Karma as answer to terror - Part 1

Neeraj Saxena

Spirituality means many things to many people. Its origin is in metaphysics - whose unseen particles have the single biggest collider located not in universe, but the microcosm of your mind (`chitta’ to me as against brain) where thoughts keep colliding against each other all the time. It, therefore, means so much and so many tings to different people.

But spirituality alone is what carries you through to your ultimate journey, the ultimate destiny… it carries through births and deaths and like the indestructible soul, it is your spirituality reflected in your `sanchit’ (collected or earned) karma that gives you what is deservedly yours- the salvation.

Hinduism, Christianity and Islam have a concept of `Swarg’, heavens and `dojakh’. So do many other major religions. This indicates a shared belief in after-life as a concept and also retribution for your bad actions and reward for all deeds good. Isn’t that also in harmony with the universal principle of societal behaviour as established by the human race over past thousands of years: Punish bad deeds and reward the good!

Now, if that were to be so, how can some most horrible deeds done in the name of Allah or Ishwar go unpunished? If those who undertake such actions in the name of a god, a religion, or a faith were to introspect and ask their unindoctrinated soul if what they are doing was really right, or even necessary, the answers would be simple and quick to flow.

No guru, no madarsa, no sermons needed! Listen to the voice of the `atman’ (the one within you!), the microcosm of the universe, or the nirakar ishwar itself who is sitting inside your self… this universal consciousness that has shaped you, guided you over countless cycles of birth and the eternal being.

It alone will give you a good sense of the right and the wrong. The only pre-requisite is that you do not let your external environment, any written or spoken words, and any type of religious symbolism (as different from the spiritual!) colour your thought process. It HAS to be pure.

And the real, pure answers will come tumbling out. Unclotheed, and in your face! Prejudices, hatred and `sanskars’ (thoughts form our sanskar, sanskar forms chitta, chitta forms smriti or memory that gets carried over from one birth to another) that we keep collecting and carrying over like a coolie from one form and birth to another can at times act like our biggest enemies.

Okay, let me ask those who kill for any reason whatsoever! Can they sit in one moment of being with their real self and answer to themselves honestly: Can I create life, the nature, myself, or the things that I hold so dear? If the answer to this question is negative, then the answer to the earlier one too becomes obvious.

Similarly, those among us that seek retribution in equal measure akin to `an eye for an eye’ tend to forget in the negativity spread by frayed tempers, passion or our perceived loss or insecurities that they too are in the Maya Matrix. Just like the Arjun, they are forgetting why they are here. Either due to “maya, moh, kaam, krodh and lobh”, these being some of the universal elements that lead to our spiritual downfall and decay, if not tempered and commanded.

Maya itself can only be tempered, but is very difficult to tame. Remember, even Buddha figured this out after a long struggle to attain nirvana, and then advocated the middle path, or a balanced life!

As Krishna lectures Arjun in Chapter 7 of Gita, it is our bounden duty to fend for our self. But self here should mean the real self, the `sookshm aatma’, because the body – yours, mine, everybody’s – has to go. What remains then? The single unit of the superconsciousness, the God Particle?

Afterlife has no religions, non distinctions. It is just you and your deeds that keep earning you Karma every single moment that you are awake! Just like the brownie points all of us keep hankering for all our material lives!

You may wonder how could anybody say for sure, unless he has come back to the body to narrate the eternal truths that we (being in the matrix) are not able to see? Well, the answer is yes and no! But if Karma does not guide your destinies, nothing else does because there cannot be a destiny without Karma. Hence, even for argument’s sake, Karma is the best foot forward that I and you (as the lowest common denominators), can take, and rely upon. And form one theory that may be universally acceptable to all.

The problem is all of us are more reactive than we are action-oriented. Is it in our DNA? No, it is in our colouring, our sense of good and bad that we get in heritance from our parents, books, teachers, friends, colleagues, media, AND religion.

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