good karma and pave the way to a lower birth in your next life.

According to Vedic understanding, the soul continues this journey with its load of karma from one life to another until it exhausts all karma by either undergoing the appropriate amount of pain or pleasure in the body, or by becoming purified through spiritual practice. The different methods of sadhana or God-realization provide easy ways to put an end to this drama of the continuous ups and downs in the body that you are given according to one’s karma.

One point to consider is that God will never punish us. He does not have to. God has created man near to perfection and has given him the “Free will” to decide what he or she wants to do. God never interferes in our decisions. There is no such thing as being cursed by God. Yet, He is always trying to call us home to the spiritual world. It is we ourselves who make our lives miserable or happy. Even in the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna never tried to influence Arjuna’s free will. Lord Krishna, like an adviser, only discussed with Arjuna (his disciple) the various options he could take in his life and then let him make his own decision. So the condition of our lives and even of the planet is merely a reflection of the consciousness of the people who inhabit it. And it is simply one’s ignorance to say that something is the “Revenge of God”, etc.