The Science of Karma

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The book 'Science of Karma, ' published by Dada Bhagwan Foundation, states that in the Cause & Effect Cycle, the Effect is result of Cause set by us in motion.  Therefore whatever happens in our life is our own individual responsibility.  This Cause or Seed is our inner intention behind any Action. Action is visible but intention behind that action is not. It is this intention which brings out results. 

This intention is in our hands, our free will. This intention creates our destiny. For example two persons may be giving 100 dollars in charity - one with the intention of getting good publicity/ praise while other person may be giving the same amount but intention is just to help quietly and move on. For same actions our intentions could be different. Therefore results too would be different.  The first one will get mention is some newspaper while the other will be helped when he needs it ( not necessarily by the same person he helped).  But effect will always be there.

One person may take bribe and feel good about it however, the other person is taking bribe but internally repenting about not being able to correct himself. The first one will have to pay back in future because he is sowing seeds for negative result  while the other person is setting up a good intention which will ultimately make him a better human one day.  If these two reincarnate, in the next lifetime, the first one will have to pay back in someway for taking money where not required.  He will pay and feel cheated (he caused this suffering to other and had rejoiced) while the other person will not be accepting any undue payment(he had set an intention of not taking bribe).  This all is happening internally but world will say for the first 'poor fellow had to pay unnecessarily even when it was not required' for the second person response would be 'this man won't take what doesnot belong to him'.   

Have you not wondered when you see, a good man is suffering despite doing all good while a wicked man is successful and not getting caught.  This law explains behind the scene causes/reasons for this. However nature catches with wrong without fail.  So while good man  has an option to bear the effect by taking all his sufferings with internal knowledge of why it is happening. He may take all necessary action to stop his suffering which will stop the moment his account is settled.  But If he cribs and complaints, he will be caught in whirlpool of suffering.  Ancient Indian saints have therefore advised mankind to take all events in life with equanimity because of this reason.  

No body else is doing anything to you.  You are reaping result of your own actions.  Since you are ignorant about working of this law you feel cheated.  But once this law is clear you can check and control your inner working for a better future.

Effect of different intentions is different. This is where our free will comes in. 

Our intellect is supposed to be used, to discriminate between right and wrong and take necessary appropriate action. Because law of cause n effect takes note of it. None is controlling it. We ourselves are controlling it. In fact we are one of the controlling elements in entire scene. So many things are required for any event to take place. We are just one instrument who can make an important change. We have power to change our future. We are also part of this nature, made up of energy. We have advantage of intellectual faculty which other species like animals do not have. They understand love, are smart but their intelligence level is not as high as human. 

A human can think and control his thoughts and intentions. But off late we see many humans have stopped using their intellect and sense of discrimination.  They are going on sense less killing and other crimes. Their behaviour goes down to animal level. They could escape from courts of this world(because of their past accumulated good causes)  but natural laws ensure that they pay for their wrong doing either in this lifetime (if this accumulation is big) or in the next lifetime(then they will wonder what wrong did I do since they cannot remember what they did in previous lifetime). 

Payment is heavier if crime was done willfully and without remorse. Little less if it was not done willfully and happened accidentally. But payment is heavy for sure.. If you keep your hand on hot coals unknowingly does your hand not burn.  

As per this book, intense feelings of Anger, Hatred, Pride and Greed towards any person or thing will definitely bring a result in the next lifetime.  In current lifetime you are settling old scores with your present family, friends, neighbors, even strangers due to effects set by you  in motion in previous lifetimes.  No body meets you accidentally.  Everything around you is due to a reason.  Since you do not remember you remain ignorant.  Strong emotions form  'sticky karma' which you cannot escape even if you are in different body garment now. Look around for sticky karmic entanglements with your own family members.  You cannot escape them.  

These explanations had a bid impact on me.  This is a very deep science and cannot be explained properly in few lines. In all the above discussions my view is simple...no argument...no disputation with views of others .....I AM OK, YOU ARE OK.

Vandana Ritik Mulchandani

Noida

Inner Life versus Outer Life

We all have two lives – outer and inner.

Outer life is all about materialism – body, family, friends, country, studies, job, eating, playing, resting, entertainment etc. –this whole universe which we can see or perceive with our five senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. Outer life is all about my body in relation to other bodies outside and around me. 

On the other hand, Inner life is all about spiritualism – self inquiry, who am I, why have I come here, who is God, where is God, why do I feel in a particular manner about one person and differently for another. Inner life is all about inner conversation with self, my inner connection with God and Universe.   It is beyond the perception of our five senses, unseen and based purely on intuition.

Outer life is how world looks at me while Inner life is how I look at myself.  Outer life is visible while inner life is invisible and strictly private and closed.  Inner life is very sacred and needs to be taken very special care of.  Improvement of inner life depends on sole individual effort.  No luck, opportunity or worldly 'influence' works here.  Only God's grace can speed up our inner awareness.  Outer life is concerned with 'What' I am doing while Inner life is concerned with 'Why' I am doing - my true intentions for undertaking any activity.

As a human being we are show offs. We are mostly concerned about learning about ways and means to improve our outer life – studies, degrees, position in society, promotion at job, fame, money. All the time we are learning how to be successful in our outer life and if we are successful than we do not want anything more. We are full of pride and say ‘I am happy and content, I have everything I wanted’. Is this true???? Is this all we want?????

