A lot of people say – “we get our birth as per our past life karma”. By itself is a simple enough statement. But there are many implications. One of them being that in a twisted way, privileged people sometimes justify not helping those poorer to them as per this reasoning. “It was their own karma (or fault) to get birth as a poor person, why should we help? Rather shouldn’t we let them go through the hardships, thus they learn?”

So in Stanza 1 of Updesha Saram, Ramana Maharshi says, fruits of life are decided by God.

So our birth is also decided by God? Does God judge people as good or bad and give them their next births?

The crux here, I feel, is to understand that the judgement of “good” and “bad” is our mental distortion. It is a judgement we are making, usually in a very frivilous way.

A better way to see it,

what fruits you get, is what is right for you. Not in a way of punishment or reward. But as a way of you moving onwards towards your end goal of mukti or liberation or simply realising your true nature.

What we can do about it, is to turn inwards. That’s all.

Karma as the flow of a river

I often visualize karma/ life as the flow of river water. If a stone or dip comes in its path, it will deviate into some other direction and keep heading towards its end. The direction is hardly ever one way, it meanders and even goes in opposite direction sometimes and then again deviates. And so on.

Similarly, due to some reasons we need to born as a poor human or an animal or a whatever… so we take such birth. Eventually, it’s flow will change again and we will take better births and reach mukti.

This One Birth is One of Millions

Also, humans in their usual ego-centric importance, give too much importance to one birth. Typically, the understanding is that all of us have taken millions of births in different forms. So, what is one birth as a poor person in it? Moreover, even a poor person may rise into a very fruitful life, while the rich person may live a life of torture. So again, easier to see the one birth as,

1. Small phase of our much longer cycles of birth and deaths
2. A time to do our “purusharth” or “turn inwards” whatever our situation in life
3. Human birth, poor or rich, is still considered the best birth compared to heaven, hell or animal kingdom. Because it gives us the opportunity to do purusharth or spiritual sadhana.

At this point, a question may pop up, what if we had only one birth? Or how do we know we have millions of births? There are many reasons for this. Can tackle in another blog post.

Get Over Miscreants Distorting Indic Culture

In India, often, the privileged folk cause further hardships to the poorer class on the basis of “karma” or “caste” or some other distortion of Indic culture and wisdom.

A lot of young, urban, modern youth want to desecrate all Indic culture and traditions because of this. This is really foolish. Because this justification of the privileged to abuse the downtrodden exists in all known generations and geographies.

They will ALWAYS find a justification within the existing system. Either it is through the religion or economic systems or some other.

And Indic culture gives us ample examples and very, very direct statements which clearly reject this distortion.

Ashtavakra Gita states clearly in its starting lines that to attain enlightenment,

“You do not belong to the Brahmana or any other caste or to any ashram”

Nirvana Shatkam is this same message repeated in so many ways,

“I have no fear of death, no caste or creed,
I have no father, no mother, for I was never born,
I am not a relative, nor a friend, nor a teacher nor a student,
I am the form of consciousness and bliss,
I am the eternal Shiva…”

There is no dearth of such clear messages resonating through the indic lore.

Moreover, there are examples,

Chandragupta Maurya considered a great king who was a shepard’s boy.

Adi Shankaracharya who got a great and well known spiritual lesson from the Chandala who is considered a lower caste.

History is replete with real examples as well as stories of lore.

So, I feel it is time for people to get over these twisted folks who would distort any existing system for their own gain. They must be tackled in all ways. But blaming the religion or Indic culture for it is not the way.

Whether the Indic culture adds value or causes problems for society is a topic to consider deeply. Nothing wrong with that. But simply lashing out at it, due to miscreants is silly. Because these twisted people will always exist (at least until the yuga changes, possibly).

That’s what I think. 🙂