It is a strange world in which we live, a world which is governed by the law of karma. A son is born to a father. He feels happy and rejoices. Little does he realise that the child has come to settle old accounts.
Through karma, we come into contact with those with whom we have karmic involvements. We give them what we own them and receive what they owe us.
Birth is never a matter of accident. Karma determines the family in which I am born. It is commonly believed that if I do evil, I shall be punished for it. The law of karma, however, is not punitive, but reformative. It may appear that the law of karma is punishing us for certain misdeeds we might have committed in the near or remote past. The law of karma never punishes. It puts us in an environment which may afford us opportunities for self-growth. The law of karma provides us with experiences meant to help us to grow into better and nobler persons. Therefore, let us accept the situation in which we find ourselves and make the most of it by learning the lesson which a particular experience has come to teach us. That is the way of spiritual progress.
Karma binds those who identify themselves with their bodies (and the mind). Karma binds those who are conditioned by time and space. So many of us think: “I was born at such and such a time and at such and such a place. I am so many feet tall and weigh so many pounds. I am living in a palatial mansion and am prosperous and have great influence over the people.” When we think along those lines, we create a cage of time and space within our own minds and stay cooped up in it all our life. In reality, we are not bound by time and space. It is we who have created time and space: time and space have not created us.
Blessed is the person who realises the Self. For him there is no suffering. To him there are no problems. He has the freedom which belongs to the children of God. For us, children of time and space, there are seemingly endless problems. Man’s greatest problem is himself — his own self.
Dada JP Vaswani is a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader
