EWS #43: On Karma, Fate and Free-Will
Sept 07, 2019
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00):
Namaste and welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Previously we have learned about astrology and palmistry, and today we take up the subject of fate and free will. Where do we begin? Huge subject.
Sraddhalu (0:00:51):
Sri Aurobindo has about a dozen articles on the theme of karma, fate, free will, and he goes into it in half an hour or an hour. Such fine nuances and insights. But I thought there were certain key elements which I thought worth sharing here, which will help us to view the whole situation more deeply. You know, coming from the discussion we have had in last few sessions about astrology and palmistry, the question automatically comes up- to what extent are we bound to this inheritance of the heredity, circumstances or what role can the soul's freedom even have when the personality is quite rigidly locked.
Sraddhalu (0:02:19)
And then there is this whole question of Karma, which if you listen to some of the more popular formulations they will say everything that you are doing is the consequence of your karma and it's one gigantic machine and you have really no choice and even what you do now is going to trigger ripples of karma which is going to come back and haunt you and block you and bind you and the rest.
[Narad] And in the lives to come!
[Sraddhalu] Yes, So in this life you are suffering consequences of things done in the past which you don't even know about and it's quite unfair, 'I didn't do it, that fellow did it'. And then there is the whole misunderstanding around it. I was in France when, I had a whole discussion with, I always highlight the aspect of free will because that's the whole point of the game and then somebody says, ah yes but so and so says everything is karma and he's from India. So it's an Indian saying and he's coming from a yoga tradition claiming that, so you have a lot of mixture out there. Unfortunately a lot of this also comes from Buddhism, and then subsequently Jainism which carried that thought into a more fixed form.
You have to recognize where Buddhism took a different direction. When the Buddha was looking for the solution for suffering and the shortest solution to get free of suffering, so automatically the shortest solution would be to get out of it rather than to solve it, which would be a longer process. So he gets out of the relative into the Absolute and that's the solution to be free of suffering. In the process of course he's looking at the world and the cause of suffering through the chain of cause and effect and so the existing knowledge of Karma is brought in, which is already there, he didn't invent that but then he removed from the whole perspective, the soul and the Divine, because they were irrelevant to his solution. When you have to get out of it, your soul and its expression in life has no meaning, the place of the divine consciousness has no meaning, you just want to get out into the absolute. So he removes these from the big picture of his practice and the result is this huge machinery of karma and the elements which brought freedom which is the soul and the Divine are removed from it. What is left is a machine. And Sri Aurobindo uses a phrase which is quite compelling. He says you take out the Divine from the picture and then all you have is this machine which is stuttering and pistons pumping and going on mechanically and that's what you see as the universe.
[Narad] And it's chaos.
[Sraddhalu] But it's not chaos, it is complex, it's ordered, structured, but it's a big prison. Oh it is ordered and structured. Because karma is, everything that is happening now is a consequence of earlier karmas and every step you make is triggering other karmas. So there's a chain of cause and effect so complex but intractable you can never get free of it. So it looks chaotic maybe, but it's not chaos, it's very ordered. So in the Jain tradition it's taken to a further extreme where they reduce it to mathematical calculations of what quantum of karma is actually being produced by a particular action or what quantum you need to modify some things and so on. The end result of this whole perspective is that you are in this machinery trapped and the only way for you to undo it is to keep doing positive karmas to neutralize negative karmas mathematically and so one of the ideas which comes with it which is a perversion is the more you suffer the more good you are or you are burning up old karma through your suffering and you are producing good at the same time, you will get free of it faster and it takes you to such an extreme perversion of life. It celebrates suffering as a way of escape and liberation, which is a complete perversion of the Divine reality of things.
