Ask The Master: 19 Dec 2007

Q. Beloved master, what is karma?

Let me give you an idea about karma. Whenever an action has been started, but not fulfilled, there exists a force that pulls you to fulfill it, to bring it to completion. This force is karma. Whatever you have tasted, desired but not experienced completely, will continuously draw you to repeat that very experience, until you feel fulfillment. You will keep repeating that action till you actually become that experience, because you are fulfillment. You enter the body just to fulfill these actions. In the course of fulfillment, you meet all these things, these ‘troubles’. This is the explanation which I give for karma. All the other ideas – it is because of my bad karma that I got this disease; it is because of my good karma that I met my master - all these are just things we say after the event has happened. Whatever has happened, we give it the name karma.

The word karma is much misunderstood. I am not giving you an explanation for karma as we understand it. I don’t mean karma as fate or vidhi. According to my experience, there is no such thing as fate. The future is left completely open by Existence. It is we who decide.

Ramakrishna tells a beautiful story which will give you intellectual clarity on the subject. Of course, no one can give you existential, experiential clarity on karma as it really is; that clarity comes only with enlightenment. And when you are enlightened, you cannot express it!

Coming to the story on karma:

A cow is tied to a post with a 5-meter rope. Inside that perimeter it can sit, stand, feed, do whatever it pleases. Our life is just the same. We have a limited amount of freedom; the rest is in the hands of Existence. But Ramakrishna also adds, if we use our 5-meter freedom intelligently, it is possible that Existence will extend our rope, or even free us completely. That depends on both us and the master, on jiva (ordinary mortals) and Shiva. You can choose whether to remain in bondage or work towards being set free. Someone once asked me, ‘What if the cow learns to bite and break the rope?’

First of all, do you know where the rope is? To which limb it is tied? Where it begins and ends? Where to bite? How to bite? With an ordinary cow and rope, the cow can see these things. You people don’t even know what or where your rope is! So whatever I can give you is only a glimpse, an inspiration to enter into me, to enter into the experience.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Uncommon Answers to Common Questions