[Advaita-l] karma - revisited - I

[kuntimaddi sadananda]

Shree Narayan Iyer

Here is my understanding.

For thoes who have WILL to do 

Prarabda is what we have and what we do with what we have is purushaartha. What we have is the result of the previous action(s). What we do now with what we have will determine the aggami karma of the individual. 

In the example X refrained from bad action using his better sense, then he is essentially redirecting his karma to better direction.  

He does action not to Y,z etc but action is part of purturbation to the total system. The total system responds, in response to the purturbation. That is what Iswara means in terms of karma phala daata.  If Y, Z are part of the total system, they become beneficiaries (of good or bad in relation to some norm) of the total perturbation.  What they have as a result of the actions again is part of the prarabda for them only- whether it is good or bad.  Hence purushaartha of X and the results of that becomes, say part of god's grace - a benefit due to Y and Z's past good actions. 

Ultimately what one has to recoginize is to do what simple prayer of Serenity says 

Oh! Lord give me the strength to change things for the better of those that I can change
Give me the strength to accept things that I cannot
and give me the wisdom to know the difference. 

Hari Om!
Sadananda





--- On Thu, 9/18/08, narayan iyer <z1e1b1r1a at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: narayan iyer <z1e1b1r1a at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [Advaita-l] karma - revisited - I
> To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Date: Thursday, September 18, 2008, 1:23 AM
> Sirs,
> 
> While going through the message archives of Oct. 2001, a
> query was initiated by Sri Prasad "in a bad deed (A)
> done by (X) to(Y), does the karma count of(X) go up (due to
> bad deed) or does it remain constant as he was to do action
> (A)on account of purva janma karma.
> 
> There were  responses from learned  members like Sri K
> Sadananda, Sri Jaladhar Vyas etc. before the querry lost
> steam and petered out.  The overall consensus appeared that
> (X) should have used freewill and refrained from (A) so as
> to not increase his bad karma.
> 
> The otherside of the question, viz. the karma effect on (Y)
> was not addressed to.  If (Y) was to be recipient of (A) due
> to his purva janma, and if (X) exercising his freewill
> refrains from action (A), how does (Y)'s purva janma
> effect gets neutralised?  Does it mean one man's
> freewill can affect the prarabda of another?
> 
> There are numerous supplementary questions arising out of
> the above and I would like to post them in parts so that
> focus does not get distracted.
> 
> with regards,
> 
> narayan 
> 
> 
>       
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