Well, Sri Aurobindo goes to the heart of the question. He says, yes, the Buddhist formulation of karma is the most thoroughgoing so far, but, well, it stops there. And he puts it to you this way, he says, yes there is a whole network let's say of karma. On a physical level, it is the most obvious because, I push and I am pushed and the physics and the law of physics is so compelling, it is almost fixed and rigid. There you see karma in the manner in which Buddhism or most schools of Buddhism tend to describe and there are schools which look at it differently. But then they extend it to the level of the psychological domain also. And Shi Aurobindo says that doesn't work. Can the molecules inside your brain operating lead to you making a decision that is morally right or wrong? And there is no connection that you can see. Your moral choice seems to be independent and its karmic consequence seems to be therefore independent of the physical karmic machinery of electrons and protons. So what he described is that you see many gradations of the karmic pattern. And then he reduces it all to one principle of karma which is, there is first of all one underlying energy. And karma is nothing but the movement or flows of that energy. So underlying is the sense of oneness behind and the sense of energy pushing, pulling, working out. So on a very physical level, the energy has its mechanical karmic process, chain of cause and effect, but on a moral level, you have a different quality of energy, but still the same sense of underlying oneness and at a level of thought perhaps also you have something of this. In fact you may feel in your mind and thought, that you are free, I can freely think what I want, isn't it? You can make a choice but he says it's not really a true freedom because your mind is ignorant. It's only aware of a little patch of awareness. You're not aware of the things beyond and so to allow this to have full freedom would actually negate the whole point of the game. It would become a point of chaos in what is otherwise an ordered cosmos. So he says, 'yes there is a freedom but it's partial and it's very limited. The true freedom comes only when you go above mind into the cause of this whole thing'. So now he gives a very different picture. He says that yes energies are there, you're pushing pulling against energies, every movement you make creates ripples of energies. But if this were all then you would have just this monstrosity which would be pointless. So look at the whole point of the energy flow in the universe and then look at the place of the human being in it. The human being may be a tiny element, tiny in form, you know the earth is so big, the galaxy is so big, but the Will that is pushing this whole energy organizes itself in the individual human and expresses itself through the human. And so he says, this is the point where the will which was pushing mechanically all the electrons and protons has organized itself to come into its own and can look through the human mind and through the human eyes at its work and now actually assert itself directly where earlier it had to assert itself indirectly. So the Cosmic Will and there is no point of energy flow unless there is a will pushing the energy. The cosmic will, he says, which had to work indirectly through lower gradations of forms now comes into its own as a conscious will in the human being and can act now directly which is the whole point of this construction.
Narad (0:10:30):
And at what level of the mind is this seen? In the higher mind or human mind?
Sraddhalu (0:10:37):
Even in the human thinking mind you see something of this. Then you will make a distinction between our surface will and the true cosmic will which is behind. But just the idea that that will has come into its own and it does not need the slow machinery anymore, it can act directly. That's the whole point of this whole exercise of building this gradations of machinery - to bring us to a point of awareness where it can act directly. Now think of it this way, the whole karma machinery or cause-effect chain through which the will was working was a vehicle through which the will could come into its own and act more freely, does it need that vehicle? So what you see is, 'yes at a very physical level there is still the karma chain cause and effect but the moment you come into self-awareness of mind that chain of cause and effect becomes less and less relevant and you are able to exercise a free will and a free choice. Now comes the big picture he gives you which is quite fascinating. So he speaks of actually four pillars of karma. He says yes there is the energy flow but behind the energy flow, what holds the flow of energy is the idea. The idea of the relationships between all these flows of energy. And who holds the idea? If it stops with the idea then you have a causeless idea. Who creates the idea is the soul, that's the third level. And the soul creates the idea by its freedom, it is not conditioned, it is not bound, it freely chooses an idea which then becomes the compelling energy flow, right? And behind the soul, which is an individualized focus, is Spirit, where you have utter freedom. Already soul is a particularization of Spirit, a particular focus and each soul would have its own particular focus which puts out a certain idea which then becomes the template for the flow of energy guiding it. So these he says are the four pillars of the complete knowledge of karma. But then he gives you a picture and this is what I want to highlight here for our purpose so that we understand this more deeply. He says your conscious mind and the will which you have is a little piece. It's not yet the cosmic will which wants to operate but it is a tool for the cosmic will. So let's say you are driven by all your inheritance, hereditary tendencies, environmental upbringing, habits which are formed by it and then your bunch of desires and likes and dislikes which are your driving motive. It's doing something, it's operating in a kind of a relative freedom. Unlike the atoms and molecules and stones, you have a relative freedom, you can exercise it and you feel you are free, you do it. For the cosmic will, now, this is a point where there is a greater exercise of freedom and it needs only nudge this. It uses this as a tool to exercise. Now look at the big picture of many individuals with a relative freedom and the cosmic will which wants to grow and develop its own possibilities, of what? Growth of consciousness, of spirit, of strength of consciousness and power of consciousness to act and the delight of consciousness to express and to relate to everything through its play of delight. These are the things which it wants to develop. So through these multiple centers, it's nudging, pushing. And even if one person is tilted a little bit, another person tilted a little bit, the combination of the whole is a large movement of action. So it seems as if when you look at an individual, oh yeah, this morning I woke up and I said, 'well let me change my food habits' and somebody else wakes up and says, 'okay let me cut out a little bit of the junk from my food', someone else says, 'you know what, I think I've had my pot of fun, let me now go for higher quality of joy of enjoyment of food', someone else wakes up and says, 'you know what, I'm sick, I need to detox and I need to change my food'. Now each one may have a slightly different reason, but in the overall pattern, suddenly you see a spike of health food purchase and interest shooting up. You see this happening in India in a very big way. In the United States, the movement had already begun maybe 20 years ago, but it was still small. It's now grown but in India what you're seeing is it's happening suddenly and it's happening everywhere in a way that is not visible in the external discourse but it's result you will see down another maybe two years more, suddenly everybody is conscious and is aiming for healthier foods. You'll see chains of health food suddenly bursting out all over and it's just on the brink of sudden expression.
Narad (0:15:43):
Well, unfortunately you see KFC and McDonald's also springing up.
Sraddhalu (0:15:49):
That phase we had to pass through because it was the attraction of the glitter of the West. They said, 'oh yeah, what's all that! We need to try it out, we need to have it'. So the collective spirit, let's say the nation spirit said, 'let me get the best of other cultures', takes it in and then chews it and spits out the portion it doesn't like and keeps what it likes. So what will happen is the health food chains will come up, they will have the same standards of let's say performance, delivery, quality as those other chains but with a completely different content, different attitude, different quality of experience, of consciousness and so on. But it needed to taste all those elements and then decide what it wants to keep, what it wants to expel, even excrete. But that's the transition we are at. Sometimes it just spits it out, sometimes it takes it in, it has indigestion, throws it out, whatever.
So we are in that very interesting transition and on the brink of a revolution. But who made this happen? It's not like each one of us decided to coordinate our interests. It was this larger will operating through the collective that nudged each one just a little bit enough to be able to make this breakthrough. It cannot do that through the chain of karmic entanglements at a physical level or the chain would be very slow. It will take a few billion years to form a rock, let's say. And what's the point of it? It cannot even express itself through the rock. But having come to the human, the individual will which has a relative freedom now becomes a tool. And then Sri Aurobindo explains how the individual will, because it operates in relative ignorance, feels itself free although it doesn't have freedom but it senses the fate of the cosmic will and more deeply he says who are we truly we are not this mental thinking center, we are the soul and at the center of the soul we are one with the soul of the universe. And this changes the whole picture, he says unless you look at it this way you cannot understand the true nature of Karma. So here you are one with the whole universe at the level of your essential soul, spirit individualized here but each one is as if yourself in a different individualization and the whole universe is yourself as the stage on which you are playing out this game. And so the cosmic purpose is also your purpose and the will of the soul working in you has freedom to act but that freedom is not in conflict with the cosmic will because it is the same one whose will is yours, who is also the cosmic will.
So now comes the key, when this will acts which is your true soul's will, it is in perfect harmony with the cosmic purpose and yet it can operate in freedom to exercise itself. But that's not the will which is your surface thinking mind's will. That is this little limited awareness and freedom. But that is nudging this. And to the extent that your surface will aligns to that and seeks to align itself to the soul's aspiration, the freedom of the soul can exercise itself more and more directly in your mind, in your life, in your actions and the beauty of it is you are entirely free to act and at no point are you in conflict with the freedom of the universe or freedom of others because it is the same one cosmic will. And this picture gives you a deeper understanding of what karma does or really is. Now we have not spoken of freedom but where is karma in this? The action you do and the ripples it has are assisting others in exercising their freedom and fulfilling their will. Equally their actions are coming in as ripples to assist you in fulfilling your will. The actions you have done in the past of which you have no memory here are also ripples assisting your decision made now so from the soul's perspective and its true will, the will it has been following, it has followed across lives, it has created ripples of movements seven lives ago which are still there with you helping you now for what you want to do now because it knew what it wants to do now, not in detail but in a broad sense. So what it has been working towards, even if it is navigating, has been setting forward ripples which are all actually assisting. And so when you look at it from the perspective of the soul, the picture is so different, we are actually all helping each other and karma is only a process of assistance for the larger fulfillment of the cosmic will.