We do not want to learn about ways and means to improve our inner life. We wait to get old for ‘such a waste of time’. But by that time it is late because now we are not left with sufficient energy to explore and know thyself.

We should invest our time in self inquiry often. If we spend time with ourselves for some time of the day, it will not only refresh us but make us more stable and in control. If we are aware of how our inner self works, we can improve its working. Thus we will be more wise and be able to take right decisions. We will be more in control of ourselves and it would be difficult for others to manipulate us in a wrong way. And these virtues are more required when we are young, stepping out in the big world and not when we are old and left with very few people to deal with. Needless to add that healthy inner life reflects a healthy outer body.

The famous American Psychiatrist Brian Weiss has observed that we are spiritual being having a human experience. Thus, how can we ignore our inner life.  Ignoring it would mean disconnecting with our core source and thus losing our peace of mind and inviting stress even over simple things.

Therefore, apart from imparting academic knowledge to handle outer life, if we teach our children how to be in touch with their inner self, they would not only turn out to be very successful in life but also will be able to handle any situation and adversity in life. They will become pillars of strength because good inner life breeds a highly successful outer life.



Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

I am Soul not body

All along I’ve been thinking that I am a body and my tiny little soul is hidden somewhere inside my brain. Then the other day, I heard a very beautiful and deeply meaningful Buddhist quote: I am not in the body, the body is in me. This made me think and grasp its meaning. I wanted to understand its meaning, how I can put this knowledge to practice and how it is going to help me? I recalled all the information I had gathered so far through the study of various spiritual scriptures on the subject and following is what I understood:-

Here ‘I’ is referred to the ‘Soul’ or still higher ‘Spirit’. Soul is supposed to be the part of the wider Spirit – in the ultimate – all is Spirit. Water in river merges into wider ocean, in the ultimate - all is Ocean- Water. Similarly, soul is micro while spirit is macro just like water in river is micro and in ocean is macro (from where water evaporates and comes back as rain to fill up the river and then ocean again). From this I understand that all micro is part of that big macro - ONE. We call it principle of ONENESS or UNIVERSALITY. Everything emerges from ONE and merges back into that same ONE.

Now If I try to understand the function at the lower level it will be easy. The Soul is tiny spark of THE SPIRIT. Soul is energy and energy can never be destroyed. In itself, the Soul is said to be originally in the state Existence-Knowledge-Bliss. To express and experience itself and its powers, the soul takes up a body where it uses its aspects of thinking, intellect and emotions. However, in the body, the soul forgets its own existence, and gets entangled in the cycle of birth and death. Thus Soul gets separated from its source – the SPIRIT forever. The soul is given chance in form of a human body to recall its origin and merge back with the Source and return back to its original state of bliss forever.

The Soul contains all the information of the SPIRIT i.e., entire universe and its operations. However, when soul takes on this ‘garment’ of human body, most of this information becomes imperceptible because the human body has been bestowed with five senses(see, hear, touch, smell and taste) sufficient enough to comprehend the life it has to lead while dwelling on earth plane. These senses have a very limited range i.e., only earth and its surroundings like planets, solar system, galaxies etc. Accordingly human knowledge gets limited within this range.

However, in the human body, the Mind /Intellect aspect of the soul can be used to access the rest of the vast universal information. Mind has capability to go anywhere it wants to go. Sitting in my office chair, I can take my mind to foreign locales using my power of thoughts. A soul is capable of using its intellect/mind function to connect with the Source through knowledge and also through power of imagination and thoughts. The tricky part - It is the mind faculty of soul which makes it think that it is body and it is mind only which is to be used to correct the error and understand that I am soul not body. We have to learn to use our mind to control our body desires and not the other way round

The problem with most of us is that our mind has made us very busy with our body and its requirements – be it nourishment, relationships, profession, academic knowledge, attending functions etc. We start to believe that our life is to fulfil these material needs of the body only. We hardly think of the soul- its spiritual needs. We say we will think of it in old age or when we are free. When we forget the reality that I am Soul not Body, the Body starts to rule and control the Soul. Nature wants it other way round. Our Body should listen and function as per directions of our true inner self – Soul. When the body/ materialistic needs take priority and spiritual needs are neglected, the result is that when finally the body is discarded, the soul goes back empty handed. Soul did not experience or learn anything in that lifetime. Why? Because we accepted ourselves as body, then lived and died thinking of us as body. Only the body was enjoying and in the process the soul suffered. Thus the human life is wasted.

This is the reason why great saints and mystics have given so much importance to human body. A human body has been given this special faculty called mind which is to be used to access the universal knowledge, we refer to as God. Ancient Hindu scriptures state that God discovers himself through Us. HE makes HIMSELF known to HIM whom HE chooses. I have to understand and believe with utmost faith that HE has chosen ME. A human being has to aspire to understand these mysteries and understand the working of the Brahman (the Universe /God). It is said that the best way to get this knowledge is constant questioning of the self – Who am I, Why did I take Birth? What should I do to know my Source? How am I linked with others? When we are open to receive answers to these queries, the mysteries start to reveal themselves to us on their own. Actually, it is just ‘uncovering’ the layers of that exhaustive knowledge which is already contained in the Soul. As we ‘know’, we ‘grow’. We came to earth for this growth.

