Collective Karma

We all believe in Karma and understand that each one of our actions has consequences either in near or distant future, and that our current happiness or suffering is a result of our past actions. This is understandable in most of the cases but sometimes we get confused when group of people meet the same fate as a bus or train accident or a natural calamity and wonder how they all performed same action in the past to beget the same result together. This cannot be explained by the individual karma. There must be a collective karma that belonged to the entire group.

If we take a classroom in a school for example, we see that individual students score marks in an exam based on the level of effort they put in and their intellectual abilities. But the class, as a whole, will also get affected by the ability of the teacher and also external factors beyond their individual control. Same way, when a country or a state goes through elections, the new government is usually formed by whoever gets a majority of votes, which could be only 30-40% of the population. But the consequences of it need to be borne by the whole country or state. Nobody can escape by saying I did not vote for this government. That is collective karma.

Moreover, not all our sufferings need to be a result of karma. This body is just a machine and routinely undergoes wear and tear. We should accept this inevitability and move on, instead of treating is as a suffering and pestering God with questions like “Why me? What have I done to beget this?”. And the interesting part is, people always ask these questions while suffering and almost never ask the same during the times of prosperity and happiness.

Once a devotee asked our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj the same questions, “Most of the humans are getting vision and hearing problems, losing teeth and hair, or graying of hair etc. How is it possible that all of them did same karma in previous lives to beget these common problems?” In reply he gave an excellent explanation - “When it’s time for the school, they ring three bells with an interval of five minutes. Some students reach school even before the first bell rings. Some hurry to the school hearing the first bell, some on the second or third and some don’t even care and always go to school late and unprepared. These ailments are the bells that God rings to let you know your time is running out and you better prepare well, at least now, in order to reach Him before it’s too late. Some people realize this on the first sign and improve upon their spiritual practice to reach Him peacefully. Some realize it on the second or third sign and others don’t even realize and will be pushed to hell to suffer or to a rebirth into a species of a lower intellect where it takes much longer to realize the Self.”

While we may never know the real reasons behind our happiness or sufferings, it is prudent to forget about the past and look at what we can do to become strong enough to be unaffected by these. The solution for that is to treat both happiness and suffering as a graceful grant of God and take them with an equal mind. And also always remember that both of them are temporary and will not last long. As long as there is ignorance of the self, we tend to recognize this duality and enjoy or suffer. Once we attain the knowledge of the self, this duality goes away and only thing that remains is the ultimate bliss.

When devotees asked questions like, “If I am God, when did this ignorance start in me that I am not able to realize my true self?” and Sri Babuji used to reply with a question, “While walking on the road if you accidentally step on someone’s feces, do you just go and wash your feet? Or do you scrutinize it to find out whom did it belonged to and from what kind of food it formed?” When a devote asked this question once Sri Babuji asked, “Do you know Nuclear Physics?” and the devotee replied, “No Sir.” And Sri Babuji asked, “Since when you didn’t know it?” to which the devotee got perplexed and replied, “How can there be a starting point for not knowing? I never knew it.” Sri Babuji explained, “Same is the case with ignorance. It’s always been there and will be there as long as you don’t light the matchstick of knowledge of the self. There is no point in trying to find out the origins of ignorance and you can instead spend that effort in lighting the fire of knowledge.”

Warranty

Whenever we buy something valuable, we check for the warranty. Some products may come with a few years of warranty and others only a few months. Very few products come with lifetime warranty. But even those products, once damaged, will be replaced only once and if the second product also gets damaged, you will not get a replacement. Now think about how valuable our life is. Did we ever check who gives warranty to this life and for how many replacements? Our life is a result of the balance of good and bad karma we did in our earlier lives. And based on the balance karma left over after this life, we get a new body suitable for experiencing the results of that karma.

Our parents and other family members might have protected and nurtured us in this life. But what about the earlier and later lives? Do we know our families from those lives? Do we even know which species we were born into? All our relations and friendships end in one life. This was clearly shown to Arjuna by Lord Krishna when the former was in great grief due to the loss of his son Abhimanyu. Lord Krishna summons the soul of Abhimanyu from heaven and when Arjuna expresses his love for the son, he simply questions him, "Who are you? You are my father? From which life? I have gone through many lives and don't remember any of the relations from those lives."

But there is only one person that maintains his relationship with us throughout the cycle of our numerous lives and leads us in the path of liberation form this cycle. That is Guru. Only he can give us the warranty to be with us, protect us, and lead us until we attain the eternal state of bliss and merge into Him. Our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj used to narrate a story - Sage Narada once goes to Lord Vishnu and requests him to explain the power of Satsang. In order to show the power through experience, Lord Vishnu tells Narada to go to an insect born in a pile of cow dung on earth and ask the same question. When Narada asks the insect the question, the insect dies instantly. The disappointed Narada goes back to Lord Vishnu and let's him know about the sad incident. The lord asks him now to go to a newborn calf and ask the same question. When Narada approaches the calf and asks the same question, the calf also dies instantly. The shocked Narada goes back to the lord in dismay.

Lord Vishnu now asks Narada to go to the palace of the king of Kashi and ask the newborn son of the king the same question. Having seen the deaths of two creatures upon asking the question, Narada was reluctant now to try it on a human infant. But left with no choice, he goes to Kashi and hesitantly asks the newborn prince the question. To his surprise, the new born bows to Narada and starts speaking. He humbly says, "Oh Mahatma! I was first born as an insect in cow dung and had the great blessing of coming in contact to a great guru like you. I immediately left that life and was reborn into the life of a sacred cow. It was my great fortune to have your darshan again in that life and now I was born as a human prince. But as a Guru, you were not going to leave me in any life and so now I again got the darshan of you and am freed from the cycle of rebirth. What else can be a practical example of the power of satsang or the warranty a Guru gives you through the cycle of rebirths?"

In the Gita, when Krishna says "I imparted this knowledge to the Sun, who in turn passed it on to Manu, and Manu to Ikshwaku and so on" Arujna asks "You and me are of same age. How can you say you imparted this knowledge to the Sun long back?" Krishna replies "You and I had several lives till now. You know nothing of them, but I remember everything. I have always been with you in all of your lives." When Dhruva had the darshan of Lord Vishnu at a very tender age, all the aged rishis get jealous and ask sage Narada how such a young boy can have darshan whereas they had been doing spiritual practice throughout their long lives without getting a result. Narada takes them through different forests and hills showing them five different skeletons hanging from trees and cliffs telling them that these were the earlier births of Dhruva in which he was bestowed with Guru upadesa and continued his spiritual practice, which has ripened in this life at a tender age, again with the guru's blessings.

Let me conclude this with my own personal experience. At the age of five Sri Gurudev was initiating me into the worldly education by performing "Aksharabhyasam". Then he asked me "I gave you a mantra in your previous life. Do you remember it?" When I nodded my head indicating no, he said, "OK, I am giving it to you again. Always remember and recite it" and he bestowed me with the mantra. That's the warranty a guru gives us no matter how many lives we go through.