Narad (0:20:50):
Your teacher often used to stress the importance of satsang. How is that operative in this?
Sraddhalu (0:21:02):
Yes. The recognition that we are not alone in our journey, that the journeys of others are as much our journey as is our individual journey and that we are all nourishing each other and assisting each other changes our sense of responsibility and even our sense of the work that we do. When we can become conscious of this truth, then collectively also we can share in this, and if 20 of us share in this truth, we can meet together with this awareness and have, well, satsang is the term used the way it is translated is good company, but if you go more deeply into the root, sat will be truth, sang is the collective, so it is the collective of truth that is being expressed or rather the truth being manifested in the collective body as distinct from an individual body, but not in conflict with the individual anymore, perfectly harmonized. So the true sense of satsang can be much deeper. And in a sense communities such as ours are intended to be this beginning of a Divine community or a Divine collective for the Divine expression. Beginning, is all we can say. If we are conscious of this then we can be more expressive, if we are not conscious then we become individuals in conflict. The challenge, the Mother said in context of Auroville is, as long as we are aligned to the sense of our common purpose you will find harmonies falling into place easily. You lose sense of the common purpose and you'll have disharmonies falling into place easily. And that's the same situation in the ashram or any collective that we have. But it is a kind of a mutual nourishment when we meet together and we relate to each other on the basis of our shared aspiration. It nourishes us at a deeper level of the soul and somehow our personal difficulties and problems pale and they seem less difficult or less painful when we shift to this shared part of our deeper aspiration. So it's a useful thing for everyone to do. And again I'll make it as a general statement for everybody listening to this that, wherever you are in your local space, if you can come together, meet for this purpose, it's not about eating together, yes you can certainly eat, you can read together, you can do an activity together but the goal should be in whatever you do together that you share something of your aspiration and the form in which you do it is secondary. So you start with a formulation or a connection to the deeper sense of aspiration you have, you end with that and in between you can have an activity where that can be held and it can be of various kinds. It can be an artistic expression, we paint together, it can be a discussion that is more intellectual, it can be just a coming together and being in a sense of alignment of our devotion or any form of activity could be done in this way. But it will be a way of assisting, sharing and supporting each other.
Narad (0:24:42):
I feel the Om Choir is exactly that. Mother spoke about the transformation of the cells of her body. And she said by a vast contagion, those cells could enter into other bodies. Globally, what could be the result of this?
Sraddhalu (0:25:12):
You know the individual cell does not have a sufficiently individualized consciousness. But there is no reason why it cannot be made more conscious, except that we are not aware of the cell. We are aware of the hand for example, and we can make the hand more conscious. To the extent that we have made the hand conscious and even infused into it a skill or a capacity, to that extent that stays as a formation. When you leave your body, the arm consciousness being not as developed may dissolve but the hand consciousness which has been made very conscious would stay. And Mother speaks of the hand of Mozart, I think it's Mozart she's speaking of, which has been so conscious made so conscious and the skill infused in it which is still there in the subtle domain but it's an imprint, it's like a template. So any human being can as if tune into those hands and receive the imprint of that consciousness and the imprint of its skill to play with a similar style or similar skill. And this is one of the mechanisms by which we actually transmit or share the collective growth. We spoke of this last time in our discussion of how one person growing can in fact influence the collective, make it easier for others to have the same growth. But this is much more specific. Now if we are conscious of our hands we can do it with our hands. How conscious are you of your feet? Hardly. Have you developed any skill of feet? Hardly. But those who have would have imprinted in it a certain individualization of consciousness. Now compare that to cells, you don't even feel them. There's no question of developing individualization there or any awakening of consciousness, unless you have developed the capacity to become conscious of the cells and then enter into that consciousness, intensify the consciousness and awaken in it a spiritual aspiration. That's what mother did in her body. And so in her body, the cells, although they have a group consciousness, even the group consciousness of the cells were sufficiently developed that even the individual cells, some of them had developed an individuality. And the cellular consciousness was not only awakened and made conscious in its own way but into it she was able to infuse the aspiration for the Divine, the seeking for the Divine and then even the receptivity to the Divine consciousness and then she said changing the allegiance of the cells. Now this is a very interesting thing. What is it that drives the motive force of your cells? Let's take the example first of the human being. What is your motive force? What is your drive? If you live by the moment's passion and habit and instinct of desire, then what do you do? What does the barbarian do? Eat, sleep, fight, procreate. That's about it. And the rest is exaggerating his dominance for these purposes. What does the refined individual do, the civilized consciousness? Create, manifest possibilities of all kinds, artistic, scientific, collective, individual, skills, etc. So the driving force has shifted from an instinctive to a conscious and even a higher vision which is the allegiance now of this individual or this collective or this civilization. So the driving motive has shifted and become something higher.
