Hari Aum !!!

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Q. Can destiny (karma) ever come to an end?

 

A. Karmas carry in themselves the seeds of their own destruction.

 

Note: Karma is the destiny created for oneself by one's free

actions. In actions are included thoughts and sensations, motives,

good or bad emotions, etc. While working out an old destiny one is

bound to create a new one by the manner in which one reacts to its

operation. Here then comes the place of free will. We are not free

to alter the trend of an old Karma, for example, in the choice of our

parents, country, the circumstances of our birth and environments; of

our physical and mental fitness and abilities. These are forced on

us : we cannot change them. What we can change is the manner in which

we receive and work them out. We are all agreed that there are many

things in which the decision lies in our hands : the decision is

ours, the action is ours, the motive behind the action is ours, the

mental attitude with which we do the action is ours too. This often

is the field in which we are allowed freedom of will, and it contains

the seeds of our future destiny. We can shape that destiny as we

will, and if like most people, we are not aware of this truth, we

allow ourselves to be carried away by our impulses. We shall

eventually land in worse trouble than we are in already. Most often

the new karma does not follow on the heel of the one which is being

worked out now, so that we drag the chain of our slavery through

several lives.

 

Here the salutary precepts of the Scriptures come to our

rescue to make us rectify our views on life and our attitude towards

others. These and the persistent knocks of the destiny gradually

soften our impulses, modify our outlooks, sharpen our intellect, and

slowly but surely turn us into seekers; then into yogis; and finally

into full fledged jnanis, when karma ceases. Jnana totally

annihilates it. Let us not forget that all these improved changes -

or evolution - take place not in the man himself, but in the

faculties which are superimposed on him, that is, in his views and

actions.

 

Jnana is thus brought about by a good karma, generated by a

good free will, which is the result of persistent suffering from a

bad karma, generated by a bad free will. Karma is like an inanimate

machine, which yields up what you put into it. That is why the

master begins his Upadesa Saram with the statement that karma is

jada, insentient, unintelligent. What makes it move and act as stern

destiny is the energy generated by the exercise of our free will.

 

It may be asked that if a persistently bad free will caused

by the embitterment resulting from a persistently bad karma bring

about a worse karma, which drags us down and down, where is the

change of our ever coming up to the surface again? We must not

forget the saving Grace of suffering and the inherent purity of our

nature, which will not permit us to remain for ever insensible to

degradation and misery : we cannot for ever remain sunk in bottomless

ignorance and never attempt to climb up to freedom. Suffering and

the intense urge to return to ourselves act as flats and buoy us up

from the depths of this vast ocean of samsara. Thus the action of

karma through suffering gives the impetus to Jnana which destroys

karma. This is what Bhagavan means by " karma carries in itself the

seeds of its own destruction. "

 

It goes without saying that karma takes effect only in the

physical body; for a debt incurred in a physical body has to be paid

also in such a body, either in this very body or in a future one.

The Vedanta does not believe in an after death payment; hence rebirth

is necessary.

 

-- Ramana Maharshi

 

Hari Aum !!!