KARMA, THOU ART SUFFERING, TOO, AT THE HANDS OF THY PUERILE PLAYMATES !

KARMA, THOU ART SUFFERING, TOO, AT THE HANDS OF THY PUERILE PLAYMATES !

Let us not interpret the theory of karma along simplistic lines. We must first identify who we are and then proceed with our puerile statements about this profound theory which is more complex than the profoundest scientific theories that attempt to explain the workings of Nature. So often we hear such simplistic statements that we ought not to blame others for our misery, that we are entirely to blame for all that befalls us and it is we alone who can get past such phenomenal occurrence by dint of our own detached action, that the very theory of karma seems to have become a plaything in the hands of children pretending to be philosophers of the highest order.

When such statements are casually dished out by preachers of eminence, the matter assumes a seriousness that cannot be discounted as insignificant. The statement that I am responsible for all that has befallen me must be understood in collective terms of the 'I' identity and not in individual unit terms. Where, after all, does the individual identity begin and where does it end that I may be held responsible for all that is happening to me? Where are the limits of individual existence? Is there any clear well-demarcated line that separates me from you, that separates us from them? It is an assumption based in ignorance and all these superficial statements about individual karma mean nothing in terms of truth for it is the totality of karma that may be deemed, if at all with any surety as such, to be the determinant of fate individual and fate collective, and there are other determinants as well, apparently.

Sri Ramakrishna had once averred that there are many incongruities in the workings of Maya. This was an epic statement made in today's quantum terms where probability and incertitude have ruled out deterministic absolutism. Now we say, things are likely to be, but cannot for sure say that things will for sure be. Ramakrishna was convinced that the primeval power behind the universe and immanent in it, who he addressed as Mother, is not Herself bound by the law of karma and it is Her will, free and flowing, unbounded and unrestrained, that gives the universe and its beings direction as it deems. So, for Ramakrishna it was easy enough to get past the rigidity of any binding law in a universe of infinite possibilities where law binds and law releases, too, which he himself experienced every moment of his phenomenal life as he transited in and out of the universe of sensory dreams.

Ramakrishna was right. Modern science corroborates, in an altered and alternate understanding of Nature, though, what he fundamentally hinted at. And our ancient scriptures corroborate it, too. If karma were in truth to be of the individual's making, the individual would have been the final arbiter of things and the absolute monarch of this world. But he is not so as experience and reason both affirm. There are so many apparent individuals, all with shifting, conflicting wills. If each of these wills were to have its own way in this world without requiring to resolve action in conjunction and in conflict with other wills, it would have been a mighty linear order of Nature in display. But it is not so. The forces arrayed are in perpetual resolution with each other with individuality a toddler's dream in the actual world of interconnected Nature. Personality dissolves beyond its peripheral myopic limits and the long vision lends a continuum of both physical and psychological existence. So, where does the individual begin and where does he end that he is to be praised or blamed for all that befalls him?

Philosophers and preachers, now begin to think and in due course draw your own inferences. Till then just ponder deep on this momentous phenomenon called 'karma' which is the seemingly ceaseless cycle of cause and consequence, and do not speak. Realise. Do not spill over your ill-bred irrational thoughts into the world of men and confuse human thinking which is better off with its incertitude than this superficial certitude of the self-explanation of things in the light of individual karma, whatever it may mean, though. Remember, there are too many issues involved, too much of interdependence and cross-connections of all sorts between personalities, planes of existence and impersonal principles of lofty poetic content that may not be all reduced to nursery rhymes for preachers in recitation mode to pander their vanities with.

The workings of karma are profound, complex, baffling and, to say the least, not governed by individual fancy. It is the collective will of the cosmos that betrays this false sense of individuality into us and impels us on to action and, as the field of work widens, we are led progressively into the broader understanding of what individuality means. It begins in the puny self and expands and deepens all the while till, in the fullness of time and in the ripeness of realisation, it dissolves into the infinitude of the Being whose pale reflection is cast as karma on the mirror of relative existence, in the whirlpool of resultant life.

Written by Sugata Bose