Karma

[Jyoti]

Is Karma a strict personal thing, or do families share Karma?

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Jyoti,

Karma is strictly personal.  Each one has to enjoy or suffer one's
one karma.  The karmas are not shared for a family as a whole.
How circumstantially, one's karma affects the others in a worldly
way.  For example, a person who had to die at a young age, he
dies at such a young age, and his wife suffers without any help,
as a widow, and mostly in poverty. Or a couple gets a blind child,
[due to child's own karma]  but the family suffers bringing up the child which is blind.



Arunachala Siva.   

[Jyoti]

For example, a person who had to die at a young age, he
dies at such a young age, and his wife suffers without any help,
as a widow, and mostly in poverty.

But was it not the Karma of the wife to become widow at this age?

[Jyoti]

Is every little event in one's life the result of Karma?
For instance: I am sitting at a table with a ball pen next to me.
When that ball pen should roll off the table and fall on the flow now, would that be Karma or just coincidence?

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Jyoti,

The young man's karma is to suffer death. The widowed wife's karma is to suffer in life. Both are different karmas.  The ball pen falling from the table is destiny.  Destiny happens without even karma as
the ball pen is insentient. Devaraja Mudaliar asked Sri Bhagavan:
Even my taking the hand fan from the ground and after fanning for sometime if I place it back on the ground - is it destiny?  Sri Bhagavan said: Yes.  Karmas will leave a person if he ceases to be
karmi. Destiny for insentient things happens as it is destined. The earthquake cum tsunami is destiny.  But A dying and B escaping the
havoc is dependent on A and B's karma. When an airplane crashes and all the travellers die means all their karmas have brought them the death. A man missing that flight escapes. His karma is not to die.   



Arunachala Siva.   

[Jyoti]

The Karma of one's current life (Prarabdha ?) - can it be destroyed by the Grace of God?

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Jyoti,

What is prarabdha karma?  It is the fruit of good and bad happenings arising out of our previous births, and is slated to give
effect this birth. 

Now, how does the fruits viz., happiness and sorrow, pleasure and pain, good and evil enjoyed?  It is with your mind. When in case of a Jnani, since there is no mind/ego, he does not feel the effects of such happiness and sorrows. His is equilibrium state of life. So in other words, prarabdha karma does not affect a Jnani.  Even a sadhak if he or she does self inquiry or self surrender, he becomes a Jnani and the fruits of prarabdha do not affect him.  They are no doubt there, but they do not affect him.  Like a feeble moon on the high noon.  Even it is there, the moon is not useful. 

Sri Bhagavan said: When a king dies [say like Dasarata] all his wives become widows. Like that all the three karmas are destroyed, when the ego [king] dies. One cannot say only Kaikeyi is not a widow and Kausalya and Sumitra are widows!  This He has explained in some verse in ULLadu Narpadu - Supplement.

Scriptural writings however say, it [the prarbdha] is like an arrow already sent [i.e fixed before your birth] and the arrow may not differentiate between a tiger and a harmless cow. It will hit anything that comes in its path.  Here, one should remember that the scriptures say only about prarabdha and not how a Jnani 'feels' about it. Jnani does not "feel" about it.  When Sri Bhagavan was in His terminal illness, the pain in sarcoma cancer was unbearable. But He felt the pain very very less. Even there, He said, The body is paining and He did not say, My body is paining.  Dr. Guruswami Mudaliar who did surgery for Him has said: It is like a spindle pain. Suppose you rotate a spindle on a wound, how much it would pain that person?  He added that the pain would be like a lorry running over your hand.  But Sri Bhagavan did not feel that sort of pain. Forwhatever worth, the body was paining and he was moaning. But it is not His body. It is the body.



Arunachala Siva.           

[Jyoti]

Scriptural writings however say, it [the prarbdha] is like an arrow already sent [i.e fixed before your birth] and the arrow may not differentiate between a tiger and a harmless cow. It will hit anything that comes in its path. 

But has not God - being almighty - the power to destroy Prarbdha Karma?
One cannot say "God is almighty" and at the same time "God has not the power to destroy a persons Prarbdha Karma".

[amiatall]

When you start working on yourself( i.e. when you put it FIRST IN YOUR LIFE, not your problems, not getting this or that, not even for self-realization, just purely working on yourself), your karma is halted. And everything else is taken care of. The past being wiped out, etc. But this you don't need to know at all. Just work on yourself.

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Jyoti,

Karma phala is already fixed.  In very rare cases, Saiva Siddhantam
says that prarabdha karma can be thinned. Karumam melinthu varum
says one old Tamizh song. It is like the arrow, hitting at the cow, but only its horn and so the damage is considerably less.



Arunachala Siva.   

[Jyoti]

Karma phala is already fixed.

But God is able to destroy it completely.
It is not possible that God is almighty but at the same time there is something God cannot acomplish.

In very rare cases, Saiva Siddhantam
says that prarabdha karma can be thinned.

Why only in rare cases?
Has not God grace for everyone?

[kde]

Animals must have karma to. But I find it very hard to reconcile some of the terrible suffering brought to them by humans. What on earth could they have done to deserve such pain and suffering. Billions are slaughtered for food and live in awful conditions without mercy or kindness. I have seen video from China where they skin the animals alive!

All I can take from this is happiness is pointless unless it is for all.

I also find it hard to reconcile to idea of a human life form being reborn as a animal.

[ramana_maharshi]

few terrible videos of animal slaughter can also be seen in below video

http://www.chooseveg.com/

We cannot get answers to all questions in this mysterious world is my conclusion sir.

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Jyoti,

Why only rare cases? - you asked. Because these rare cases have
shown ardent devotion to the Power within or the Power above
[both are same] and God's karuna, flows more towards them.
A mother has got 8 children [those days!]. Only one child is crippled
but mother loves that child most. Why? Because, that crippled child tells mother: I can not walk. Please take me on your waist. The other children can walk and so they have to be more careful. If they had to fall down and get bruises, mother gives them pain killing ointments. But for the crippled child, when it falls [very rarely[ mother too falls down and without bothering about her bruises, she first takes up the child on her waist. A weeping child gets milk quicker than a non weeping child. Weep, weep for the God's mercy.



Arunachala Siva.

[Subramanian.R]

Dear srkudai,

Your post. The karmas act in  very mysterious ways.  Otherwise,
how can one explain a large number of persons having Sabarimala darshan should die in stampede while they were returning. Or, how an family of pious people after visting some holy places, while returning in car, die in an accident, not one of them, but the entire family.  I think these questions have no answers.

There is one story. Once there was Rishi who was also a raja guru
for the king. He used to say, everything is for the good, everything is for the good. One day the king while cutting a mango got a cut on his finger and started bleeding. After some medication, he became alright but still the wound was there. The raja guru when asked about this accident, said, everything is for the good. Raja was not pleased. In a few days time, he went to forest for hunting. Thered, he was caught by kapaligas who give human sacrifices to Siva or Kali. He was caught and brought before the god for human sacrifice. Suddenly someone noticed that the king had some wound on his finger. They said, he is defective. No use in sacrificing him. Let us release him. The raja came back. He said this to raja guru who answered, everything is for the good!



Arunachala Siva.