Mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth

V

The Law of Karma and the Integral View

"Karma-vāda" or the "Theory of the Universal Chain of Karma" is one of the basic constituent elements of all the religions and philosophical systems that have sprung up in India. Whether we consider Buddhism or Jainism, post-Buddha Puranic Hinduism or Sikhism, or the orthodox philosophies like Vedanta, Mimansa, Patanjal, etc., we shall find Karmavada occupying everywhere a central position in these doctrines and viewpoints. The Buddhist philosophy has gone so far as to assert that everything in the universe is mutable and transitory with one sole exception which is eternal and true and that exception is this "Karma-cakra", the "Wheel of Karma". Before going further in our discussion let us recapitulate here once again the basic positions of this Karmavada in their traditional forms:

The world is the field of action of a great Shakti which is one and indivisible. This Shakti or universal Power has many different lines of activity. Every single energy loosed forth in action, technically called a "Karma", has its own fruit or consequence known as "karma-pariṇāma": Now, every action and its 'parinama' leads to a second action which after germination or "vipāka" produces a second parinama or result and this in its turn will produce a new karma or action and in its sequel a new parinama, and the chain continues as an uninterrupted series which has no beginning and no end, "anādi-ananta-karma-paramparā' .

The other tenet of Karmavada is that in this world of manifestation every individual is always in action, being impelled by his nature and its desires. And no action will go in vain. Each one will have its own 'vipaka' and 'parinama' which is bound to affect in time the person who is the doer of this action. Those actions which do not sprout or have any 'parinama' in this life will remain stored in the "karmāśaya", the "receptable of karmas" of the doer for a future life.

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Every individual human being has a particular line of development. And every action done by the individual, every quantum of energy released by him in some deed is sure to sprout and have its 'parinama' at some stage or other of that line of development and the doer will have to bear the consequences thereof.

The nature and the circumstances of an individual life are the products of his chain of karmas, both inner and outer. There is nothing there accidental or incomprehensible. An individual is thus the architect of his own destiny: there is no other external agency such as Fate or Niyati which can be made responsible for the happenings of his life. A man's past actions have built up his present state and the actions done now in the present life will shape his future. None can escape the consequences of his deeds and the major part of his happiness and sufferings is due to the belated termination (vipaka) of his own past deeds.

Sri Aurobindo has summed up the principle of the Universal Law of Karma in these words:

"...a man's past and present Karma must determine his future birth and its happenings and circumstances; for these too must be the fruit of his energies: all that he was and did in the past must be the creator of all that he now is and experiences in his present, and all that he is and is doing in the present must be the creator of what he will be and experience in the future. Man is the creator of himself; he is the creator also of his fate. All this is perfectly rational and unexceptionable so far as it goes and the law of Karma may be accepted as a fact, as part of the cosmic machinery..." (The Life Divine, pp. 806-07) (Author's emphasis)

Such is the essence of Karmavada. Readers must have noted in the citation above that Sri Aurobindo has added two riders, two significant clauses and expressions: "so far as it goes" and "cosmic machinery". There lies a great meaning behind this purposeful addition. Indeed, the key to the difference between the traditional ideas of Karmavada and the views propounded by the synthetic yogic Vision of Sri Aurobindo lies hidden behind the above

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mentioned expressions. Let us point out one by one the essential differences and divergences between the two sets of views: the views held by the orthodox Karmavada and the positions adumbrated by the Integral Yoga-philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. The indications given below cannot but be very brief; for, both time and space forbid a detailed discussion here. Readers interested in a more elaborate exposition are advised to consult various books of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, notably The Life Divine and The Problem of Rebirth.

1. Traditional View. One of the fundamental principles of "karma-vipāka" or the "maturing of Karma" is that "Like produces like". For example, a "good" deed invariably produces "good" result, and a "bad" deed cannot but lead to a "bad" consequence. And the connotations of "good" and "bad" fruits are respectively happiness and good fortune, wealth and good health, etc., or sufferings and misfortunes, indigence and ill health, etc.

The application of this principle leads to the inference that if I love somebody, he will, on his part, surely love me. If I do good to others, it cannot but be that others also will do good to me. And the same rule holds in the case of evil deeds and conduct on my part.

Our View: We agree that the traditional assertion, "Like begets like", may prove to be true partly and at some times in the actual circumstances of an individual's life but surely not always and in every man's case. Besides, there is much confusion and wrong conception as regards what should be considered a "good result" or a "bad result". For example, when a sadhaka starts moving on the path of the Divine with an ardent and very sincere aspiration it may sometimes happen that his outer life and its circumstances are overcast with dark clouds of misfortunes of various kinds; viz. his friends and relatives may become perceptibly cool towards him and may even withdraw their affection from him. Well, in this case an ostensibly good and right action engenders an "opposite" effect.

On the other hand, this too is sometimes seen that a person indulging in a series of 'bad' deeds and showing manifestly "bad" behaviour, is visited with lucky circumstances in his outer life. For example, he may perhaps become the Mayor of a city corporation

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or, why not, a deputy minister in the Government of the day, although in his private life he may be a notorious black marketeer or an adulterer of food-stuffs. Why is this discrepancy if the principle of "like begets like" is universally valid?

As a matter of fact, the Grace and the blessings of the Divine may at times take the form of so-called misfortunes in the outer life of a man whereas the prosperity and happiness of another man may actually indicate the Higher Power's displeasure towards him.

So we see that we cannot always indiscriminately apply the principle of "a good karma invariably producing a good fruit of the same kind". Any attempt to do so on our part cannot but lead to utter confusion and inexplicable paradoxes.

Even in our daily life of mutual dealing amongst fellow human beings, it is not rarely found that my doing positive good to a person not only does not produce in him a sense of gratitude and goodwill towards me but creates instead a mood of ill-will and even a downright inclination to do me some harm.

Do we not remember in this connection the classic remark of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar when it was reported to him that a certain gentleman was spreading censorious lies about him and calling him names? Vidyasagar pithily replied with a feigned tone of surprise: "Is it really so? But why? - I have not done him any good!" As if ill-will and ingratitude should be the normally expected reaction to any good done to a person!

Hence is the witty observation of Sri Aurobindo in his The Problem of Rebirth, p. 146:

This is not at all true that "generally good done by us to our fellowmen will return in a recompense of good done by them in kind and posted back to our address duly registered in the moral post office of the administrative government of the universe." Rather the reverse position proves generally to be true. Sri Aurobindo writes again:

"And even an unegoistic virtue or a divine good and love entering the world awakens reactions. Attila and Jenghiz on the throne to the end. Christ on the Cross and Socrates drinking his portion of hemlock." (Ibid., p. 148)

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2. Traditional View. The distribution of rewards and punishments is the pith of the operation of Karma. For, this represents the verdict of judgment delivered according to the principle of universal justice which impersonally governs the universe.

Our View. The idea of retribution, of the awarding of rewards and punishments, has to be completely discarded from our mind. The world manifestation has a deeper, greater and sublimer purpose and significance behind it. The Divine has not created the world merely to serve the function of an implacable judge in a gigantic Court of Justice.

But do we then mean to say that a man will not suffer even if he commits a mistake or does a wrong deed? No, not so surely. He will suffer but not as an act of punishment but as a natural reaction of his action as the unavoidable operation of the Laws of Nature. Let us refer to some obvious examples.

If you put your finger in a raging fire, it will surely get burnt and you will suffer pain, irrespective of whether you are a king or a beggar, a yogi or a wicked man. If you swallow poison, its deleterious effects will manifest in your body. There can be no exception to this rule: none can hope to be exempted from the action of the universally operative laws of Nature. And this has to be accepted as true so far as it goes. But why bring in unnecessarily the ethical idea of rewards and punishments in this matter?