Normally people have an objective to lead a happy family life – grow up, work, get married, have children, get them married, think of God in old age and so on. However, a time comes when a human starts to wonder if he was actually born to do all this. If this thought persists longer than the human being starts to search for spiritual knowledge. In some human beings this thirst for knowledge does not come at all in the entire lifetime. The inner self could not be explored to remove the layers of ignorance and revelation of the vast divine knowledge. The life remained unfulfilled. All along we do not understood that purpose of this birth is not fulfillment of material desires only. It is much more. The materialistic world is to learn the art of giving and taking, unconditional loving, enjoying this journey of self exploration. We get so entangled and absorbed here that we do not want to move ahead and grow spiritually which will make us joyous for eternity. What we should today, we postpone it to old age. Sometimes it is too late.

I think that in simple terms, the best utilization of this human body is that a human being should lead a normal conscientious life and at the same time the human being should remember and stay connected with his Source / Creator/ God / Spirit. For some part of the day, take time aside to stop thinking of the outside world and introspect on Self only – Who am I? Try to feel and experience his own Being, his existence. A Believer in God is supposed to believe and trust in the unseen power even if it sounds illogical to his analytical and logical mind. Human being should always remember and be constantly aware that I am not in the body, the body is in me.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Life is a Note Book

Life is like a blank Note Book that we bring along at the time of our birth on earth. In this Note Book we write down our earthly experiences and life stories. We write down a record of our actions, reactions, influences and lessons etc that we learnt in each life time. Our actions and reactions on earth affect many individuals around us and they become part of our soul group because we will have to come back to settle our interpersonal karmic scores with them if they are not finished in our present life time. Our actions may also affect our environment and society too which will have to be settled in future births.

We take our Life Note Book back when our life time ends. We go back to Paradise - our real HOME - and review our life story and decide which lessons are left to be learnt and what karmic debts remain unsettled. With the help of heavenly counselors, we make a blueprint of our next lifetime on earth in such a way that it will not only help us learn many more lessons but will also settle our past karmic debts of either giving or receiving from members of our soul group. Sometimes soul(s), other than from our group, volunteer to help us in next life time to help us complete our unfinished lessons. Sometimes, some high level souls, volunteer to suffer a big pain – physical, mental, material – so as to learn many lessons in one lifetime. This is because pain is supposed to be the biggest teacher in any lifetime. Suffering a pain/trauma in one lifetime renders learning of many lessons unnecessary.

Before labeling someone as sinner, just because you see that person suffering in life, STOP and THINK again. The person could be a courageous soul who has volunteered to take challenges and learn many lessons in one single lifetime itself. Similarly, do no judge yourself and stop torturing yourself by thinking that ALL your sufferings are result of some bad karma. Some souls volunteer to take sufferings on themselves to teach their loved ones some lessons necessary for their growth.e.g, kindness, helping, understanding, giving, serving etc. Sometimes seeing suffering of one person, society learns to take big steps to prevent the same happening to others. This soul could have agreed to suffer for uplifting the consciousness of the general public. If you label such a person as sinner, you could be making a wrong judgement and thus adding on to your own karmic debts. Therefore, Avoid 'postmartem' of victims of pain, trauma, accidents, deadly diseases. Let God/Universe or their own higher self judge them.

It depends on the soul whether it wants to learn many lessons in one life time or few lessons each time spread over many life times. Wise men know this secret and therefore do not try to judge the conduct of other souls around them. Wise men have advised us to follow our own life path with a calm state of mind and observe Silence i.e., refrain from commenting on life patterns of others because we do not know what lessons they are learning. Telling others about what is wrong in their life pattern means not agreeing to the Laws of Universe thus creating further karmic debts and adding more chapters to the Life Note Book.

We take re-birth in that particular environment and family where learning all the chosen lessons for this lifetime will be possible. Needless to say that we choose our own parents and social Circle before taking on human body depending upon our soul needs. We bring back our Life Note Book and start writing a new chapter of the new life time. Our soul knows that we are starting at the point where we had finished off in previous lifetime. When we are reading a book, keep it aside for sometime and again comeback to read it, we start from where he had left it unfinished. We do not start reading it afresh. Similar with Life Note Book.

To make life easy for us, God erases the memory of past lifetimes from our physical mind. This is the Gift of God that we bring with us in new lifetime. Further, God promises that if we continue to stay in touch with him, our lessons will be learnt within stipulated time and once we have finished learning for that particular lifetime, we will be called back HOME. This explains why some die old while some die young, why some survive big crashes while others die due to a minor illness. Death is a means to stop writing chapter of that lifetime and exit. Death takes place when lessons assigned for that lifetime have been learnt. We may learn them soon and go early. That is why we say Life and Death are not in control of human beings.

Further, all lessons that we learnt in previous life times keep on adding and we bring them back with us as already inbuilt samskars (soul impressions) and therefore they need not be learnt again. Sometimes, we come back with those samskars only which are sufficient enough to learn lessons of this particular lifetime only. We can compare it to our education at school. We cannot recall what all we studied till 10th grade but still that is sufficient for admission to the next grade once we have passed the final exam. It is automatically presumed that we already know and understand the academic knowledge taught till 10th grade.

This explains how one child is sharp in a particular discipline in early childhood itself. It is not a miracle. These talents have already been learnt before, imprinted on the soul and carried forward from the previous lifetimes. This also explains the reasons for inequality in society. All souls are at different levels of learning as recorded in their Life Note Book.

This process goes on life after life and new chapters are added to our LIFE Note Book. Each individual has a separate Life Note Book containing all pastlife records. Each soul is the actor and director of its own Life Story. An actor plays different roles, lives different characters in many films without losing his own original self. With each film his performance improves and talent sharpens. Similarly, a soul takes on many bodies, lives many lifetimes, and improves its learning, adds on to its knowledge. The soul suffers because unlike the actor, it forgets its original state of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss in the process. More the delay in regaining the lost memory, longer the Life Note Book becomes.

The God – Universe helps in writing a better script provided the soul volunteers and remembers to take the help. A soul is given free-will to exercise this option of staying close to God during earth life time. This divine intervention helps to keep the script short and crisp. When the soul has experienced all the human dimensions and realized its own True Nature, the last chapter of Life Note Book completed and the Life Note Book is finished.

Wise men always prefer to be in touch with God – the inner consciousness, and write their Life Note Book in as few chapters as possible. Unwise men go astray. The Life Note Book runs in pages, chapters and volumes and they remain entangled in vicious cycle of life & death and the Life Note Book remains unfinished. As a soul, we have the option to choose and decide how voluminous or brief, the script of our Life Note Book should be.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Picture Courtsey: shirdisaibababhajan.blogspot.com

I am That

I am a pretty and soft Petal. I am part of the beautiful Flower but I am still a flower in my own right. I have same quality and attributes as the Whole Flower. I am beautiful. I am Unique. I am Wholesome and Complete. The flower cannot be flower without me. There are other Petals in the flower too. These petals also look like me though they are little different in color, shape and texture but their properties are also same as me. All together we form a beautiful flower. Flower is not flower without each of us. Each of us cannot survive without each other. We all need each other for our survival. We are incomplete without each other. We all are interdependent on each other. It is my false EGO which makes me say that 'I am not depending on any one else'.Similarly, I am a peaceful, loving and divine Soul in the Universe. I have my own light, knowledge and depth. There are other souls also though little different from me. All souls together form a huge incomprehensible Divine Spirit. The Soul is part of the Spirit and reflects its spark. The Soul has same properties as that of the Spirit. The Spirit shines and sparkles when Soul merges with it. None can survive without each other. The Soul takes a human body to feel and experience the bright knowledge of the cosmic Spirit. Spirit thrives in taking the Soul back into its fold for it increases its own brilliance.I cannot help but imagine how electric it would feel when after completing my 70-80 years of earth life I will go back and realise my place in the whole flower. How foolish of me to think that I am just a petal just because I cannot see the complete flower and my own important place in it. Thus, I have to learn to love each and every creation of the Spirit around me unconditionally to become the part of the Bloom.

Only the feeling of Love is Real which unites Soul with the Spirit. Till I realize and actualize this internally, I will be caught in cycle of birth and death. Once I start loving each and all as I, I would be earning the Master’s Degree from the University of the God – the Divine Spirit of Universe. Thereafter, I need not come back again to Earth School again.
I have to realize that I am that big ONE and that big One is 'I'. I have to understand and experience the Oneness of the Universe that 'I am the Spirit and the Spirit is I'. Ultimately, everything is illusion(Maya) except the only truth I AM THAT

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Body, Ego, Soul & Spirit

Imagine a bottle filled with water and floating in an ocean. Now try to understand this. The bottle is our Body. The water inside is our Soul. The water in ocean is the higher Spirit or Universe.

All the time we think that we are the bottle, the outer covering. This is because of presence of ego which helps us recognise our bottle i.e, the body. Ego lives as long as body is alive. This body will have a name, color, creed, religion, family, relatives, friends. The body will experience all the pleasures and sorrows in the illusionary world alongwith other bottles floating in the ocean. The body will live, interact and will have social life. Thus the body with the help of physical mind will start having desires, possessions and more desires. Now the feeling of 'I'ness and 'My'ness will arise and ego will start to grow and the growth will be of such a magnitude that the body will be not be able to see the clarity of water/soul inside. The bottle will be so engrossed competing and floating with other bottles that ultimately the water outside will also become invisible to it. Now the bottle will only see the other bottles but no water.

In every bottle the color of glass is ego which alerts us to take necessary measures time to time to keep it fit. As long as ‘spirit’ is inside us we cannot ignore the body because the ‘water’ inside us knows that it is not different from the water outside. It is only body which cannot see the water inside and outside due to its overgrown ego. Just because you cannot see, it doesnot mean that it does not exist. The water is all around us. It is just a matter of being aware of the truth and make efforts to find it.

For a body to experience the human life and creation around, presence of ego is must. The darker the colour of bottle the denser the state of ego is in that individual body. The dark colored bottle will take longer time to see and realize the clarity of the inner ‘water’. Inflated ego creates desires, possessions, separatedness and ultimately pain.

