Does Krishna take away our Karma ???

July 23, 2003

by Kundali dasa

Yes, He does. Srila Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakura explains that at the time of taking to this path, sincerely, bhakti-yoga is so powerful or Lord Krsna is so kind that He immediately takes away the karma of the aspiring devotee.

One thinks, "Gee, this is just great. But if this is the case, how is it that hand reading and astrology works?"

To this Chakravartipada would reply, "Lord Krsna is so kind that He takes away your karma; but He is so kind that He gives it right back. And that’s why a sadhaka, an aspiring devotee, can get an accurate reading from a qualified astrologer or palmist."

Of course, it’s nice to know the reason why astrology or palmistry works even for a devotee, but this now opens a new question. "Why does Krsna take away our karma and then give it right back? How is that His kindness?"

"Because when we take to this path, although we are sincere we are still conditioned, which means we are impure. We need to become purified. The process by which we become purified is to undergo the happiness and distress that is allotted to us by our karma, but by doing devotional service, we do not accrue any new karma. Thus when we are fully purified, we are free from all karmic reactions. We are liberated souls.

When the Lord gives us back our karma, we no longer think of this as karma, however; we now think of it as His mercy. And indeed it is.

If we think of all our happiness and distress as the Lord’s mechanism for shaping and molding us into qualified servants, then we can easily understand that His giving us back our karma is mercy. It nudges us to a higher standard of service mood. This is purification. Gold is purified by putting it into fire. And if we are intelligent enough to be inspired by this understanding, we actually can become eager to pray as Prabhupada prayed, "Let me suffer the lot that I due for my previous misdoings, but let me have this power of recollection that I’m nothing but the tiny servant of the Almighty."

So now we know why we say that the spiritual master takes away our karma upon accepting us into the parampara by initiation, and why it is that we seem to suffer so much. It is not due to karma; it is due to the mercy of the Lord.

Your servant,

Kundali dasa

Bhaktavasya · July 24, 2003

You said: To this Chakravartipada would reply, "Lord Krsna is so kind that He takes away your karma; but He is so kind that He gives it right back.

Could you please quote where this is said?

Unfortunately, I cannot recall exactly where Prabhupad said this, but I know it is in a purport: "When someone surrenders unto the Lord, he is never again under the laws of ordinary karma, but directly under the contol of the Lord."

So it seems that our karma that we would have had to undergo is at least minimized and to the degree that we surrender, Krishna is personally in charge of what happens to us.

Because we have come in contact with Krishna Consciousness and heard Bhagavad Gita, there may be some residue karma from our past lives but instead of being tossed around by the modes of nature, we act differently in a situation than we would have normally.

An example may be that from past lives we may be conditioned to react angerly to a provoking situation. By practising 'being a devotee' we may fall prey to anger, but because we have some transcendental knowledge and with the help of Krishna, we try to quickly check such a destructive emotion. Without the grace of Krishna and our own efforts, we may have continue on full steam, even justifying it and the results (karma) would be to fall through one of the gates leading to hell.

Another example would be that our karma may be that we are attracted to volitile situations because that's what we were entangled in in previous lives. With just a little progress in KC, we may still find ourselves 'mysteriously' drawn toward situations or people who are volitile, but the higher taste of serenity, peace and joy in KC will result in us withdrawing more quickly from the entanglement which may, in extreme cases, got us (perhaps)murdered violently. That would have been our karma, not because we are necessarily bad, but because we have a perverted attraction to dangerous situations. Surrendering to Krishna means that when the Supersoul intervens, we listen to Him and take the necessary action to avoid the bad karma that would have resulted had we 'unconsciously' plunged ahead.

How may times have we heard devotees say that if not for the grace of guru and Krishna, they would have committed suicide, ended up in a mental hospital, and those are the sensitive ones! Some of us may have pursued what would seem laudable in the material world; the acquisition of money, fame, prestige, without regard of how many people we may have stepped on to reach our 'goals'. The result being the creation of more karma and absence of any love for God and our fellow humans at the time of death.

Prabhupad also said that even the best astrologer is only 50% correct. Jayatirtha das was told by Srila Prabhupad's astrologers (when he was a guru in Iskcon) that by the year 2000 he would be the most famous spiritual master on the planet and the thousands of women would take shelter of him. He died a tragic death in 1987 and maybe that was "Krishna karma", not because he was an evil person as he served his guru and Krishna faithfully for many years but because Krishna wanted to teach others a lesson and perhaps bring him back home more quickly. The last part is of course my speculation. Oh, and he did become famous, but not in the way he expected and thousands of women did not take shelter of him, fortunately for them.

In conclusion, I respectfully disagree with your thesis that our karma remains unchanged when we surrender to Krishna.