Chapter 1 Text 25

bhisma-drona-pramukhatah

sarvesam ca mahi-ksitam

uvaca partha pasyaitan

samavetan kurun iti

Translation

In the presence of Bhisma, Drona and all the other chieftains of the world, the Lord said, Just behold, Partha, all the Kurus assembled here.

Lecture of V.O. Ruzov

The absolute truth is inside everyone's heart, and it knows everything that goes on in each heart. Inside our hearts, reactions to situations are taking place. These situations are the result of our own behavior in the past. Mahabharata says that a human life is a life of paying for everything we did wrong in our past life. Like a calf that will always find its mother, even if she is in the fields with hundreds of other cows, karma will find each person. Therefore, each person needs to have the quality of "kratu" - the desire to behave wisely. If we don't have this quality, we commit wrong deeds and have to reap what we sow, according to the cosmic law of justice.

Karma - the cosmic law

Cosmos is a Greek word and it means "an orderly and intelligent system". The opposite word is "chaos," it is also an ancient Greek word. Cosmos is an orderly system, where everything has its own meaning and logic. There are also other laws in it. It doesn't matter if we believe in a law or not, it still works in the limits of this universe. Everything in this universe is connected to the law of karma, whether it's the appearance of a new planet, or the baby that is crying in the neighbor's apartment.

Karma and Fate

All western philosophy can be divided into two camps: on one side there are those, who believe in fate, and on the other side there are those, who believe in freedom of will. Both camps have been arguing for a long time. If only they could both understand the law of karma, they would stop arguing. Even though we cannot conquer our fate, this still doesn't mean that we don't have freedom of will. Karma is actually the fourth phase of an action: it is what has already happened (prarabdha).

The Three Previous Steps

“Bija” - is the first phase. This means "seed". It is karma in the form of a seed. If the situation will be appropriate, the fruit of karma will grow from this seed. The fruit of karma is our desires. They can be material or spiritual. They bring us to certain decisions: whether we should make these desires come true or not. This is the second stage.

“Kuta-stha” - is the phase of making decisions. On this stage we can stop and decide not to make dangerous decisions. But, if the action has already taken place, this is the next stage.

Now we should understand the following: desires can be sinful or pious. Certain desires can be tolerated, while others cannot be. Some desires shouldn't be tolerated, and we should make them come true. For example, if we don't execute the natural needs of our body in time, this can lead to serious illnesses.

There are two things we can do with sinful desires. We can just tolerate them, and then they will burn out in the flame of ascetics. However, there are some desires that are very hard to tolerate, then we should purify them, by involving them in service to God. For example, sexual desires can be very strong, but if a person creates a pious family and uses sex to conceive children, this desire becomes purified. In this way knowledge frees us from karma, it makes us understand sinful and pious forms of desires and the ways to tolerate them or purify them.

“Phalon-mukha”. This phase starts after the action has taken place. A chain reaction begins, and the wheel of karma starts spinning. As a result, the last chain of this reaction will again be us. Freedom that was present on the previous stages, finished on this stage. As a result of this law, our action achieves a logical end: we will have to go through the same thing. This is the stage of “prarabdha”.

Therefore, that which we call fate are reactions that came to us by the law of karma. And always the reason of these reactions is us. How you sow so shall you reap.

The true reason for appearance of karma is activity in material consciousness. The desire to have pleasure makes us act, and this act causes the desire to do this again and again. In tests on rats, a wire was connected to its pleasure center, and the rat died, because it pressed the button that turned on the electric shock. It was unable to go away. Often, we look for this button, and when we find it we cannot bring ourselves to go away from it. That is why we are forced to go from one body to the next, lead by materialistic consciousness.

Therefore, it is useless and foolish to look for those, who are responsible for our happiness or our suffering. An Indian proverb says "When I point to someone with one finger, three fingers are pointing at me".

Good and evil

There is relative understanding of good and evil. For example, that which is food for someone is poison for someone else. This is the way it should be, because this is what determines our freedom of will. However, if we are talking about the whole world, we should know that we have to accept the cosmic norm of good and evil. These norms are described in Vedic tractates. For example, the following things are good: to love our neighbor, to help those, who are less fortunate, to be faithful to our husband or wife, and so on. Violence and murder are bad actions.

If we understand the cosmic norms of morals, we will be able to act right in any situation, not based on temporary rules, but based on the global truth. If we think about absolute morals, then, when karmic reactions come to us, we have to make the right conclusions and learn on our own mistakes. Each event in our life has to become a lesson of cosmic morals. Our whole life will then become a school of morals and saintliness. This will bring us to self-improvement during the course of this life.

Perfect moral norms are described best in the Vedic tractate "Bhagavad-Gita". After you study it, you will learn how to act right in every event that appears in your life.

