Dear Vijisesh,
This is my posting on the topic of karma as promised in my last post to you.
You would agree that every cause has an effect and vice versa. That precisely explains the concept of karma and karmaphala (fruit of karma).
In order to start off I take the privilege to quote the following excerpts from Sri Anbuji's posting in this blog (
http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/showthread.php?t=118&page=2 see posting of
07-04-2006, 04:52 PM)
"According to the Karmic Law your 'poorva karma' or the actions of your previous incarnations or births brings their fruits called 'karma phala'. If you were to enjoy something then it is due to your punya karma. Conversely paapa Karma brings dhukkam or misery. In order to enjoy and/or suffer the fruits of karma, you are equipped with such means as your nature, your body, your mind and your world. Bhagavan Ramana says: "Karthur Aagnaya Praapyathe Phalam" i.e. by the ordainment of the creator the fruits of karma take place. These fruits are proportional to what you have done, nothing more, and nothing less. There is also a byproduct in this: With the body the 'bhoktha' (i.e. the enjoyer or the sufferer) in the process of enjoying or suffering acquires a taste for the enjoyment or suffering for example the smell lingering in a flower basket even after the flower is removed or the onion smell that lingers in your hand even after you have eaten onion sambar hours ago!.
This is called 'samskaara' that a person carries with him. This enables him to long for another birth to carry on with the tasting yet again! That is the reason for the claim that the person is born again in his own family due to his attachment with the members of his family. When you see a child enjoys/suffers, you can easily infer the result of past karma. If this is not the case then the child would be suffering something for which he was never responsible. That is a fault called 'akrutha abyaagamam'. Also a person does good and bad karma and dies before he enjoys or suffers the fruit of that karma. If such fruit o karma does not follow him into his next birth then there arises the fault of 'kritha vibranaasam' i.e. those karmas getting destroyed without yielding fruit. These faults never arise in God's ordainment.
The Hindus explain this way why someone is born a prince or a pauper and so on. Neither the western religions nor the rationalists have any explanation as to why you are who you are.
Now let us pick up this thread of grievance of the secularists that it is unfair that someone is a Vaisya or a Sudhra while another is a Kshathriya or a Brahmana. The secularists and Christians ignore THEIR God’s unequal creation but would impute it on their fellowmen and clamor to change it. That is their sense of justice. If you are born once and no more THEN this grievance is valid, but if you are born again and again due only to your actions, then you are what you yourself made yourself to be. YOU ARE YOUR OWN CAUSE, NOT OF THE CREATOR, NOT OF YOUR FELLOWMEN AND NOT BY ACCIDENT."
Let me continue from here.
Remember in the western religions the judgement is that you are either damned (mostly so) or
redeemed (rarely so!). There is no proportionate karmaphala because a man is danmed for big or small crime anyway and neither is that judgement free from subjective bias of the judge as you never know what ticks the judge to make him your redeemer(they call it mystery!). In our concept we have to ensure both the proportionate reward and total lack of bias. The question is, therefore, when you do a karma who should be the judge who would deliver the proportionate fruit of karma?
Suppose you say "I will be my judge for then I won't have any complaint about the judge is biased against me." Of course! But then there is the bias that you have in your own favour! You could say that the crime you have committed was indeed necessary for some public good and it should not be considered as bad karma and should be considered as good karma and then you would like to reward yourself instead of punishing yourself!! Why so? Because it is the nature of the individual that he would not like to hurt himself but on the contrary would like to do everything for his own enjoyment. So you would amplify your karma as the greatest and reward yourself profusely and minimize your crime to absolute zero and may indeed distort it to make it a good karma!
Does that mean that the judge has to be someone other than you?
Of course that may clear the bias one has in his own favour. However that person may not know all about you as much as you do know about yourself and he is not a witness to all your actions and goes by hearsay or evidence which again may be biased. Again his judgement is not as much satisfying as you would give it to your own self. Thus anyone other than you being the judge is also ruled out!
So what is the way out?
The judge or the karmaphala dhaatha as we call him has to be you as well as not you!
This is where our concept of God comes and you would notice that it is different from the concept of God of the western religions of judaism, christianity and islam. In western religion God is different from you. You are not God. He is your creator. You are the created and is at his mercy. Also he is certainly not you - for he is your creator. You did not exist before he created you. But you will live endlessly after your birth and short sojourn on this earth. Most people are being marched from here to hell for eternity. You can safely conclude that the western god busily keeps creating to overpopulate hell!
In Hinduism God is you and everything that surrounds you. "Purusha EvEdhagum Sarvam, yad bhootham yascha bhavyam.." God is all, He is past, present and all that is yet to come. (viswam vishnur vashatkaarO bhootha bhavya bhavath prabhuhu) And also He is beyond all the visible and invisible world (thripaadasyaamritham dhivi).
Because of this you cannot transpose the western concept of 'he' being your creator. Why so? Because you are Him and He is you! (sOham hamsaha, hamsas soham). One cannot create one's own self. Since I do know that I exist, the concusion is that I am beginningless (anaadhi) and endless (anantham). If I have a beginning I will also have an end. Is it OK to be just a flash of lightinging and disappear without a trace? Who would like to have such a horrible concept and then talk of hope and eternal peace and happiness?
Let me again quote Anbuji from his post timeline 08-06-2006, 08:01 PM
http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/showthread.php?t=118&page=3
"The theory ‘Karma and Reincarnation’ on the other hand talks of the Aathma or the Self that remains changeless no matter how times have changed and how the environment got altered. Your own self is Anaadhi or beginningless! Sri Krishna Bhagavan says in Bhagavat Gita (2:20) “Na jaayathe mriyathe vaa kadhaachinnaayam bhoothvaa bhavithaa vaa na bhooyaha| Ajo nithyaha saasvathoyam puraano na hanyathe hanyamaane sareere||” meaning “This Self is never born; It never dies either. Coming into being and ceasing to be does not take place in it. (I.e. this Self is not a phenomenal existence that has birth, life and death). Unborn, eternal, everlasting this ancient One is not slain when the body is slain.”
So the conclusion is: Jeeva is beginningless, God is beginningless and even the universe is beginningless. God merely manifests and unmanifests their roopas, the essence, the aathma of all being Himself. He became many without being born (ajaayamaanO bhahuthaa vijaayathE).
No one accuses his own self as being biased against himself. Because such accuser also has to be himself and therefore such accusation would have no locus standi. Since God is your own self there is no bias imputed in him and he knows all about you by being yourself. He is also 'all' and that 'all' is considered as 'not you'. He is ever conscious and knows all (Heis 'sarvagnan') and never away from you. Thus our concept of God alone is the true judge and can be the karmaphala dhaatha is established. But what you have to keep in mind is that the concept of God from the Hindu point is at variance with the concept of God of the westerners. If you ignore and fall into the trap of the secularists then you would imagine that the God they are talking about and the God you are talking about are the same. It is true that our concept of God is all pervading (sunnO Vishur rurookramaha) but they the westerners do not accept that and therefore we cannot accept their idea of creation and the role they have for the souls in their eternal march to hell. All religions are not same. Our religion and their religions are diametrically opposite of each other.
(contd.)