It is true that man, in his attempt at maintaining order and discipline in his social organisation, has devised the means of justice and judgment and the conferment of rewards and punishments on the doers of actions. But this is a purely human system invented and set in operation by the imperfect mind of men. But how can you expect to see the exact reflection of this limited and crude human system in the government of the entire universe? It will surely be an act of absurdity to try to unravel the mystery of the operation of cosmic Nature by the sole application of the rigid formula of rewards and punishments invented by the mind of man. She does not work in this way at all. All that happens in the kingdom of universal Nature is governed by her intrinsic principles and laws, and the evolving soul of an individual man has to learn through them necessary "lessons of experience" and follow a course of

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ascending progression in the cosmic school of Nature's education. In order to banish from our mind the erroneous notion of "rewards and punishments" and adopt the right attitude towards the events and circumstances of our life, we should do well to ponder deeply over the implications of the following statement of Sri Aurobindo:

"... the reactions of Nature are not in essence meant as reward or punishment; that is not their fundamental value, which is rather an inherent value of natural relations and, in so far as it affects the spiritual evolution, a value of the lessons of experience in the soul's cosmic training.... in all Nature's dealings with us there is a relation of things and there is a corresponding lesson of experience." (The Life Divine, Cent. Ed., p. 814)

Now, these "reactions of things" Sri Aurobindo speaks of are popularly interpreted as "karma-phalas" in the case of an individual man and may assume different forms depending on the situation, circumstances and the antecedents of the individual jīva. To satisfy the curiosity of the readers we give below the names of a few of these "reactions" otherwise called the "Laws of Nature" (Because of dearth of space here we content ourselves with the bare mention of the names only without trying to speak more about them.):

(a) Law of cause and effect; (b) Law of rebound or boomerang; (c) Law of action and reaction; (d) Law of reinforcement; (e) Law of return; (f) Law of imperfection inviting mishap; (g) Law of immoderation leading to ill effects; etc.

3. Traditional View: Karma and the consequences of Karma centre purely and solely around the individual. Hence, in order to seek the explanation of the events of his life, we have to follow the linear development of his own life alone, life present or past. The original cause must be lying somewhere along that individual line.

Our View: No, the situation is not so simple and linear in nature. The affair is multidimensional and very much complex in character. And the reason is that no man is entirely separate and isolated. He has a universal being as well as an individual being. As a result everyone is indissolubly linked to every other person.

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And the inevitable consequence of this inner solidarity is that the actions of "X" have their reactions on the lives of others just as the actions of others will cast their reactions on X's life. What makes the situation still more complicated is the occult fact that these reactions may actually manifest after the lapse of a long, even very long, period of time.

Thus an individual may have to undergo the consequences, not only of his own individual actions, but at the same time those of various groupings to which he belongs. He cannot, for example, evade the liability of his "family Karma", "national Karma", and others.

Sri Aurobindo has drawn our attention to the far-flung effect of 'national Karma' which can sometimes overleap the bounds of centuries and produce fruit at a later age. An example is drawn from the history of Belgium. Here is how Sri Aurobindo narrates it:

In one of the past centuries a certain cruel-hearted greedy king of Belgium sent his ravaging troops to Africa and heaped unspeakable atrocities on the innocent people of that continent. In course of time he died an apparently peaceful natural death without suffering any adverse consequences for his misdeeds. But two centuries later the power-hungry soldiers of newly resurgent Germany invaded the same Belgium, plundered and massacred its people, burnt its villages and towns and inflicted other kinds of persecution. The strange thing to note is that the dark consequences of national misdeeds jumped over centuries and became realised in the lives of the Belgians of a posterior generation.

As in the case of national Karmas, other constituent factors of karma-phala may have their first origins hidden behind some unknown events of the misty past. So, if we would like to know the veritable reason of why a particular person is suffering in a particular way now, it will not suffice to analyse his own karmas done in the near past of this life. This will need a yogic vision which is far-extending and can scan every nook and comer of the whole past. The Theosophist scholar Bhagavan Das has quoted in his book Essential Unity of All Religions an interesting Sanskrit saying:

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Yadi nātmani, putreṣu,

Na cet putreṣu, naptṛṣu;

Na tveva tu kṛtādharmaḥ

Kartuṁ bhavati nisphalaḥ.