What is the driving motive of the cells? And if you leave them at the level where they are semi-conscious or subconscious as a collective, they are driven by the old habit - frow, survive, procreate, survive, die, struggle not to die and then somehow grow, that's the state of consciousness in the cells. Now you awaken the cells to the point where they are aspiring for something higher. What do they live for? They live for increasing this contact with the higher consciousness and expressing it, its beauty, its joy, its light, its freedom. And so the allegiance, she says, turning the allegiance of the cells from the old habit of survival or death to allegiance to the Divine will. It's a huge task. For us to do that in our individual mind, our individual consciousness is a huge task a lifetime's work. But to do that at the level of cells, of individual cells and then the collectives of the cells, that was part of the work that she did in the 60s particularly, where her whole concentration was on that and the result she said was actually many cells in her body and the collective had changed. As a result it's possible that the work she has done can be now imprinted in others like Mozart's hands being made conscious and individualized, is there available as an imprint for all. So what she did in her body at the cellular level of change is now available as an imprint for all. Unlike Mozart's hands which are available and you must want it and align to it, what Mother did was she connected her consciousness to all humanity from the beginning. Now Mozart didn't do that, he didn't plug his hands into the hands of all human beings and then change. Had he done that it would have been much more difficult to develop his hand consciousness. He cut himself off and in his individualized life developed something which is now available. What Mother did was she plugged into the consciousness of humanity and every change she made was at the same time as if the rippling out or faced the resistance of the burden of humanity. It's one of the reasons why the work needed a collective support. It needed humanity saying, yes, we want this, or at least a representative part of humanity aligned to and aspiring for this, saying, 'yes, we want to participate'. So that was like a support. It became, let's say, instead of the mass of humanity pulling down and opposing, a part of humanity rising up and aligning, at least in some minimum aspiration through which she could then imprint this. So what's happened is the change she made in her body has had its permanent imprint in the human consciousness and I would suggest in the universe because it's not been done before and in those of humanity who aspire for this, there is the possibility of a much more rapid reception of her work and a rapid awakening of yourselves. So there is a possibility, if you aspire for it. If you don't aspire for it, it's already there and it's working but it will be slower. But what she achieved there is inevitably going to work out in humanity given a few thousand years. But in the part of humanity which is aspiring it can happen in a few decades or less. And that's our role. If we consciously aspire for this and work on our body consciousness and work to awaken in the body, we are not yet conscious of ourselves, but even the intention to awaken in the body consciousness and tissue and cells this aspiration is enough to create that alignment. As you would invoke Mozart's hands, you are invoking Mother's work in the body consciousness and that works as an imprint rapidly beginning a change.
Narad (0:33:04):
I remember Mother telling us about a concert she went to and it was a violinist who was an average violinist. And that evening he played as one transformed. And she saw his hands and she said, 'Oh, they are the hands of Ysaÿe[1]', the great violinist that she had heard also. And they incarnated in this average, fairly good violinist's hands. Amazing. So anything can incarnate in us.