All the activities taken up on behalf of the body represent our material life while all the efforts made to bring out the brilliance of the soul within represents our spiritual journey. The spiritual journey is nothing but removing the veils of ignorance of this reality and to finally experience the ‘oneness’ of water inside and outside and bottle being a mere illusion.

Ego represents our false fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) while Spirit represents love. The journey of the soul is to realise that fear is illusion which was created because of presence of body. Once we understand this illusion/Maya we realise that universe is nothing but love. Fear is nothing but absence of love.

Once we become aware and conscious of this role of ego, it would not take long to make the ‘bottle’ colorless, transparent, shiny and ‘one’ with the water outside.

A balance between material and spiritual life is must if we want to live a happy and contented life.

A wise man lives on the earth without losing sight of his space and place in the universe.

Vandana Ritik

Journey of Soul

Our body is like tip of an iceberg. Hidden underneath is deep, vast, mysterious, unfathamable knowledge and glory of the SOUL.

Have you ever felt a very strong connection or feeling of ‘knowingness’ in your very first meeting with a person? Even with a known person, the feelings generated within us are not same all the time. If someone really loves and appreciates us deeply we will know it even without exchange of a single word. Similarly, we will understand the unfriendly vibes of the other person. How does this happen?

There are many reasons for this kind of feeling. One of them is presence of energy circle around our body which we know as aura. Our thoughts affect our aura and as a result our surroundings. We may enter a very small & unkempt home, yet we feel air of warmth in the air. This is because the habitants of the home feel positively about each other despite lack of space. Traces of their mutual warmth and individual aura can be felt even in the aura of their Home. The same could be missing from a big, spacious, neat and clean home if the members of family remain aloof and indifferent towards each other’s feelings and sentiments. The love, togetherness and mutual dependence of habitants on each other converts a House into Home sweet home where we like to wind up after a hard day’s work and find the peace instantly.

On deeper level, our behaviour patterns towards each other are based on our soul patterns. We vibe very well with people with whom our soul pattern matches. We all are on our own individual soul journey and our final destination is to realize and merge with the oneness of The Supreme Holy Divine Spirit we call God. Our each lifetime and its happenings are already pre-planned and pre-ordained keeping this goal in view.

Life after life, the soul changes body, picks up & assimilates the sanskars (impressions) collected in each life time and adds on to its own growth called soul/ spiritual progress. As a soul passes through many lifetimes, it gains knowledge and maturity. In every lifetime, the soul will be meeting all kinds of souls – souls with equal, more or less level of spiritual progress. WE feel most comfortable and understood with people whose soul vibrations are almost on same level as us. We often say that ‘so and so understands me so well’. However, the comfort and understanding level dissolves as soon as vibrations of one of these souls changes or the purpose for their interaction in this lifetime has been achieved.

In each lifetime, the soul is required to interact with other souls and gain experience and knowledge needed for its growth in that lifetime. The duration of this interaction with other souls varies depending upon mutual requirement of souls. In simple terms as soon as our one kind of learning is completed, our interaction with souls involved in giving us that learning is no longer needed e.g. changing school, job, home, relation breakups, separations etc.

We have heard of best friends no longer on good terms. The reason is that the soul vibrations are no longer the same. One of them has either spiritually progressed or otherwise. Their soul vibrations are not matching any longer and they need to move on to other souls for learning further lessons of lifetime.

Life situation changes and we change. Our past sanskars catch up with us and destiny takes us to those places, persons, situations and problems which are essential for spiritual progress of our soul. This change is continuous over the entire lifetime.

No person comes into our life or any happening takes place in our life without any reason. We understand and gain biggest mastery in our lifetime challenges through our so called enemies, tragedies, accidents etc. Faced with difficulties, pain, grief, when a soul struggles to come to terms with the life, it gains a lot in terms of experience, compassion, strength, purity, wisdom, peace, development of character etc and adds that on to its spiritual progress. Wise men have advised us to bless our enemies for this reason.

During tough time our faith in God is tested. Such situations make us realize that howsoever we may want, nothing is in our control. Religious texts are full of explanations regarding God being doer of everything. During such a time we understand the futility of selfish and centered behaviour of each and all. During such time we understand why scholars over the years have been advocating the practice of forget and forgive due to benefits being derived there from. Therefore ‘enemies’ present us challenges to overcome and progress and ‘friends’ provide love, peace, comfort and strength needed to overcome these challenges.

Thus there are no accidents or blunders. Things happen and changes take place perfectly as per laid out plan of our life. Blue prints of our lives are prepared long before our birth. Before a soul takes on a body it already knows its life plan. However, lesson has to be learnt thoroughly so the memory of life’s blue print fades as we enter the atmosphere of the earth where the frequency of our human body vibration is altogether different and dense. It is said that dim memory of our heavenly existence is alive in our physical mind till 6-7 years of age. As we get more engrossed in learning earthly knowledge and activities, the partial memory is completely erased.

If we stay close to God, we will always be working and progressing as per our life plan easily and smoothly. Sometimes, people seek company of Guru who tries to revive the forgotten memory.