The above Sanskrit sloka means in essence: "Man's karma-phala is ineluctable. If it cannot seize the actual doer of the deed, it shall strike his son. If the son also manages to escape its clutch, the grandson has to pay the price. And the series will continue uninterrupted, till the karma seizes its prey; for, a karma once done cannot be made infructuous."

(4) Traditional View: The result of an action done by a person must be by its nature quite simple and easily comprehensible. For example, a conventionally judged "good" deed must always produce a "good" fruit and a so-judged "misdeed" cannot but engender an unmixed "bad" consequence. There need be no complexity in that and the course of an action should be quite foreseeable and its fruit unambiguously foretold.

Our View: This facile presupposition also is not true. A particular deed of a particular individual can produce a result which is bafflingly complex and mixed in character. Because the very psychological constitution of a human being is itself not simple but heterogeneous in character. Many different forces of many different compositions are simultaneously operative in his psychological field and we should not forget that a karma is in its real nature "subjective" and not so much the visible "objective" movements of the organs of action, karmendriyāni.

Now, behind the final external manifestation of any particular action, there might have been in operation in the psychological arena of the doer a medley of subjective passions and impulses each one of which will tend to produce its separate result following its own natural line. All these various results may understandably vary in quality and intensity depending on the prevailing situation. And all these separately produced results will compound to constitute the final outcome which cannot but be very complex in character and heterogeneous in effect. For, as Sri Aurobindo has reminded us, "A mixture of any two kinds of energy sets up a

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mixed and complex action of the output of the energy and the return..." (The Problem of Rebirth, p. 141)

But this is not all: there are other things to complicate the situation further. We consider ourselves normally to be unique individual beings because of the "concrete" sense of a unique representative ego. But, in reality, behind this apparent unicity each one of us is a multiperson. Every part of us - intellect, will, sense-mind, desire-self, the heart, etc. - has each its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest and follows its own separate line of destiny.

Now, it may often happen that one of these lines of destiny may become relatively very strong and dominate for various reasons, and even temporarily suspend, the actions of all other lines.

Also, it may sometimes happen that more than one of these lines may coalesce and produce a mixed action that is widely different from the separate effects that could have been engendered by the lines concerned acting separately and independently. Thus the whole situation becomes a jumbled-up affair and it is well-nigh impossible to ascertain the reason why a particular event overtakes a man at a particular junction of time. Hence is the warning of the Mother:

"... we are not a single being, a simple entity which necessarily has a single destiny that is simple and logical. Rather we have to acknowledge that the destiny of most men is complex, often to the point of incoherence. Is it not this very complexity which gives us the impression of unexpectedness, of indeterminacy and consequently of unpredictability?" (CWM, Vol. 15, p. 308)

This is so far as are concerned the different lines of destiny followed by the different personalities hidden and operative behind the surface ego. But there is one other factor that makes still more unascertainable the nature of the karma-phala that befalls an individual. This factor relates to the different destinies affecting different instrumental parts of his being. Thus there are for him operative at the same time (i) a physical destiny, (ii) a vital destiny,

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(iii) a mental destiny, (iv) a psychic destiny, (v) a spiritual destiny, and others.

Thus, the whole thing presents the picture of a highly intermingled complexity which makes it impossible to foresee and foretell what exactly is going to happen to a person at any given moment of his life.

(5) Traditional View: The supreme Divine who is the sole Governor of this world is at the same time All-Wise and All-Just. No injustice can ever enter into any of his providences. It should therefore be an axiomatic truth that a morally good man's life will always be rewarded with victories and happiness while a morally wicked man should always meet with defeats and disasters. Is not our assumption valid?

Our View: No, it is not. We do not deny that the Divine is All-Wise and All-Just. This too we accept that all his actions are in conformity with absolute justice. But what is justice after all? Why should we be allowed to impose upon the Divine our human standards of "moral" justice which are, to say the least, ignorant, imperfect, and absolutely relative? Let us look into the matter a little more closely.

A clairvoyant observation cannot but reveal to us that a particular person may be at the same time engaged in more than one line of "tapasya" or energized effort. He may be able to successfully apply his energy in more than one field of activity.

Now, there is a Great Power operative in the universe - call it the Divine or the Cosmic Nature, it does not matter - which is impersonally assessing every energy-output of every man and is crowning it with success or topping it with failure depending upon its efficacious employment. And this is what real Justice means and does. Otherwise, what sort of an absurd expectation is this that simply because a man is "ethically good", the Divine should justifiably make him the winner of the gold medal in the Olympic's 100-metre sprint? I may be from the social point of view not a very good and just man, but if I am intellectually sufficiently endowed and put in necessary energy and effort, why should the Divine deprive me of success in that particular field? I may be conventionally bad in nature but if my artistic consciousness is well

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developed and I make sustained effort in the field of art, why should I be frustrated in my aspiration to flower into an accomplished artist? The Divine will be quite pleased to grant me success in these respective fields of activity and that is what should demonstrate that He is really just.

So, we have to cancel from our mind the erroneous preconceived notions that (i) divine Justice acts in the same way as human justice; and (ii) a "good" man should be allowed to score success in all fields of his activity; also (iii) a "bad" man should automatically be deprived of success in every possible field. Such a misconception of God's way of justice will land us into total confusion in understanding the affairs of men and the real reason behind the vicissitudes of an individual's life. Here are two excerpts from Sri Aurobindo's writings which may throw more light on the point:

"... the statement of the Law [of Karma] errs by an over-simplification and the arbitrary selection of a limited principle. Action is a resultant of the energy of the being, but this energy is not of one sole kind; the Consciousness-Force of the Spirit manifests itself in many kinds of energies: there are inner activities of mind, activities of life, of desire, passion, impulse, character, activities of the senses and the body, a pursuit of truth and knowledge, a pursuit of beauty, a pursuit of ethical good or evil, a pursuit of power, love, joy, happiness, fortune, success, pleasure, life-satisfactions of all kinds, life-enlargement, a pursuit of individual or collective objects, a pursuit of the health, strength, capacity, satisfaction of the body. All this makes an exceedingly complex sum of the manifold experience and many-sided action of the Spirit in life, and its variety cannot be set aside in favour of a single principle, neither can be hammered into so many sections of the single duality of ethical good and evil; ethics, the maintenance of human standards of morality, cannot, therefore, be the sole preoccupation of the cosmic Law or the sole principle of determination of the working of Karma." (The Life Divine, pp. 809-10)

It follows then that the variety of differences between the energies loosed forth in action cannot but produce consequences widely different in nature.

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"... there are many factors and not only the ethical-hedonistic standard. If it is just that the virtuous man should be rewarded with success and happiness and the wicked man punished with downfall and pain at some time, in some life, on earth or in heaven or in hell, it is also just that the strong man should have the reward of his cultivated strength, the intellectual man the prize of his cultivated skill, the will that labours in whatever field the fruit of its effort and its works." (The Problem of Rebirth, pp. 114-15)

(6) Traditional View: The position fundamentally held is that whatever happens in a man's life does so because of the deeds done by him in the past. It thus invariably follows that if we find now a person suffering from the pangs of poverty and ignominy and other kinds of misfortunes, he must be judged to have been a sinner in his past life who has been now paying for his past misdeeds. Even if he seems to be a virtuous man with sattwic temperament in this life, that cannot invalidate the assertion that in one of his past lives he must have been a sinful individual. Is not this surmise correct?

Our View: No, it is not. Here too there is an obvious fallacy vitiating the line of argument. And this could not but be so because there is a radical defect in the very thought-structure that leads to this conclusion. For, in truth, the Law of Karma is nothing but a law only, an instrument in the hands of the Agent and not itself the agent. The real Agent is the Divine: He uses the Law as an instrument in the furtherance of His purpose in the world. He may use it if He so likes; He may bypass it if that serves His end. Thus the application of the law of Karma is not altogether rigorous.

But what is this purpose of the Divine in this world of manifestation and in particular in the life of a man? Well, it is worth knowing that the only goal the Divine aims at in the life of men is to bring them to a state of perfect Union with the Supreme Reality through a progressive growth of their consciousness, also to radically change all their instruments of manifestation such as the mind, the heart and the body and finally to divinely transform them so that a divine life can be established upon earth itself and a bridge be built between the heaven and the terrestrial existence.

And the Divine will do all that is necessary for this sole purpose.

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His Grace is always at work, in every individual's life, under all situations and circumstances, of course keeping this sole goal in view. And for this, He will provide the individual with all necessary experiences at every moment of his life, be these experiences in appearance pleasant or unpleasant, joyous or painful. Good luck or bad luck are altogether immaterial here. What is of sole relevance is how much a particular experience at a given time will help the person concerned to advance towards the destined Goal. Sri Aurobindo has beautifully described this point in Canto 4 of the First Book of his epic, Savitri:

Even through the tangled anarchy called Fate

And through the bitterness of death and fall

An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives.

It is near us in unnumbered bodies and births;

In its unshaken grasp it keeps for us safe

The one inevitable supreme result

No will can take away and no doom change,

The crown of conscious Immortality,

The godhead promised to our struggling souls...

One who has shaped this world is ever its lord:

Our errors are his steps upon the way;

He works through the fierce vicissitudes of our lives,

He works through the hard breath of battle and toil,

He works through our sins and sorrows and our tears...

Whatever the appearance we must bear,

Whatever our strong ills and present fate,

When nothing we can see but drift and bale,

A mighty Guidance leads us still through all.

(Savitri, Cent. Ed., p. 59)

Yes, "a mighty Guidance leads us still through all", and this divine Guidance is really inscrutable for the ignorance-shrouded intelligence of man. It will therefore be a sheer folly to conclude in a facile way that man is surely reaping the malediction of God whenever we find him suffering from worldly ills in life. Who knows, that may perhaps be the manifestation of His Grace which

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is actually helping the person concerned through these adverse crcumstances to advance on the path of spiritual progression. And that is, after all, the only purpose behind all divine action and the sole essential thing needed by the individual. Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have elaborately discussed this point at many different places in many of their writings. The essence of their teachings is as follows:

Apparent happiness and outer success and good fortune is no doubt very very pleasing to man's lower vital; but gross enjoyment and prosperity is not the ultimate objective of life. That a soul accepts rebirth is not to square accounts for its past good deeds or misdeeds. In actual fact, rebirth is the effective means for the spiritual progression of the soul. All his experiences, his happinesses and sorrows, successes and failures, good fortune and ill fortune, all without exception are inseparable elements of his comprehensive spiritually oriented adventure covering a succession of lives.

The soul itself may at times choose sorrows, poverty and ill luck, if it considers them appropriate steps for a rapid ascension to its goal. It may reject with disdain success, prosperity and immediate realisation if it finds them creating in him a mood of laxity and somnolence of consciousness.

So, we have to reject the popular traditional view regarding the true purpose behind the phenomenon of rebirth. The soul is not reborn only to wear out through experiences, both positive and negative, the fruits of his past karmas, but to advance incessantly on the path of the ascent of consciousness through the intermediary of almost infinitely varied experiences affecting the triple instruments of mind and heart and body. This is the essence of the matter and all else is "sometimes a consequence and sometimes a means" but never the principal thing.

And the so-called Law of Karma is such a "consequence" and such a "means" employed by the divine Guide, and surely not an independently operative self-sufficient agent.

So, we cannot subscribe to the commonly held popular notion that the very presence of sorrows and sufferings in the present life of a man cannot but unexceptionally indicate that he must have done some serious misdeeds in his past life.

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(7) Traditional View: A man has to perforce suffer the consequences of those karmas which belong to the class of "prārabdha" or the "sprouted ones". Be he a Mahayogi or a great Mahatma, nobody can escape the clutch of a "prarabdha" karma: he has to annul it by actually undergoing in his personal experiences the consequences of the said deed.

But before we can meaningfully discuss this point, we have to become clear in our mind what is meant by a "prarabdha" karma.

So far as the traditional idea goes, an individual is always acting whether internally in his subjective domain or externally in the objective field. Each one of his actions is producing a karma in the form of an ungerminated seed. All these karma-seeds are getting stored in what is called the "karmāśaya" (the "receptacle of karmas") of the man. These constantly stored action-seeds constitute what are called "sañciyaindnā karmas" or karmas which are being currently gathered.

A certain percentage of these karmas germinates in this very life and starts producing visible effects in the form of the doer's happy or unhappy experiences. These are named "prārabdha" karmas. A larger percentage of karmas remains stored in a dormant and potential state for manifesting its fruits in future lives. These go by the name of "sañcita karmas".

Now, according to the traditional view, when a person becomes a siddha-yogi, and gains "ātma-jñāna" or spiritual "self-knowledge", all his stored karma-seeds (sañcita-karmas) get burnt up and become infructuous for all time to come.

And as he becomes a Jivanmukta yogi, he is from then onward free from all desires and attachments (niṣkāma nispṛha) and his nishkama karmas (desireless actions) fail to produce any karma-seed. So there is no question of any further addition to the stock of his sanciyamana karmas. But there remain for him the prarabdha-karmas which have already started sprouting and are bound to produce karma-phala, even for the realised soul, for his past deeds. When the "bhoga" (the "enjoyment") of the karma-phala is over through the actual experiences in consciousness, the body of the yogi drops and he becomes "videhamukta" or "liberated without any physical embodiment". For this yogi there is no more return to

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the earthly existence, and all necessity for rebirth ceases for him (janmacakra-nivṛtti). And, from the traditional point of view, this is the destined goal for any human being upon earth.

Our View. There is no Karma, whether "sancita" or "prāra-bdha", which cannot be made infructuous. The effects of all actions can be annulled by suitable means. Therefore, a sadhaka of the Integral Yoga should not be unduly worried by seeing in his imagination possible future disasters. He should not indulge in vain thoughts like: "Alas for me! Who knows how many types of misdeeds I may have committed in the past, in this very life or in a life before but in the meantime forgotten. They are perhaps waiting behind the wings as prarabdha karmas to pounce upon me at any moment and overwhelm the smooth flow of my life with a threatening burden of heavy karma-bhoga. Thus the course of my life is looming before me with an ominous uncertainty. All the vim of my life is gone, for I have to live always under the shadow of an unknown but impending doom. It is true I am no more doing any wrong deed; the problem of sanciyamāna karma, that of gathering new karma-seeds, is not there for me. But that alone does not bring solace to me. For I know not at all how many venomous seeds of prarabdhas are there swarming in my karmāśaya, in my receptacle of karmas, only to germinate all of a sudden and destroy the happiness of my life! My future is thus being constantly threatened by my unknown past. And this is creating a ceaseless trepidation in my heart because of the enervating anxiety that anything disastrous may happen to me at any unexpected moment of my life. Is there none or nothing which can save me from this distressing situation?"

No, a sadhaka of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga should not and need not entangle himself in the web of such tormenting thoughts. For, whether the theory of "prarabdhas" corresponds to any truth or not, it is absolutely certain that one's past need not inevitably bind one's future: one can always nullify the actions done in the past, of course by adopting suitable measures.

And this is going to constitute the theme of our next chapter.

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