Sraddhalu (0:33:44):
If the aspiration is there and if the flexibility to receive is there. So in our case and because our goal is much larger than just developing a skill, Sri Aurobindo says three things are needed. First, consciousness, second plasticity, third surrender. You'll find this in the little booklet, The Mother. So when you open yourself to receive the action of the Divine force in you, the Mother's force, first there has to be consciousness. That is, you must be conscious so that the receptivity can be there. If you are unconscious, yes there will be something but it's the slow unconscious evolution of nature. It works from behind the scenes. But when you're conscious, there's the overt action and reception. Second is, when you receive, what you receive is something higher and so different that it must have space to express itself, its values or its forms, for which you have to be plastic. If you are rigid, that's all I know, that's all I can do, even if a higher consciousness comes, it's like wandering inside narrow serpentine lanes, you don't have the open vast space to play out and run and freely express. So the plasticity is what makes your consciousness able to now freely express that which comes from above. So even if an intuition came with very vast knowledge, if your mind is narrow you'll only catch the aspect which aligns to your narrowness and the rest is lost. But if your mind is flexible, as the intuition comes it will expand your mind and there will be this broad revelation, which is what in that case of the violinist. He had enough plasticity that Isai's hands coming in could now freely express but if he was rigid you would have seen glimpses of it and it stops there. So second requirement is plasticity and a third requirement, so so far you have received some expression but you want the full transformation for that you must be able to let go of what you are, to give yourself entirely and exclusively and allow her full action. So it goes in these three steps and as the surrender grows, the consciousness also grows because she fills your consciousness and lifts it and with consciousness now the plasticity grows, with it surrender grows and so it's a three-step process repeating in cycles, until eventually there is the fully awakened consciousness and the plasticity of infinity and the surrender which is complete and that's when the transformation is complete. But it starts with this small step.
Narad (0:36:45):
I would like to read a few lines from Savitri. In book 1 canto 2, 'The Issue', we meet Savitri, and Sri Aurobindo says,
"An absolute supernatural darkness falls
On man sometimes when he draws near to God:
An hour comes when fail all Nature’s means;
Forced out from the protecting Ignorance
And flung back on his naked primal need,
He at length must cast from him his surface soul
And be the ungarbed entity within:
That hour had fallen now on Savitri.
A point she had reached where life must be in vain
Or, in her unborn element awake,
Her will must cancel her body’s destiny.
Only the unborn spirit's timeless power
Can lift the yoke imposed by birth in time.
Only the Self, that builds this figure of self
Can raise the fixed interminable line
That joins these changing names, these numberless lives,
These new oblivious personalities
And keeps still lurking in our conscious acts
The trail of old forgotten thoughts and deeds,
Disown the legacy of our buried selves,
The burdensome heirship to our vanished forms
Accepted blindly by the body and soul."
Sraddhalu (0:38:34):
We kind of digressed from the original theme of karma and this brings us back to the theme. So I want to conclude with a few important ideas and then some practical suggestions. So first the description we had, remember, was this picture Sri Aurobindo gave, where there is the true will of the soul, which is free, and then there is this surface will which is kind of free, not quite, but limited. And that's useful and necessary because for the soul which has this broad vision, it has picked for this life a certain focus. And so the surface personality with its limited will and capacity is useful as a limited focus. But also that we can awaken from this limitation and rejoin with our original and true will. And then we have the big picture without losing the focus also of this life. So that is the way forward for us, to become free from compulsions of circumstances, that's the passage which you just read, that the emergence of the true soul and its true will free which is perfectly aligned with the cosmic will and yet free to act without falling into disharmony, that is the true will that we have to awaken to. Having said that, this being the broad objective of the spiritual development also, while we are not there, what happens to our immediate circumstance and what is the role of the karma here? How do we deal with it? And here we recognize three things. First, recognize that the karma which you have created in the past, let's stay even with this life. I did things which now I look back and regret. The karma you've created at that level only hits you as long as you continue to live at that level. So I said certain things in a moment of impulse, of anger, hatred, and as long as I live in the consciousness which creates the same patterns of anger and hatred, the consequences of that anger hatred thrown out come back upon me because I am on the same level. But if meanwhile I outgrow that consciousness, I begin to live in a higher state where I don't have those impulses of anger and hatred. Rather I look back at the same situation and I say I wish I had approached it with this consciousness where I would have act so differently. At that point the ripples caused by that cease to affect you, they may come upon you but they pass right through you and you do not face their consequences anymore. So the first thing you can do is grow in consciousness. Do not worry about what has been done in the past. As you rise in consciousness let go of that past and the imprints and ripples of those karmas will cease to affect you. Second, if you have just created a ripple which has a negative outcome, you equally have the freedom to create a positive ripple. So I just said something in anger and I hurt somebody and if I become conscious about it instead of justifying it and saying oh he deserved it and fooling myself, I say, well, this was a moment of weakness, I wish to undo this. Find the way to undo. Maybe you go to the person and say, 'look, I'm really sorry I was upset and I got carried away, it's not like me, and what I said does not represent what I feel about you', and say the things which you feel. Put out that same positive energy which is truly yours. In other words, what you're doing is, its not about good and bad, it's not about morality, neutralizing a positive morality, neutralizing a negative. It's about a shift in consciousness which is more expressive of your true consciousness. What I did in an impulse was not my truth. What I act from now is more close to my soul's values and its perspective and I express that equally. Maybe I cannot fully neutralize that. The words spoken have hurt. I cannot undo that, but I can speak what is more truly me and if it comes from a true consciousness, it will have a greater power than the negative statement. So again I am highlighting, it is not morally a correction, it is not I did bad, now I give food to a few poor people and so that will neutralize the bad thing which I did by taking from someone. It is not a moral balance, it is the shift of consciousness which is the key. Something closer to your truth, your soul values must now be expressed and to whatever extent neutralize that. This is the second thing you can do. And the third, is the line from Savitri, 'A Master act, a king Idea can link man's strength to a transcendent force', what's the line?
