What is the Significance of Karma
If all is God’s will, why do we need to make any effort at all and what then is the significance of karma? Here’s what Swami says:
When the world is ruled by God, how does He permit it to be so wicked and vile? The answer given is that God is not responsible for the grief and the pain. The sins we commit are the progenitors of the grief we suffer. Joy and sorrow are the consequences of the good and the evil that man perpetrates. God is the witness. He does not punish, nor does He cause grief. The jivi (individual being) is beginningless, that is to say, he has no birth but he involves himself in incessant activity and so he has to go through the inevitable consequences of that activity. This is the experience of everyone, the characteristic of everyone’s mind. This is the unbreakable law of the objective world or prakriti (nature). Grief or joy is the image of the activity one engages in. It is the resound, the reflection, the reaction. The jivi can be the witness without concerning himself with the good and the bad of the activity. When involvement happens, good will have to be experienced when good is done, and evil will have to be experienced when evil is done.
“… When beneficial activity is engaged in, the clouds of maya (illusion) are scattered and the reality of the self is realized. All beings are by their nature pure. Good acts can remove the taints of evil deeds and preserve its essential purity. Then the jivi is led into the God ward path. The God ward urge will transform the words, the thoughts and the deeds of the individual.”
“Bondage,” Sathya Sai Vahini
“Every child arrives in the world bearing the burden of unrequited consequences accumulated in previous lives. … It is born in this world in order to experience the beneficial and the malignant consequences that are the products of its own acts in past lives. This is the explanation for the differences that are evident among men. This is the principle of karma.
“Among men, each one is himself the cause of his fortune—good or bad. He is himself the builder, the architect. Fate, destiny, pre-determination, the will of God, every one of these explanations is toppled by the principle of karma. God and man can be reconciled and affiliated only on the basis of this principle of karma. When man realizes that God has no share in causing his suffering and that he is himself the sole cause, that no blame attaches to any other person, that he is the initiator as well as the beneficiary—the cause and the effect—of his acts, that he is free to shape his future, then he approaches God with a firmer step and a clearer mind.
“If a person is pure in spirit now, he himself is the cause. Unless a person yearns, he cannot earn. So, it is clear that the will inherent in man is beyond all stages and condition, all formations and transformations. The freedom that is represents, is the result of his past acts; it is powerful, infinitely fruitful and supreme.”
“The Avatar as Guru,” Sathya Sai Vahini
