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THE KARMAS
What is Karma? The Karma is a substantive force, a sort of infra-atomic particles, which have the peculiar
property of developing the effect of merits and demerits and creating and modifying the tendencies of
soul. It is the Law which gives us some explanation of our individual characteristics as to how they
were introduced as a result of forces generated in the part and holds the soul in bondage and prevents
it from knowing itself fully. It becomes easier to follow its nature, if we take karma in the sense
of qualities and bear in mind the fact that there can be no quality without a substratum. In daily
parlance karma means actions.
The law of cause and effect: Almost all branches of science philosophy in the world unanimously declare
the Law of Cause and Effect is the most universal law. All the forces of nature whether physical or
psychological obey this law. Every action of our body, speech or mind is the result of some cause.
In the Biblical language this ethical law of Cause and Effect, which in the language of Jain and
Hindu philosophy is technically called the law of Karma, is stated as. “As ye sow so shall ye reap”.
The Law is hosed on the principle that nothing-not to say of our actions, good or bad- not even
sound-is lost.
“The latest craze for the well dressed woman of Paris is to be accompanied by an equally well-dressed
canine companion. A dog’s life in that fashion-conscious –city would appear to be any- things but
a dog’s life, we are tolled that Francine Pary , a dress shop, now creates dog’s collars, coats and
costumes in fabrics which match with lady’s belts and bend bag.”
(Indian Express, March 20, 1963)
Yes, times are changing rapidly. We are living in an age when days have travelled t the moons and this claims the honour of being the first astronauts; they have stolen a march over men and the epithet ‘you dog will not become out dated’ unless we mean to pay a compliment.Every dog, it is said by way of explanation, has his day, but the addition of the word ‘every’ at the beginning; you will agree, is an exaggeration, for several of their canine brethren in India & elsewhere rot on the roads for whole of their lives, nay there are human beings who do not get two square meals a day, but some others roll in wealth and use pills for digestion and reducing the extra fat. Why, one may ask, is a matriculate related to a Minister employed as a Supt.while an M.A. rots as a Lower Division clerk? They are babies born blind, while others born with a silver spoon in this mouth. Dame fortune, they explain, favours fools. May be but why? There is no other explanation for their wide gap except that this is all due to The Law of Karma. In subjection to this law man is not an entirely free agent but has to work out the effects of his present and past actions Karma constitutes the cause and our present lot the effect.
Karma and working. Suppose you see today a man who had harmed you in some previous incarnation. Automatically like a resounding vice in a gramophone record when re-used a feeling of aversion towards him rises even though there is not the least recollection of your having ever seen him previously in this birth.
Again presume some you some good which you could not repay in your past life. Now if the same creature happens to meet you in this life and you find him in trouble you shall feel irrestibly inclined to help him in his distress even at some cost to yourself, you cannot just bypass him and leaves him to his fate. It is the effect of his and your past action which good both of you to act in a particular way.
Taqdir, fate, or the absolute decree of good and evil is the sixth article of the Mohomedan creed, and the orthodox believe that whatever has, or shall come to pass in this world, whether it be good or bad, proceeds entirely from the Divine will and has been irrevocably fixed and recorded on a preserved tablet by the pen of fate. This presented tablet is the perspicuous Book, the Book of God’s decrees, called lau-hi-mahafuz in Arabic and is said to contain all that has happened in the past and all that is to happen in the future.
The nature of Perspicuous Book is as stated above. But the question is how are the decrees contained there in to be enforced ? There may be a book or even a whole library, but unless there is force wich connects every individual soul with action it is destined to perform, it is in conceivable how the decrees can be worth anything more than the cash-value of the tablet on which they are inscribed. If we work out the problem of the connection between the decrees of fate and the action of men and other beings, they will not fail to perceive that the force which compels obedience to the decrees is none other than the force of Karma and the lau-i-mahfuz, the Perspicuous Book, whose decrees can never be challenge, is the self-registering and self-adjusting Jedger of soul, in which are recorded all thing that have happened in the post or those that may happen in the future, what happens is that at the time of death the soul enwrapped in its two inner vestments-the Karma na Taijas Shariras, is separated from the physical body of gross matter and forming the nucleus of the next incarnation immediately enters the new womb. The operation takes much less time than is required for its description say in the twinkling or an eye and is performed mechanically in obedience to the action of the chemical and magnetic forces residing in the above stated bodies.
Character: Character is the sum total of tendencies, emotions, feelings and inclinations or in fact the whole of the past experiences-the ante-natal and the post-natal.
Birth as animals: Being born in human or animal body depends on human or animal tendencies lying latent in the momentum of death. Whenever the animals propensities preponderate and our weigh the noble or human tendencies the soul takes birth as an animal. Men who il-treat their follow creatures who believing in the jungle-law of the “Survival of the fittest” show no mercy to the weaker and slaughter helpless dumb creatures for the sake of food and trade, who considering ‘might is right’ to be the only guiding principle of lite rob the poor widows and defenceless orphans and all those who persist in the path of villany and vice, subject themselves to future incarnations as beasts and brutes ,while many dumb friends who have evolved out human tendencies shall get human forms. The species among the living being are determined by the degrees of brutality or generosity engendered in the soul.
Bondage of Soul. Karmas are the cause of birth & death and of pleasure and pain. Soul has the choice of doing on action or refraning from it, but when once the Karma is performed it must bear its consequence.
Identically the same experiences do not result as a liability for acts done by an individual, e.g. one who has committed murder, would not be necessarily murdered by his victim in expiation of his sin now or in some future birth, the fruit of evil Karma may take any one or more of the eight forms detailed elsewhere and subject the evil doer to ignorance, wrong vision and the like. Evil Karmas lead to ignorance, because perfect knowledge depends on the purity of the self, which is all-knowing so that when it is covered over with impurities like a candle put under a basket, the light of its wisdom is necessarily obstructed. Pursuits of desires act as an obstruction to Right Knowledge just as the disturbed state of waters of a lake prevents the things lying at its bottom from being clearly perceived.
Mental impurities such as passion, anger and the like arising from desire, which are in their final analysis reducible to love and hate, or in other words attachments and aversions, are the causes of ignorance. Hence the entertainment of these arch-enemies of soul is the cause of bondage. An aspirant of salvation must not only give up sense gratification, but also the very desire for sense enjoyment. The entertainment of the desires is a greater evil than the actual enjoyment of the sense objects. The above is what constitute the bondage of soul.
The snapping of the bond. The bondage of Karma’s is god rid of by an automatic sense of non-relation and indifference towards material objects or by the active exertion of will with is possible only by the knowledge of the real nature of the self. No outside agency can help one who is not prepared to save himself.
Terrible as the Law of Karma is in its effects as the instrument of punishment, it can, never the less be made to remove the evil not only of the present life but also of all the past lives and that in the course of a simple earthly existence, is one only applies one’s self to attain emancipation with one’s whole heart.
“Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
Karma in Quran: “Whatever affliction befalls you, it is an account of what your hands have wrought”
-(Al Quran XIII, 30-72)
“Allah does not do any injustice to men, but men are unjust to themselves.”- (Al Quran X-44)
For upon it (the soul) is the benefit of what it has earned and upon it the evil of what it had wroubt.--( Al-Quran-ii-286)
