The bondage of karma

“Karma binds us through the sense of possession”, reiterates Pujya Ammaji.

Looking at the word “Karma” one sees that it can be broken up into two parts — the syllable “Kar” which is associated with “action” and the syllable “MA” which is associated with “me-ness, mine-ness, the ego’s sense of possession.”

It is a basic tenet of Hindu spiritual teachings that the sense of “me-ness” and “possession” must be transcended if one is to free oneself from the bonds of Karmic “cause — effect”.

This point is emphasized over and over in the Bhagavad Gita.

The word “Karma” itself is the key to freedom.

If there is no one who “does”, then there can be no accumulation of the effects of action, as there is no “centre point” to which such effects may bind themselves. In effect, “no one does anything”.

Only the Divine “does”.

This, of course. is a very dangerous idea in the minds of the ignorant and mentally deranged, who often indeed claim that “God told them” to do the horrendous deed — mass murders, assassinations etc.

There is a famous construct which shows how the Karmic Law becomes less and less binding as the being rises in evolution.

· Stage One — One blames everyone else for the action.

· Stage Two — One shares the blame with others

· Stage Three — One takes complete blame for the event / action upon oneself

· Stage Four — One realises no one is to blame

· Stage Five — One realises that “nothing has been done”

Of course, Stage Five consciousness is the domain of the “Realised Soul”, whereas the common man hovers around stages one, two and three.

It is at Stage Five that one transcends The Law of Cause and Effect and is not bound by actions!

In her beautiful compilation of poems “A Heart That is Distant” Ammaji Meenakshi Devi Bhavanani gives us a poetic expression of these high concepts.

O soul, Content thyself to be

The wind,

Carrying the seed,

To the distant place

That future generations

With an unseen face

In bliss may rest

Cool and blessed

From the hot sun freed,

Without a care, without heed,

In the soothing shade

With nary a thought

How it came to be made,

Not who caused it, nor why

Nor where.

Still, the breeze-laden air

Refreshes them all the same.

Even the wise

Would pause to praise

Only the tree

Not he, not he,

Who did the linking deed.

Not he, not he,

Who carried the seed.

Mind not. Like

The benevolent wind

Unseen, unsung,

O soul

Let thy work be done,

Swift and

Silently.