Mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth

IV

The Mystery of Karma

At times, events and accidents occur in our lives or in the lives of our friends and relatives, which seem apparently totally unexpected. At these moments we become utterly confused at the turn of circumstances and cry out in a mood of despairing helplessness: "Alas! such was the ordainment of the ineluctable Fate, such was the unseen writing of Niyati! And who does not know that "Niyati kena bādhyate" - "None can prevent the Niyati from being realised."

Others may perhaps offer an alternative hypothesis and affirm: "No, there is no such thing as Adṛṣṭa or Fate. It is an absurdity to imagine that events occur according to the motions of a previously fixed Fate or the arbitrary whims of any Providence. In reality, all that happens does happen as an inexorable consequence of one's past Karma or deeds. It is, of course, quite possible that the person concerned may not remember any longer his past misdeeds. For, any particular misdeed may have been done not in the present life of the person but some time in one of his now-forgotten past lives." There is a popular Bengali saying which epitomises this Karma-hypothesis: "Śubha karmé śubha, mandé manda phal; é dharāy rodhé, nāhi kāro boll" - "A good deed engenders good consequence, and a bad deed leads to bad results: none in this world can thwart this law!"

There is a passage in the Garuḍa Purāṇa which expresses the same idea:

"Sukhasya duḥkhasya na ko 'pi dātā,

Paro dadātu kubuddhireṣā!

Svayaṁ kṛtaṁ svena phalena yujyate

Śarīra, he! nistāra yat tvayā kṛtam."

"Nobody is there to dispense happiness or sorrow to us. It is irrational to imagine that others are at the root of our happy or

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unhappy experiences. One has to suffer the consequences of one's own actions, today or tomorrow, in this very life or in lives to come, in this physical world or in the worlds beyond death. Every action is bound to produce its corresponding fruit, and there is no exception to this universally valid Law."

Yes, that strange and unexpected events and accidents happen in men's lives cannot be denied as a fact and everyone may be painfully aware of such happenings if he looks around with an observant eye. We cite below a few instances which are personally known to the present writer.

(1)'A' is a man of sattwic nature - a perfect gentleman and generous to the fingertips. A man of universal goodwill and love, he considers nobody as his enemy. He is an academic by profession and is quite popular amongst his students.

For years 'A' had no problems in his life, neither in his body nor in his mind and heart. His days were rolling by in perfect ease and delight.

But suddenly there is a bolt from the blue. He develops mild fever without remission and starts losing weight. On medical investigation, the startling report comes that he has developed malignancy in his stomach. In a moment, the whole course of his life gets disastrously derailed and a big agonising question-mark looms large before his eyes. He asks himself ceaselessly: "Why, why, why such a thing in my case?"

(2)'B' and 'C' are two lady passengers in a night bus which runs along a National Highway of long distance. They are totally unknown to each other. 'B' is seated near a window which allows her to have a full view of the charming landscape outside. 'C' happens to have her seat allotted in the interior portion of the vehicle, cut off from the view outside.

Suddenly 'C' felt an impulse to request 'B' to exchange their seats so that she could enjoy the beauty of the rapidly changing landscapes as the night bus would speed along. The generous-minded 'B' readily agreed and the seats were exchanged. 'C' was highly pleased to have her wish fulfilled. The night bus sped at a lightning speed and 'C' went on feasting her eyes and heart on all

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the variegated scenes and sceneries that appeared for a while and then vanished in the opposite direction.

But all this was for ten minutes or so. After that, the ill-fated bus was involved in a serious road-accident: it collided against a running truck and 'C' died on the spot. 'B' who had moved to an interior seat only ten minutes before at C's earnest request escaped unhurt with some minor injuries. What is the explanation of this bizarre anomaly? What was the real causative factor behind C's death? Her fate? God's inscrutable Providence? Or, perhaps, the consequence of her past Karma? Is it at all easy to answer these questions?

(3)'D' is a young physician of religious temperament and the father of two minor children. The children were studying in a school in a near-by town and were staying in the boys' hostel there.

Once the loving father paid a visit to his two sons and was coming back to his work-place after a couple of days. He had to travel by train. He reached the near-by rail-station and his sons had come to see him off.

At the appointed time the guard blew his whistle and the train started moving. After a few seconds the physician-father jumped to get inside the compartment but missed his step and fell down under the moving train. The rolling wheels crushed his skull and he died then and there before the agonised eyes of his two sons. All the golden dreams of the young doctor and the future of the two minor sons was completely shattered in a moment's turn of events. But why? Is it all a mere chance phenomenon? Or occasioned by their already-settled fate?

(4)'E' is an idealist youngman. By profession, he is a teacher in a Secondary School. He decides not to marry and encumber himself with added personal responsibilities. Instead, he takes a vow to spend all his time and energy in moulding the moral character of his pupils and engaging himself in philanthropic work. He hoped to pass his days in peace and happiness and everything was passing according to his plan.

But it so happened that the young idealist teacher married after a couple of years and what added to his cup of contentment was that the young bride was his own sweetheart.

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The young couple's life was full of happiness and there was no obvious trouble to mar their joy. But then a sudden blow struck them.

When their first child was born, - it was a bonny girl, - it was soon discovered to her parents' horror that the child was completely deaf and dumb.

In time, a second child was born and she too was found to be bereft of the powers of hearing and speech. We can easily imagine the state of anxiety of the idealist school teacher. Before his helpless eyes the two deaf and mute girls went on growing up in age and reached their adolescence attended with all its serious psychological and physiological problems, compounded with a sense of social insecurity.

The teacher ponders: "Why did all the sweet dreams of my early youth rudely founder in the morass of desert sand? Is it due to my own past Karma? Is it caused by my ineluctable fate?"

(5)'F' is a sprightly youngman in his late teens, possessing high abilities in sports. In particular, he shows great talent in middle distance running. The speed at which he runs 5000 metres and 10000 metres sprints makes him dream that in the very near future he will find a place in the All-India Athletic Squad. But alas! on one pitch-dark moonless night, when the streetlights were off, he accidentally fell into a roadside pit and seriously injured both his knees. It was an accident which totally incapacitated him.

After a thoroughgoing surgical treatment extending over a few months, he regained some limping mobility but his dream of a successful athletic career was shattered for all time. Why? why this unexpected eventuality for this unlucky youngman?

(6)'G' was another youngman, handsome and brilliant, with the prospect of a very good academic career before him. One afternoon he climbed to the top branch of a mango tree in their family orchard. The intention was to pluck some ripe fruits. But somehow he lost his grip, fell down to the ground below with a heavy thud, injured his spinal chord and became instantly a paraplegic for the rest of his life.

Here too the perplexing question is: Why such a grievous

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mishap in this youngman's case? Was all a mere accident requiring no further explanation?

(7) 'H' is an active enterprising person full of grit and energy. He has many a high dream and hopes to achieve many great things in many fields of life. And it is true he moves very far along many of his chosen tracks. But strangely he fails to reach the successful end in any of his enterprises. Somehow everything gets bogged down before the final goal is reached. His boat sinks before the shore is reached. He has to remain permanently thirsty like King Tantalus of Greek mythology: his parched lips cannot touch the level of the drink in his cup. The question is: Why so? Who or what frustrates all his efforts at final fulfilment?

Enough is enough: let us stop multiplying any further instances. These seven have been gathered from the present author's personal field of experiences. The readers too may have come across many instances of unapprehended events and accidents which have radically altered the course of lives of the people concerned.

And such is not the case unique to our times. Men have met such saddening events and accidents throughout the recorded history of humanity in all times and climes and have anxiously sought for their satisfactory explanations and from this attempt have arisen many alternative theories and hypotheses.

Thus, man has sometimes speculated that all this is due to an invisible but ineluctable "lalāṭa-lipi" ("writing on the forehead") which is totally arbitrary having no causative justifying reason behind. He has variously named this phenomenon as "Fate", "Kismet" and "Niyati", which offers no explanation and can by no means be avoided, "Niyati kena bādhyate"? Did not Omar Khayyam utter the blood-chilling warning?—

"The Moving Finger writes; and having writ

Moves on: nor all thy piety or wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."

But another idea grew up in the old Greek mentality. The ancient Greeks surmised that it must have been the gods of the

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Upper World who were responsible for all the sufferings and mishaps and disasters of the human beings. They were perhaps jealous of the happiness and well-being of men and were all the time scheming to disrupt the smooth flow of their lives. A few of the Greek Gods had specially bad repute in this matter: these were Zeus, Themis, Nemesis and Ananke. While speaking about a special trait of the consciousness of the ancient Greeks the Mother once observed:

"The Greeks had a keen and exceptional sense of beauty , of eurythmy, of harmony in forms and things. But at the same time they had an equally keen sense of men's impotence in face of an implacable Fate which none could escape. They were haunted by the inflexibility of this Fate, and even their gods seem to have been subject to it. In their mythology and in their legends, one finds little trace of the divine compassion and grace." (CWM, Vol. 15, p. 247)

However, with the progressive development of his consciousness, man started thinking along a different line. He became convinced that it is improper to blame others for one's sorrows and sufferings. There must have been some right and justifiable reasons behind it. The world-affairs cannot be those of an irrational mad-house. There must be behind and above this world-play a supremely wise guiding and governing Spirit who was called in ancient India "Vidhātā puruṣa", "the Dispenser of the Destiny of Man". This Vidhata does nothing out of his arbitrary, capricious whim. His every single action and decision is invariably a dispensation of justice. It is this Vidhata who is the sole Judge of men and after every act of judgment decrees appropriate rewards and punishments to a human being.

But the question remains: What is the standard of judgment of this Vidhata-Purusha? Men thought and thought over this question, speculated, and finally came to the conclusion that it must be their own deeds which form the basis of Vidhata's judgment.

Men started believing that the Vidhata's unblinking Eye is all the time watching their actions, judging them appropriately, and

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prescribing "śāsti-puraskār", rewards and punishments, to them according to the quality and nature of these actions. These prescriptions may perhaps take time to be realised in the actual experience of the agent of the deed but they will surely bear fruits to-day or tomorrow, here or elsewhere. We recall in this connection the stern statement of Sage Vashishtha:

"Na sa śailo na tad vyoma,

na so'abdhiśca na viṣṭapam.

Asti yatra phalaṁ nāsti

kṛtānām ātmakarmanām."

(Yogavasishtha, III; 95; 3)

Meaning thereby: "There is no hill, no sky, no sea nor any heaven where you can take refuge and escape the consequences of your actions."

Sri Ramakrishna, the sage of Dakshineshwara, also referred to this inexorable law of reaping the consequences of one's actions (karmaphala-bhoga) in his own inimitable style. Let us listen to his narration:

Duryodhan had affirmed, "tvayā hṛṣikeśa hṛdisthitena yathā niyukto'smi tathā karomi" - "O Divine, as thou appointest me, being seated in my heart, so I do." Yes, but that is the truth of one side; but there is also at the same time what is called "karmaphala", consequences of one's actions. If you chew a chilli, how can you avoid feeling its hot taste? It is God who has ordained that the taking of too much of chilli or pepper cannot but lead to the burning of the stomach. Every sinful deed will bear its corresponding fruit, and none can digest a sin to ineffectivity. Look at "Sejobabu" [the zemindar Mathur Biswas]: he indulged in many types of sinful acts in his youth; the result was that he had to suffer a lot before his death due to the attack of many virulent illnesses. (Vide Kumar Nandy, Ramakrishna-Kathasara)

Nor should one seek false consolation from an illusory hope that if one commits a misdeed in secrecy outside the possible knowledge of other persons, one can perhaps escape the consequences of one's actions. No, the Vidhata-Purusha, the eternal Judge, never

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sleeps and his ever-wakeful eyes scan everything in the universe. Moreover, he is seated in every sentient creature's heart and observes from there all that that creature does and then judges and decrees its proper rewards and punishments, "hṛdisthito karmasākṣī'.

Now a point of clarification. According to the theory of "Karmavāda", every action or karma is bound to drag in its sequel its inevitable "phala" or fruit. But we have not yet defined what a "karma" is. Surely, it is not merely a deed done by the exercise of one's organs of action, karmendriyāni. No; every activation of energy, be it objective or subjective, is deemed to be a karma and is bound to produce its effect which will boomerang on its doer.

Thus, if I indulge in a mood of anger or irritation against somebody and wish him evil, or even merely subjectively dwell in some sinful imagination and thought, these too will not allow me to escape unscathed but chase me inexorably and confront me one day with their unpleasant consequential experiences.

Besides, we should not forget that before a deed is objectivised in the outside field, its first sprouting is in the subjective consciousness of the doer, "karmabījaṁ manaḥ-spandaḥ." (Yogavasistha, III. 6.11)

The writer Humphreys has given us a significant quotation in his book, Buddhism, which indicates the succession of steps through which a budding thought in the mind of a man passes, in order to finally shape the destiny of the doer:

"Sow a thought, reap an act;

Sow an act, reap a habit;

Sow a habit, reap a character;

Sow a character, reap a destiny.

(Christmas Humphreys, Buddhism, p. 106)

An important but rather obscure point needs some elucidation here. When we speak of a karma and its 'phala', fruit, what is exactly connoted by this technical term phala which the agent of the action cannot escape? Let us take a concrete example and try to clarify the point with its help.

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Suppose a man 'A', in a sudden frenzy of anger, picks up a brick and throws it, aiming at the head of a second person 'B'. B's skull is hit sustains a fracture, and there results there from profuse bleeding. Is it what is meant by the "karmaphala" of brick-throwing? The answer is an emphatic "No".

Suppose now that a policeman appears on the scene, arrests the culprit "A" and sends him to the Court of Justice for his trial. The judge, after due processes of law. sentences him to one month's imprisonment and imposes on him a fine of one thousand rupees. Are these, then, the 'karmaphala' of brick-throwing? The answer is again a "No".

At this stage we may perhaps retort in surprise: "What are you saying? Are not B's being confined in a prison for one long month and his paying a fine of one thousand rupees already sufficient to wash away his bad karma of brick-throwing?"

The answer comes for the third time: No, they do not annul the aforesaid karma of "B': he has to undergo another more fundamental 'karmaphal'. For, these are nothing but phenomena of the outside world. Karma is a subtle thing pertaining to the movement of consciousness of the doer, and unless and until it is properly judged in the inner way and the agent suffers its consequence in the corresponding way, it remains unrequited.

Let us now consider the reverse case and take the hypothetical situation of a so-called good deed, and investigate its 'karmaphal'. To make the point clear let us refer to the example cited by the writer George Feuerstein in his book Yoga: Technology of Ecstasy.

Suppose a kind-hearted gentleman, a philanthropist by disposition, donates a few lacs of rupees to build a charitable dispensary to cater to the needs of children. Poor parents surely benefit from this generous act. And this is one sort of visible fruit of the action.

People start heaping praises on the generous gentleman: this is a second fruit of the philanthropic deed which the doer happily enjoys.

Suppose, again, that the Government of the land, being impressed by the bounty of the gentleman, deduct a sizable portion of the Income Tax due to him. This is the third visible result of his

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good action and is of the nature of a reward, puraskār, to him.

Now the pertinent question is: Do these different types of fruits accruing to the gentleman make up what is called his karmaphal? and does the consequence of the deed end there?

The traditional Karmavadi's answer will be a forceful "No". According to him, these outward fruits and consequences do not touch the kernel of the matter. For, the essence of any 'karma' done is the inner disposition of the consciousness, and the suffering by the doer of its appropriate consequence has to be in the same consciousness. Till that is done, maybe in an inscrutable way, 'karma' will remain stored for the agent. (Vide Feuerstein, op. cit., p. 55)

And if such is the case in its inner reality, what is the exact shape and nature of the "phala-bhoga" as understood in the theory of Karma?

An answer to this question is at times attempted which is, to say the least, utterly funny and does not satisfy our rational consciousness. Some Karma-proponents affirm that any action done must produce its fruit following the Law of Similitude and in exact mathematical proportion. For example, if I hurt someone's feelings, he himself or somebody else will surely hurt my feelings today or tomorrow or at some indefinite time of the future. Or, if I borrow some money from a person and do not pay it back to him, a day is bound to come when someone else will borrow the same amount of money from me and deceive me by not paying it back to me. And if such a thing does not happen in this present life of mine, I have to bear the same consequence in one of my future lives upon earth.

Sri Aurobindo himself has referred to a very amusing 'story' purporting to prove the truth of this Karma-hypothesis. He does not say that he subscribes to this view; he has merely cited the viewpoint of some extremely orthodox Karmavadis. This he had read in the pages of a newspaper during his stay in Baroda. The story is somewhat like this:

A tyrant landlord adopted some devious means to dispossess a poor peasant of his paltry landed property. After the death of this poor man, he was reborn in the tyrant's family as his darling son.

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When he grew up to a certain age, he mysteriously fell a victim to a virulent disease and suffered a lot which, of course, immensely saddened the heart of his present 'father'. The tyrant 'father' consulted the best physicians of the land and spent money lavishly for the medical expenses. But the disease of his son defied all attempt at cure. His condition worsened day by day. One day his body-temperature shot up to a high degree and he went into a fit of delirium. Strangely, in that delirious condition, he addressed these queer words to his sorrowing 'father':

"Have you forgotten that in my past life you grabbed my property worth so many thousands of rupees (and he mentioned a specific amount); I have been reborn as your son only to avenge the past injustice done to me and make you lose the same amount of money. Hence is my strange illness and your consequent spending of money over my medical treatment. I have calculated that almost the entire amount of money has been accounted for except for two or three thousand rupees."

The sick boy fell silent and the tyrant father was astounded to hear all this. To his startling surprise he discovered that as soon as those two or three thousand rupees were spent in his vain effort at curing his son, the young boy expired.

Sri Aurobindo has concluded the narration of this story with these witty remarks:

"... the debt is absolved and as the last pice is expended, the reborn soul departs, for its sole object in taking birth is satisfied, accounts squared and the spirit of Karma content." (The Problem of Rebirth, 1978 ed., p. 108)

Another tricky question engages our attention here: that too requires some clarification. It is generally affirmed that every deed done will have its own fruit and the doer of the action will be suitably rewarded or punished for his deed after due judgment. But the question is: Where, in which field, does the agent of the action enjoy or suffer the reward or punishment as the case may be?

The answers come along two different lines depending on which of the two categories of "Karmavadi"s one belongs to.

Some say that a man is privileged to have only one single terrestrial life. Therefore, he has to undergo "karmaphala" in the form

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of rewards and punishments not in this life itself but after death in some supraphysical supraterrestrial realms. And that not immediately after the dissolution of the body. The departed being has to wait for an indefinite length of time for that to happen. On the "Day of final Judgment" every single individual will be called up to present himself before the Supreme Judge, God, and every single piece of his actions done during his single lifetime upon earth will be scrupulously judged according to some specific rules of dispensation and he will be sent either to the abode of heavenly joys or to the world of hellish sufferings, both for an eternity of time, or, perhaps, to the tortures of Purgatory for a painful purging and purification. There is no exception to this procedure of Judgment, for, as it is said, "God will render to everyone according to his deeds", and "whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

In order to dissuade men from doing misdeeds and encourage and persuade them to do only "good deeds", the leaders of religions in the past went to great length to describe with blood-chilling concrete images the rigours of the judgment of the Last Day and the severity of the ensuing punishment. Readers interested in knowing more of the affair are advised to go through the indicated portions of the two following books written in Europe in the Middle Ages:

(1)Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book One, chapter XXIV;

(2)Bellecius, Solid Virtue, Part III, chapter 2; some of the subject-titles of this second book are:

(i)"The Anguish which Precedes Judgment";

(ii)"The Rigorous Examination which Our Judge will Make";

(iii)"The Severity of the Sentence"; etc.

And here are three warnings administered by Kempis: "You will have to stand one day before that severe Judge to whom nothing is hid, who is not pacified with gifts, nor admits any excuses, but will judge according to right and equity." "There the suffering of one hour will be more intense than that of a hundred years of earthly life. Beware, therefore, of what is in store for you." "And there is no sin but shall have its proper torment."

But all this will come to pass, according to the proponents of

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this particular theory, not today nor tomorrow, nor even a billion years hence, but only after the "Great Resurrection", on the "Day of final Judgment", perhaps after the lapse of an eternity of time from now.

Now, many people cannot reconcile themselves to this view of waiting for such an inordinately long time to reap the fruits of one's actions. Therefore, they have put forward the alternative theory of rebirth in an attempt to explain many of the obvious anomalies of human life. For they are puzzled at many of the strange facts of earthly existence and wonder:

"Why do some good people suffer so much in life? Why are they confronted with so many difficulties and troubles? For, they have not done in this life anything palpably wrong so far as their conscious intentions are concerned. Does it then mean that they are reaping in this life the unpleasant fruits of misdeeds done in their previous lives?

"On the other hand, we often see that some people manifestly wicked are passing their days easily and happily without being troubled by any serious mishaps. Why so? How are they being able to circumvent the consequences of their 'bad' deeds? And this is still more puzzling that they manage to escape the scrutinising Eye of the unsleeping Judge. No, that is hardly possible. Therefore, it can perhaps be plausibly surmised that their accounts will be squared and they will have to bear suitable punishment in some future life."

Such a train of thought with its corresponding conclusion may surely bring some consolation to the puzzled mind and heart of men and the good name of the Eternal Judge is thereby somewhat salvaged.

But the funniest part of the whole affair is that it becomes a case of "over-kill": the rewards and punishments are decreed twice for the same deed, which is a bit of too much of justice on the part of the divine Judge!

For, it is asserted by these theorists that a man, after his death, has to go to the supraphysical worlds where a series of heavens and hells are arranged to receive him. All his actions in his past terrestrial life will be judged on two counts: their qualities and

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their quantities. And according to the decree of this judgment, the departed being will be sent to some of these heavens and hells to enjoy or suffer the pleasures or pains, deservedly according as the case may be. But, the matter does not end there.

For, after the quota of merits and demerits is exhausted through the experiences in the heavens and the hells beyond, the departed being has to leave the supraphysical other-worlds and come back to the earth to assume there a new body in an act of rebirth. But he will not be allowed to start his new life on a clean slate. His past life's karmas, good deeds and bad deeds alike, will follow him there and heap upon him a succession of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. And this is what will constitute his "karmaphala-bhoga".

But the individual will sow new karmas in this second lifetime and a time will come when he will have to drop this second body also, whose other name is "dying". After this death he will go again to the heavens and hells to square accounts for his accumulated deeds in the second lifetime.

After the lapse of a certain interval of time spent in these heavens and hells, he will come back again upon earth to continue his life-journey in another new body. And the series will continue apparently ad infinitum.

But is it really ad infinitum? Cannot the "janma-cakra", the "Wheel of Birth-death-rebirth-redeath...", be made to stop at some time?

The answer from the Karma-theorists is that this chain can indeed be broken and brought to a termination but only under certain conditions. What these necessary conditions are will be the subject of our next discussion. But before that let us digress a little and regale our readers with the recounting of an amusing "true story" that occurs in Prof. Ernest Wood's book, Yoga, in the Penguin Series:

"I personally knew a middle-aged blind man of poor means. He did yoga-sadhana for many years under the able guidance of a Guru who was known to both of us.

"One day this blind yogi addressed me and said that, while plunged in deep meditation he had been able to be acquainted with the events of one of his past lives which he had lived seven

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hundred years back. In that life he was some sort of a village zemindar and was rather cruel-hearted towards his poor peasant-subjects and tormented them in many ways.

"The blind yogi recounted to me that his supraphysical occult vision had revealed to him that because of these misdeeds of the past, he has been born blind and poor this time in the present life. But he has no regrets for that, for this has done him immense good in this new embodiment. Because of his occult memory of the past, he has been really repentant for his old misdeeds and this has brought about a sea-change in his character and manners. He has, as a result, deliberately built his 'Ashram' among the depressed poor peasants of an interior village and consciously cultivated a relationship of kindness and compassion towards these downtrodden people. And in this way he hopes to expiate his misdeeds of a past life and earnestly believes that, when he dies this time, he will be privileged to be reborn into a new life characterised by peace and happiness and he will surely have a nature nobler and of a spiritual dimension."

Prof. Wood concluded his recounting of the above life-story of the blind sadhaka with these remarks:

"I had, of course, no means of verifying the accuracy of his vision or memory of the past, but I did find that in ordinary matters he had remarkable clairvoyance and telepathic powers." (op. cit., p. 49)

Whatever be the veracity of the above story, we can draw an important lesson from it, which throws a new deeper light on the "theory of Karmavada". We can understand now that an impersonally operative mechanical awarding of "Shasti-puraskara", of rewards and punishments, is not the real pith of the matter. "Karma-phala" has an ethical educative side to it and that is its real contribution. That the blind sadhak could adopt a higher attitude to his present state of indigence and blindness and resolve to lead a better and nobler life in future, is indeed the intended purpose behind his "karma-phala-bhoga": his present punishment of blindness and poverty is altogether a secondary element. And this is the message

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conveyed by a significant statement in the Confucian scripture, Shu King:

"The ultimate goal of punishment is to annul the need for punishment through the awakening of the right consciousness."

By the way, the story of the blind yogi recounted above should not lead to the conclusion that one has necessarily to wait for a future life to reap the fruits of one's actions done in any lifetime. The applied Astrology of ancient India affirms that, of the totality of the deeds done by a particular person in a particular life, roughly thirty-five per cent bears fruit in that very life itself while sixty-five per cent remains stored in a non-germinated seed-form to be effective in future lives. If the deeds done are of an extreme character, they generally produce fruit in the same life, so it is claimed. Thus, the Mahabharata declares: "Atyugra-puṇya-pāpānām ihaiva phalam aśnute." Have we not seen in our own times how the Nemesis of Karma has violently overtaken the fates of Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo and their compeers in misdeeds, in their present life itself. If we rummage through the pages of history books, we can come across many examples of this type. Here is one from the late Mughal period of Indian history:

During the reign of Emperor Shah Alam (1759-1806), one Rohila chieftain named Golam Kader came one day to the Red Fort of the emperor, ostensibly to act as his bodyguard, but in reality to do him serious harm. For, being obsessed with an inordinate greed for money, he started conspiring from the very first day to do mischief to the Badshah.

One day, being blind with rage, Golam Kader knocked the emperor down to the ground, sat upon his chest, and scooped out both his eyes with a red-hot knife. He then addressed the king in a jeering tone: "What, Emperor, what do you see now?" Shah Alam, just then blinded and racked with excruciating pain, merely uttered: "Nothing else except that one copy of the Holy Koran is interposed between you and me."

Such was the apakarma done by Golam Kader. But did he or could he escape the consequences of his misdeed? No, in a few

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years' time the thunderbolt of heavenly justice struck him hard. Madhav Sindhia, a devoted subject of the emperor managed to capture Golam Kader and threw him into a prison. After some days, by the order of Madhav Sindhia all the parts of Golam Kader's body were torn off limb by limb and he was done to a most grievous death.

Be that as it may, the truth that is purported to come out of this story and similar others is that everyone has to pay for his past deeds, in the present life itself or in a future life to come.

Now, following the same logic and going backward we may say that all that is happening to me in this life is not at all an unexpected accident defying all explanation. If my inner eyes open, I can very well discover that behind every event and circumstance of my present life there lies as a causative factor some deed done by me in one of my previous lives. We recall in this connection what Sri Aurobindo wrote to one of his aggrieved disciples puzzled at the turn of events in his life: "...the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be understood except in the light of the whole course of many lives." (Letters on Yoga, Part One, p. 460)

But it would be a serious mistake and miscalculation on our part if we interpret the events of our life merely as the result of a distribution of rewards and punishments for our past good deeds and misdeeds. But before we embark upon a thorough discussion of this issue, it will be good to make precise to our readers the basic postulates and presuppositions of the traditional Theory of Karma. For then and then only we shall be in a position to clearly understand wherein lies the difference between the vision and the views of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the traditional Karma-vada in their essential aspects. And this will be the subject-matter of our next chapter.

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