It is always advisable to stay away from company of negative people who have strayed away from God so as to avoid any hurdles and delays in journey of our own soul. Our ancestors have advised us to interact with people of similar or higher status than us for this reason. Here our wise ancestors have been referring to interacting with people who are a match with our soul vibrations, whose sanskars match with our sanskars (or are higher up) so that our spiritual progress can be hastened. But, we have instead understood status as worldly/ financial /social/ economical, which is totally absurd.

Great saint Kabir belonged to economically weaker section but spiritually he was so very advanced, his status was so very high. Our birth in any country, color, caste, community etc has nothing to do with our spiritual progress. We will always find persons matching our soul vibrations in opposite class, community etc because of similarity in our soul-progress.

Our success and achievements on earth do not ensure our success in the eyes of God. Similarly our losses and sufferings on earth does not always imply some previous bad karma. Sometimes tough situations come up in our life to hasten our spiritual progress. These are already part of blueprint of our lifeplan. Success in spiritual life, on soul level is an altogether different journey and it has nothing to do with the success, name, fame that we gain in our earthly life.

In eyes of God we are all born equal but at different stages of soul-progress. In our journey to reach perfection, universal law helps us perfectly as per our individual need and requirement. The journey is from fear (of being a human) to love (of being God). The only precondition is to Feel Like God and Stay Close to God no matter what the circumstances in our life are. Our success is assured because the universal law is perfect and impartial.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

The Known & the Unknown

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda said:

We exhaust the known by knowledge and enjoyment of it, and then we turn to the exploration of the unknown because the known does not satisfy us permanently. If it did we would not have survived so long on this planet. Permanent satisfaction with the known, with no vision of the future, no effort to improve, no initiative to explore, no impulse to interpret would have meant stagnation of the human race and hence annihilation.

Talent is unknown quantity of personality born with the person. Training brings our talent that is already within. It cannot bring forth sprouts if seeds are not already there. Talent has various stages of expression, which can be observed in the development of personality to its consummate expression in that human being.

Every person who comes in the world carries within a general chart of his life, the details of which he fills in through out his lifetime. The highways and some byways are already in the chart when the person is born. These are the traits he brings with him from previous incarnations. He accepts them as his basic nature, and then connects them with alleys, and makes some additional byways. Sometimes he also extends the highways far beyond their original limits if he has real dynamic driving power. If he lacks this dynamism, he moves for the most part along with the limited maze of paths he had in his chart at birth and in the few pathways he has drawn in his present daily life. He does not push himself further. He is a common man.


But man cannot always remain uncommon. He will have to expand and move towards new vistas. The cosmic law of evolution will not let him rest. He may be idle for a while but the law of soul – progress is eternally active. God is always on the job. HE will through material working of his law, arrange circumstances that will at first coax the apathetic individual to turn in the right direction and move forward with positive action. If he does not heed, God will have to let him wander through the stinking open graveyard of his own follies until he wages his very life to get out of his abysmal condition and resolutely follows the proper road to progress and true happiness. Therefore, you have to recognize the tendencies that make you unique.

Be honest with yourself; do not do a thing that you inwardly feel to be wrong. Truly, to have a clean conscience, even if the whole world doubts you, is a joy and strength worth all the treasures of the universe.

Conscience is not the only companion of ourselves that we have to take care for. There are others too. A party of peeping desires, a group of half sleeping tendencies, a company of live-wire wishes, compose the crowd. In order to be true to ourselves, we cannot push aside these traveling companions with whom we started life. We have to be atleast attentive to them too, if we do not want to lose in life’s game. There may be some in the crowd that need shacking – the appetites, jealousies and others that are apt to choke our growth or hurt others. Some such as selfish desires, may need strong doses of advice and treatment. There are other that are safe enough to be relied on, or atleast tolerated such as the self preserving and social instincts. A special few need to be deliberately spurred on – sympathetic tendencies, spirit of reverence, service, love of truth. We have to attend to each propensity in a way that is most suitable. That is the proper education of the inner being. Every individual is a species unto himself.

There is no stereotyped way of promoting spiritual growth. Everyone has to work out his own salvation according to hints from his inner self after he has been started on the right road by stereotyped suggestions, standardized spiritual advice, be reverential, be patient , be contented, be self controlled, be meditative and so forth. The crowd of tendencies that one is born with, needs slightly different handling in different people. Some of the inclinations are to be curbed. Some tolerated, some developed, some sparingly fed, and some starved out. The tactics applied in the case of each individual will therefore necessarily vary according to the set of traits he possesses.

What is the origin of a tendency in a man? A conscious desire that he entertained in this life or a previous incarnation. A man with diplomatic ability ingrained in his nature will be a diplomat, no matter whether he is an ordinary laborer dealing with fellow workers or members of his family, or whether he is one of a board of a select men – a member of a legislature or a plenipotentiary in an international peace parley. Education or political training and opportunity will only sharpen his inborn diplomatic tool, and extend the scope of its use. The different in the capacity of talent in different people, even when increased by training is therefore due not only to the scope of the training but also to the inborn possession of that ability and its prior degree of development. Early training has much to do with stimulating or paralyzing the growth of this unknown part of our self. Our tendencies attract our companions and environments for the most part. The law of affinity is a matter of correspondence between what we are potentially and actually, on the one hand and the broad world on the other. The cue to our conduct is always supplied from the known and unknown with. What we are going to be is about seventy five percent foreordained by ourselves. That ‘horoscope’ of our tendencies from past incarnations attracts our present hereditary condition as well as the other circumstances we will draw to ourselves. The individual has free choice to change himself this way or that, free choice to decide between two courses of action. In most case, though the free will of man is nothing more than a slave – in the guise of freedom, but fettered to past tendencies.