Karma as a Means to Make Our Dreams Come True

All our desires can come true by the laws of karma. We have to keep two things in mind: our desires and our opportunities. Desires sometimes don't match opportunities. Opportunities can be compared to the money we have earned. Sometimes we don't have enough money to make our desires come true; however, by using the laws of karma, we can increase our savings and make our dreams come true later. We can become anyone and do anything. The price is already given in the holy tractates. But are we ready to pay it? There is only one desire that cannot come true - the desire to become God. This place is already taken.

However, this way of thinking will not bring us to a higher level. Moreover, the desire to get pleasure from more and more material ideas is actually a sinful act. It is compared to chewing gum that we have already chewed. The way to develop our consciousness is to get rid of material plans and materialistic desires.

The categories of karma:

Sanchita-karma

This is the complete sum of karma, acquired from past lives in human bodies.

Prarabha-karma

This is "favorable" и "unfavorable" outcomes that are meant for this present life. Prarabha karma cannot be changed, we can only tolerate it and make the right conclusions.

Kryiyaman-karma

This is the field of choices, limited by the features of prarabha-karma. Actions, committed in this field create karma for our next lives (good karma or bad karma) or lead us to freedom from the cycle of birth and death.

Our choice of the quality of our actions will depend on the quality of our consciousness. It can be pious or not pious.

Righteous Consciousness

Right and pious consciousness causes the desire to be good to ourselves and to others. This is a sign of a developing consciousness, and such a person is worth talking to. Usually, such a person tries to find friends among people with a similar level of consciousness, so it will not be hard to make friends with such a person. Relationships at this level usually bring satisfaction even if an uncomfortable situation appears.

There is a test that can help determine which kind of consciousness we have. For example, your neighbor is hammering when you want to sleep. He wants to make a new shelf. If you want to help your neighbor, you get up and go to help him. This is an example of a pious consciousness. If you get mad and want to punish the person who is making you suffer - this is a sign of consciousness that is not pious.

Not pious consciousness

Such a consciousness makes us do everything only for ourselves, without thinking about other people's interests. Such selfish behavior goes against the laws of harmony. So, if we associate with such people, this is not good for the development of our consciousness.

Aagami karma

This is the karma of future lives, if this life is not our last life.

Vikarma

This means wrong actions, which lead to ignoring God's laws. They also lead to degradation in the cycle of birth and death, unending suffering, and birth in the forms of animals. Vikarma is the opposite of akarma. Vikarma may take four forms of actions:

1. actions, directed towards parents;

2. actions, directed towards family;

3. actions, directed towards society;

4. actions, directed toward humanity.

Group karma

Karma that affects the future of humanity is group karma. This is the sum of individual karma of all people in a certain group. For example, when there is an airplane crash or some other kind of accident that involves a group of people, this does not happen by accident. The law of group karma makes every person that is involved, do the same things and get the same results. For example, people in Russia have to eat a lot of potatoes, and this leads to the same types of illnesses.

Therefore, humanity will get a future according to the way it acts. Until people stop opening new and new slaughterhouses, wars are going to continue.

Karma and Health

Vikarma leads to a life without God. According to Charaka Samhita, the loss of faith in God is the root of all illnesses.

According to Ayurveda, it is very bad karma if we worry about little things. In Padma Purana, it is said: "There is nothing worse than the habit of worrying, because this habit weakens the body". We get attached to insignificant things, whether they are a box of matches or a car. We are afraid in different ways. We are scared that someone will rob us, something of ours will get broken, or that we will grow old, so on.

Modern research proves that this point of view is right - emotional stress is considered to be the number one killer of the twenty first century.

Visible (harsh) and subtle karma

Both visible and subtle actions cause consequences. In the old times, harsh karmic reactions came even for subtle karmic actions like inner desires and thoughts. Now, the laws of karma are less strict and so we receive subtle karmic reactions for subtle karmic actions. These reactions are: worries, worries cause by our consciousness, unpleasant feeling in our heart, and so on.

We can clean ourselves of these reactions on the subtle level, as well as on the visible level. On the subtle level, we can apologize to God for our sins, change our attitude inside, and promise to stop thinking like this. On the visible level, we can say sorry to the one we hurt, take a vow, and physically avoid bad situations that we have already thought about.

Getting rid of karma

The consequences can be erased, if a person completely pays for his action through similar suffering, or completely repents his sins. Karmic consequences are shown in the form of worries. Therefore, when we are truly sorry for what we have done and ask forgiveness, we soon become calm. Such a repenting of our sins should be done every day before we go to bed. This will help us calmly rest and think about the following day in terms of the mistakes we committed.

One of the spiritual teachers said: "Every day we should forget two things - everything good that we did yesterday and everything bad that others did to us yesterday. And two things we should remember every day: God, and the fact that death can come at any moment".

It is important to know the difference between complete repenting of sins and modern repenting, which means that we just go to church once a week. If a person continues to do the same things after repenting his sins, this just worsens his karma, because this is actually an example of an offensive consciousness.

