Sree Krishna, the Lord of Love

by Baba Premananda Bharati

SECTION XIX. HOW TO DESTROY KARMA.

Now comes to be considered the question of questions—How to do away with and avoid bad Karma. If Karma is the cause of all our sufferings in life, how to remove that cause. We have before this had births and till actions in those innumerable births have produced countless Karma-seeds. All these seeds are stored up in the repository of the mind. How is it possible, it may be asked, to destroy them all, and prevent fresh accumulation of new Karma-seeds in the present birth?

To those who ask this question seriously, that is, with a serious intention of acting upon any suggestion that may seem feasible to them, the answer is pregnant with all the essentials of a true solution. To such the answer is simple and the mode of solution simpler. To the really serious soul, hungering for freedom from the bondage of Karma, even the practice of the principle of the advice may strike as Still more simple. But the practice involves the full realization of the source of Karma, the perfect understanding of its laws, their operations and their relations to his own individual self.

Here I will try to put the philosophy of this solution as briefly as possible. If our actions of this life are the products of actions in previous lives, the actions of those previous lives are the effects of actions in still more previous lives and so on. Thus trying to trace the causes of all our actions in all our past lives, we are bound to arrive at the time of the Creation of the universe, when it sprang from the Will of Krishna. We, as parts of the universe, sprang from that Will too. Krishna's Will before Creation was; "I am One and I wish to be the Many," and His Creation is the manifestation of His Will's motion towards manifoldness and Karma is the law of the rhythmic steps of that motion. The Will of Krishna, therefore, is the cause of all Karma the entire Creation as well as of ours, because we are but parts of that Creation. This makes it clear that, since Krishna is the cause all Karma of the Universe, He is the Actor of all actions. This being so, the cause of our sufferings from bondage to Karma lies in our mistaken conception that we ourselves are the doer of our actions. This cannot be, because all our actions proceed from our past Karma, the roots of which are embedded in the Will of Krishna. It is Krishna that is the whole Universe, as well as its laws and actions. It is Krishna that suffers and enjoys in so many shapes and forms which make up His moving Will, called Nature. All our troubles are born of our usurping His place, the place of the Real Actor. Hence Karma clings, by natural law, to whoever claims it. We claim the doership of actions which manifest themselves through us, but the real Doer is the spring of primeval action—Krishna Himself.

This belief, that we ourselves are the doers of our actions, subjects our Ego to their reactions. If by tracing the source of Karma to Krishna, we dispel this illusion from our mind and keep it ever out of it, so that it may not disturb our conviction of the fact that Krishna is the only Doer, all our past and present Karma, the stored-up and the working—Sanchit and Prārabdha—will leave us of themselves and go to Krishna to be absorbed by Him, while, for the same reason, the Karma-seeds springing from our present actions will be rendered germless like roasted seeds which never grow. But this belief needs constant practice of this thought in order to be sustained without interruption and involves thinking of Krishna, Absolute Love and Life, every minute—thoughts by which the thinker absorbs the essence of the purest spirituality whose illumination ever guides him along the paths of Truth and Wisdom and prompts him to actions whose results bring harmony and happiness to himself, as well as to all with whom he comes in contact.

This exposition of the truth of our utter irresponsibility of our actions will appear strange and mischievous only to unthinking minds. The fear that such a belief of irresponsibility may lead some people to bad actions is entirely groundless. Such a thing can never happen for, with such a belief firm our mind, we have to think of God always in our daily actions, and this constant thinking induces concentration upon the Deity whose spirit is sure to prevent and counteract all our evil thoughts, not to speak of evil actions. A man who will do evil actions, taking advantage of this principle, will only deceive himself. Such evil-doing can only show that he has no belief in the principle at all, but thinks of it only with a view to justify actions which lie, in his heart, believes to be his own, but attributes to God to get rid of their responsibilities, if possible. But if anyone believes firmly that God is the Doer of all actions and yet, for want of proper culture of this belief, he is betrayed into evil actions, be sure his belief growing stronger will soon control his actions and lead him along the paths of the good and the pure. God-Consciousness destroys all evils of the mind to their very roots.

Thus Karma and its effects, which for the ignorant, unthinking, and reckless human soul are ever interminable, can by exercise of wisdom and mental power and discipline be absolutely done away with. Karma belongs to Krishna and it is to Krishna that it and its fruits should be unreservedly dedicated good. The moment this mystery of Karma is solved and the soul that solves it acts upon its lesson, than Krishna takes it into His arms, and the soul and its Maker, now face to face, laugh together at this riddle of life, and in that laugh of ecstasy all sorrow and pain of the past are forgotten by that saved soul.