Yet everyone knows there is such a thing as an unconditional decision that we make after rationally balancing the pros and cons of a certain matter. Having made such a decision, if we exercise our will, we can change many things in our lives that appeared unchangeable, or that may have been predicted to be inconvertible. This willing is freedom of will. Free will does exist. If it were not so, none could escape the vicious circle of his face once he was drawn to it. Growth would be circumscribed. Newer channels of activities would have little scope. The evolution of human beings would hardly emerge from the level of savagery. The conceptions of new social orders, progressive ideas in political government, advance methods of scientific explorations, new departments of research, literary activity – all prove the ability of man to exercise free choice in every line by the power of will.

You are born with about seventy-five percent of your life predetermined by your past. You will make up the remaining twenty-five percent. If you yourself, through your own free choice and effort of will, do not determine what that twenty-five percent will be, the seventy five percent will make the twenty five percent for you and you will become a puppet. That is, you will be ruled absolutely by your past tendencies. That is why spiritual training is vital. It takes into consideration not only the seventy five percent of our lives at we already are, but also designates the methods to mold the brand new twenty five percent that we ourselves are going to create by the exercise of our freedom.

All our impulsive and habitual acts, and motive-caused acts are the chariots that carry the will of the Lord, the Cosmic law, the Divine Final Cause, in other words, everything happens according to the will of God as expressed in his Cosmic Law. The first step towards understanding is to use your will to make those choice that are in harmony with the Eternal Good within the Cosmic law.

When you love life, not for God but for itself, every moment of it is incurring a debt to Him. Those debts pile up, day after day. Borrow from the commonly unknown bank of God, the Universal spirit and clear your debt to Him. You can get the loan only for the asking and you will not be hounded for payment of interest either. This is the only bank that makes loans and does not worry the recipients with the demand of interest because the Universal bank is always ready to invest in the betterment of its property, the world, and to look after the interest of its tenants. This is a form of banking that none but God allows. If you do not pay off the debts you have contracted by your life in matter, isolated from God, suffering will be your jail sentence.

What is the loan you should ask? the loan of spiritual wisdom, the eye to see every event of life as God sees it, to feel every details of life as He feels it, to live every moment of life as He lives it. When you ask God for his wisdom, the loan comes to you written off as gift.

Every event, fact, action or thought of a God-man such as Jesus or Krishna is the meeting point of the same wisdom coming from two sides – from God and from the God-man living in God. It is like a dot on the circle that you can approach from either side God fulfils His aim through the God-man and the God-man knowingly acts to fulfill God’s Will.

We do not know that He does the same thing through us, so we suffer and lament the bankruptcy of our so called freedom. This is not narrow determination. It is true idealism. We are absolutely free when we reach the Absolute. Until then we are relatively free, and it is a sin and source of suffering not to use wisely our relative free will. Working out way through relative freedom, we come to the Absolute freedom. Then the whole of the Unknown becomes Known, there is nothing more to know and knowing is all satisfying and ever-new.

Courtsey - 'The Divine Romance'

What is Prarabdh (our Destiny)

Soul - A soul has to take on a body made up of five elements to come to this earth. It is said that soul has to take birth to learn and to experience each and every aspect of human emotion without forgetting its original state i.e, purity, love and bliss. It is through this human life that a soul can finally merge with the holy divine Supreme from which it was separated millions of years ago. In every birth, the soul strives to reach the perfection so that it can get enlightened and become aware of the truth about oneness of the universe i.e., ALL IS ONE. All souls are the tiny part of that Supreme Divine Power thereby implying that all souls have that tiny spark of Supreme Spirit within. However, after taking human birth, in ignorance, the soul cannot recall its original state, gets entangled in the earthly enjoyments and forgets its mission of self realization and subsequently the God realization.

Karma - In its human form the soul cannot sit idle. It performs various karmas to get on with the life, becomes attached to materialism over and above spiritualism. Whether the karma is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, it is immaterial. The universal law takes note of all the actions a soul performs to carry out its earthly existence. It is said that all such karmas accumulate and become Sanchit Karma(Accumulated Karma). It is said that all our karmas are recorded and stored in our Akashic records. A soul cannot merge with the spirit unless it has worked out the cause and effect of its Karma because universal law functions flawlessly and impartially. When the soul is reborn again, it brings with it some portion out of this Sanchit karma to work out in the present birth. This portion of karma is called Prarabdh. It is said that seventy five percent life of a soul is preordained and a soul has no say in it. Soul has to bear it whether it brings wordly happiness or worldly sadness. For the balance twenty five percent life the soul can use its God given freewill which creates Kriyaman Karma(Active Karma). These kriyaman karma also result in accumulating more Sanchit karma.