We will completely get rid of karma when we completely get rid of sinful activity. The path to this lies in achieving faith in God. Actually, the absence of faith is the main reason for all karma activity. God - brings fast and irrevocable disposal of all consequences from sinful activity.

The number of sinful reactions cannot be measured by pounds or kilograms, tons or millions of lives. By ourselves we cannot get rid of even a fraction of the saved up reactions. However, the mercy of God in response to our sincere repenting of sins can stop and change the sum and the quality of the coming reactions.

Karma and the attitude towards time

Wasting precious time brings the biggest suffering. Ostrovskiy wrote: "We should live our lives in such a way, so that we wouldn't feel horrible pain because of the years spent in vain."

Any missing action brings continuing worries. If you weren't quick enough and didn't start attending college, you will have to wait a whole year, and this will bring you suffering. If a woman didn’t give birth in time - she will suffer her whole life. Therefore, we should clearly understand our duty and do it in time and with concentration.

Karma and animals

Births in the bodies of animals do not create karma. The bodies of animals have the form of bhoga-yoni, they can only feel pleasure or suffer.

Karma and duty

Karmic actions - are actions that lead to suffering. Practically, any material actions or thoughts lead either to pious consequences or to bad consequences. In any case, there will be suffering. Both in heaven and in hell we will suffer for one reason or another. Heaven is also a temporary place for the soul. Heaven is actually several planets of the highest order, where sensual pleasures are higher. However, this makes it harder for us to leave these pleasures, when our time comes. This can be compared to a trip on our vacation. It is very fun and we can do what we want, but soon our money and time runs out and we have to come back.

How should we act in a way so that our actions don't bring us suffering?

Such activity is higher than violence or nonviolence. Very often, when a person doesn't use violence, he commits a serious karmic deed. For example, if a policeman doesn't do anything when someone is committing a crime, this policeman is actually committing a sin. This is the level of duty. Our duty means that we have to learn to be useful for others. A policeman has to protect through violence and this is his duty. When a person does what he is supposed to do, this always purifies him, because this means he fully understands what his personal duty is.

Our duty is our debt from past lives. It is our abilities, which we were unable to use properly in our past life. Properly means that we were useful to ourselves and others.

The duty of a woman is to raise saintly children, and the duty of a man is to take responsibility for the upbringing of children. The duty of a salesman is to earn money and to give alms to saints and holy temples. The duty of teachers is to rid their students of birth, death, old age, and sickness, by giving them the highest knowledge.

In this way, by doing what he is supposed to do, a person becomes happy. We cannot even be calm, if our mind is heavy with debts. In order to understand this completely, we need to go over the last aspect of karma - akarma.

Akarma brings freedom from the cycle of birth and death, and liberation from all types of karma. The prefix "a" means denying. Akarma means "no karma" or "no action". What does "no action" mean? This refers to actions that don't bring consequences. Therefore, these actions are not in any way involved with this world. They are called transcendental (transitive). They are also called religious actions; this means that they are involved with service to God.

Even though we are talking about favorable and unfavorable consequences, in the absolute meaning there are no favorable consequences. When there are consequences, this is an unfavorable state. After joy, there is always suffering. This is compared to swings: the higher we swing to one side, the higher to the other. Therefore, it is necessary for us to completely free ourselves of the influence of karma.

The one, who achieved the level of self-realization doesn't have to obey the law of karma because he devotes all his words, thoughts, and actions to God. He does only those things that God wants. When a person acts with such a consciousness, he can reach the level of akarma. In Bhagavad-Gita Krishna says to Arjuna: "... I'll rid you of all the consequences of your sins". In this way, if we surrender unto the will of God by serving Him (bhakti-yoga), this is the method of getting rid of karma and achieving the state of akarma.

Bhakti and karma - are two regimes of the way our reason can work. Karma makes our consciousness unstable, but bhakti makes it become directed in one way. A person, who understood pure love of God, starts working 100 times harder, than he did before achieving this state. This happens because true determination of the human life appears. This determination is to become a saint.

The purpose of life in the human form of life is in achieving liberation from all types of karma. If this goal is not achieved it is considered that life was spent in vain.

We need to follow the practice of yoga (the method of making a connection with the source of akarma) and in this way we achieve liberation from all types of karma and freedom from the cycle of birth and death. The most effective way for this is mantra-meditation in the form of repeating the Maha-mantra (the mantra that contains all other mantras in itself). This is the appropriate method for Kali-Yuga, the age of overall degradation, in which we are now living. It sounds like this: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Reaching the perfection level of karma is reflected in the following signs: the absence of pride, detachment from material ties, attachment to places of pilgrimage, a state of peace and harmony, not wanting to waste time, a great desire to go back to God, a hope that, despite all our flaws, we will achieve a deep relationship with God, a constant and deep desire to chant the names of God, the attachment to describing the qualities of the Lord.

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