Narad (0:44:10):
"A prayer, a master act, a king idea
Can link man's strength to a transcendent Force.
Then miracle is made the common rule,"
Sraddhalu (0:44:13):
That's the important line, "Miracle is made the common rule". Why, because the transcendent force is the freedom of the self, which can act bye-passing all karmas. It can reorient all karmas. You see, if water is flowing this way, another water is flowing that way, remember, its energy that is flowing, that's all karma is. Your intervention can turn the energy. The wind can come and reverse the current, isn't it? And the freedom of the self can act and rearrange the same karmic energies to bring out of them a completely different outcome of a positive result. It can override everything because that's the source of the original movement of energy and the will itself. So you don't have that as we said but you have access to that through these three means. The prayer which is the most direct means. Ask for the help. Place that situation before the Divine consciousness. Literally take it in your awareness, 'this is the mess I have made, here I take it all, open it to you', invoke help, 'help me now clear this, change the situation', but it's not done in a passive way. it's not by, 'okay now, you fix it, I'm going to go home and sleep while you fix it', 'show me the way, help me to change it and act upon it'. So the invocation of prayer calls and creates a link from that action to here. And the result is that intervention which we would describe as miraculous, where things begin to change. You are still responsible to play your role, but the outcome is a thousand times more than what your effort could put into it, because the rest is coming from there, or suddenly the problem just goes away and the knot is resolved or whatever form it takes because of that intervention. You can call for that and the Divine grace can act to change everything. You will recall the discussion we had on astrology where the Mother erased the destiny of somebody completely and overnight all the problems were wiped out. Well, this is possible for us every single day. And so in my perspective, and I limit it to how I prefer to see things, but I wish everybody could also, you stop worrying about karma. Because every day the Divine grace can act freely at each moment and choose for you and for itself a better outcome. Sri Aurobindo says, you know there is this saying, 'everything that happens, happens for the best'. Sri Aurobindo says it's not true. All that happens does not happen for the best. But having happened, the Divine can make the best use of it. So yes, we had partition of India, you had the Second World War, you had the killing of millions of people in so many wars, no that's not for the best, but having happened, well the Divine can use it for growth, for an awakening, for whatever change and so stop bothering about the karmas of the past, whatever has happened, whatever the compulsions that they bring to you today, have no relevance except as support for growth. But the Divine grace intervening can turn anything into a support for growth or neutralize anything which comes in the way of your growth and give you the necessary leap which is miraculous. And what was the line again.. 'the miracle'?
Narad (0:47:54):
"Then miracle is made the common rule"
Sraddhalu (0:47:57):
'The common rule', that literally, every day you are living from one miracle to another and this is possible. But if you fixate yourself on the past karma, if you give to it the necessary importance that religions or traditions will demand then you give to them their place and bind yourself in them more. And so stop worrying about karma, instead take every day as it comes with this conscious alignment of the prayer and invocation There are the other two words, 'a master act and a king idea', which to the extent that they can be made accessible are also present, but the prayer is your starting point and trust the grace and put yourself as far as possible entirely in the hands of the grace that she carries you from miracle to miracle and this is for me the conclusion to our discussion on karma and fate and free will. It's your soul that has chosen, it's the divine will that is free which has to lead and rule and you have to awaken to your own deeper freedom and let the freedom act and you have to awaken to your own deeper freedom and let the freedom act not fate not karmas. Your fate is only what your soul has chosen freely to exercise.
[Narad] Namaste.
[Sraddhalu] Namaste.
[1] Eugene Ysaÿe, the Belgian virtuoso violinist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Ysa%C3%BFe