Prarabdh - Outcome of Prarabdh are those happenings in the souls earthly life which happen without any or little effort. Soul feels happy when it gains materialistic comforts, pleasures and position in life but it gets totally baffled when it loses the very same possessions unexpectatedly, without any explainable reason. Soul does not realize that this is the fruit or effect of cause of its Prarabdh in this lifetime. For example, we find a good human being doing all the best for the world but yet suffering from a deadly disease, a selfish person getting success in almost any activity it undertakes. All this is happening due to Prarabdh of these souls


Imagine how it could be when different souls come together in a lifetime and form a family. Each soul has its own Prarabdh and its own individual journey. But universal law is perfect. It arranges the soul groups so affectively that one soul’s Prarabdh matches with the Prarabdh of other souls. Thus souls living in a family life not only perform their respective earthly duties but also work out their Prarabdh together. This way they keep coming back on earth again and again, learn their lessons and help each other to work out their balance karmas till their last earthly desires has been fulfilled. The soul discards its human body once its Prarabdh of current lifetime is worked out completely. However, Maya plays such a strong role that it takes ages for an ignorant soul to work out all its karma and realize that the Supreme Divine Power is nowhere else but within.

How to work out Karma - The biggest question is how can the effect of Karmas be effaced? Man's actions or karmas are the manifestations of his thoughts. Karma is any action, thought, feeling, emotion generated by mind of a Man. The mind, by projecting thoughts to sense-organs, enjoys pleasures. It, more or less, identifies itself with these thoughts and pleasures. At that time, it does not think of any thing else. In actual, the earthly thoughts and impulses should be converted into the zeal for securing internal bliss and happiness after attaining a perfect balance between materialism and spiritualism. In simple terms, soul must perform duties required to be performed in its earthly lifetime with a sense of detachment i.e, without feeling sad about losses and without feeling elated about gains. But then it is easier said than done.

Meditation - Meditation is one way for the soul to connect to the higher self. Shirdi SaiBaba advised mankind to look inwards. The soul should find a quiet place, close eyes and meditate. The purpose is to withdraw all the five sense inwards, make them inactive because these senses have been given to the soul to see, hear, taste, touch and enjoy the external world only. The practice of meditation in solitude consists in reverting and raising internal spark of the soul to try to reach the high self. It is said that the seat of that spark is at midpoint behind the eyes called Third Eye or Krishna / Christ Consciousness. When such a condition begins to supervene to some extent, as a result of performing the meditation practices, the working of Karmas, both internally and externally, is automatically enfeebled. On getting some bliss and joy internally, and on witnessing the love, grace and mercy of the Supreme Being, the meditators’ mind is, of itself, detached from the world and its pleasures. The pleasures of the world become insipid. The situation is the same, however, its effect on the meditators mind changes. The soul finds peace in all the situations it finds itself in whether good or bad, it doesnot matter anymore.

After this, the longing for progress in meditation, and higher and higher bliss, goes on increasing. Worldly desires are curtailed. The soul always gives priority to the will, grace and mercy of the Supreme Being in whatever he does. It subordinates its desires to the will of the Supreme Being. Thus the soul is entangled in Kriyaman(active) Karmas very little or not at all. This cuts short the chain of its Karmas.

Prarabdh Karmas, which are unfolding in this very life will be very much mitigated by the grace and mercy of the Divine Spirit. This way the soul is able to withdraw from the eyes, it goes on getting detached from the body and the world. In the wakeful state, the seat of the spirit is behind the eyes. It is here that pains and pleasures are felt and Karmas are performed. Therefore, as the spark of soul is withdrawn from here with the help of spiritual exercises, pains and pleasures cease to be felt. In this way, the effect of Prarabdh Karmas is lightened.

As to the Sanchit Karmas, that are stored in Akashic records (mind-sky/ collective universal consciousness) in the form of seed-impressions. They will fructify in a future life. As the soul penetrates these records in its ascent to higher regions, the Sanchit Karmas appear in the form of thoughts and impulses. They come into play for a short while only and are obliterated and finally the Sanchit karma are also cleared off.

If one has the grace of Sadguru (special messengers of God like Jesus or Saibaba), it will not take long for a soul to achieve the desired results. With Guru/ God’s grace, the soul realizes that meditator, object of meditation all are ONE.

Bhakti (devotion) - As per Sai Satcharita (book containing life and teachings of Shirdi SaiBaba) taking the road of devotion ( towards any one particular God of your choice) is the easiest way to get free from the Karmas. A mind cannot sit idle but if we give it some wise thought, say, chanting ‘Sai Sai’ (you can substitute this with name of God you believe in) always, get rid of feeling of doership and surrender all our actions, thoughts and ourselves to our God, we have taken our first step towards working out our karma fast. Saibaba(God) will work internally and remind the soul of its purpose of taking human birth. This doesnot mean that the soul will not have to work out the Prarabdh. Saibaba(God) will not come in the functioning of the universal law but will make the soul strong enough that it will not feel the effect of Prarabdh i.e, soul will not be ecstatic when it gains and will not feel depressed when it suffers. God or spirit guides and angels will grace us with strength necessary to work out our Prarabdh easily. This is what we mean when we say that God works out the karma of devotees. But then are we willing to work for ourselves, absolve ourselves of our Prarabdh the way Baba(substitute with the name of God you believe in) has advised us.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi