Shri Dattaswami http://www.esnips.

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SOME MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF KARMA CHAKRA

Father of All Souls

O Learned And Devoted Servants of God,
[February 1, 2007] God created all the souls and has the attitude of
a father towards His children. A human father may sometimes show
partiality in loving his children. But God always has infinite love for all
souls in an equal manner. Even the punishments in the hell are meant for
the transformation of the souls from the lower level to the higher level.
God always tries to help the soul even if a trace of possibility exists
according to its cycle of deeds to justify God’s help. One soul need not
recommend another soul to God and ask for His grace on that soul. If a
child requests his father to look after the welfare of his brother, how
foolish it looks! No soul should recommend another soul to God and ask
for His protection or grace on the soul. If any soul does so, it is only
insulting the infinite love of God. It is the climax of ignorance and the
emotional love for the other soul, which lacks even a basic analysis of
spiritual knowledge.
Never Criticize Anyone
Never criticize any one in the world. If you do not want to praise
somebody, keep silent. If you scold somebody and suppose God is
hidden in that person, it will lead to immediate punishment. Worship of
God and insulting God will have immediate results in this world
because both are powerful (Atyutkataih Papapunyaih…). The help and
insult of colleague-souls will have results in the upper world in heaven
and hell. But the service and insult to God in human form and devotees
will have immediate results here itself. Generally it is very difficult to
identify God in human form. He will try to hide Himself by looking like
an ordinary person or may sometimes look even like a person with
negative qualities. God in human form acts according to the role taken
on the stage of the world. The role is according to the divine program
drawn by God Himself. The role generally does not contain supernatural
behavior, which will create problems for the free mixing of God with
the souls. The role mainly consists of normal behavior and sometimes
sub-normal behavior to test the devotees or to drive away the
undeserving devotees, who will try to exploit God. In such a case there
is every possibility of misunderstanding God as a normal human being
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or sometimes as a bad human being. If you neglect God assuming Him

as a normal human being, there is nothing wrong in it and you will not
be in loss even though you may not get any benefit. But if you insult
Him assuming Him to be a bad fellow, that is the greatest sin and will
have immediate negative effect. Since, we cannot identify God easily, it
is better not to criticize even a bad fellow. Leave him to his fate. Who
are you to criticize anybody? You have a lot of bad points in you, which
is shown by your bulky thumb, when you point out at others with your
lean finger. The constitution of God running the divine cycle of deeds
will take care of everything in the world. Why do you unnecessarily
take the risk of insulting the hidden God?
Hidden Backgrounds of Souls
In the sacrifice, Dharma Raja wanted to worship some eligible
person in the beginning. Bhishma told him that Lord Krishna was the
best choice. But Shishupala started scolding Krishna unnecessarily and
got punished. He was furious with Krishna for taking away the bride
(Rukmini) that Shishupala was supposed to marry. However the
marriage was against the will of Rukmini and Shishupala knew this.
Rukmini sent a secret message to Krishna that if Krishna did not rescue
her before the marriage, she would commit suicide. Life is the most
important item to be protected according to justice (Ahimsa Paramo
Dharmah…). There was no trace of injustice on the side of Krishna in
that event. The mother of Shishupala prayed to Krishna to spare the life
of her son. The Lord prolonged the death of Shishupala for sometime
and then finally the punishment was given. Shishupala was actually the
gatekeeper of the Lord and that was his last birth before reaching God
after fulfilling the curse and he was very anxious to reach the Lord.
[Vijaya was one of the gatekeepers of the Lord who was cursed to be
born thrice on earth as a demonic human and face death at the hands of
the Lord. Then alone could he return to heaven and resume his duty as
the Lord’s gatekeeper. In the last of the three births, Vijaya was born as
Shishupala]. His mother did not know all this background and her
recommendation to the Lord to spare his life, was actually against the
welfare of Shishupala.
If you take the case of Abhimanyu, the Lord got him killed even
though he was His beloved relative. People misunderstand this and may
think that Krishna was very cruel. Abhimanyu was the incarnation of a

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demon in disguise. The Lord knew the internal background. The doctor
knows the internal system and operates upon the patient who has a
headache. Ordinary observers think that applying some ointment can
easily cure the headache. But the doctor alone knows the reality through
scans and x-rays. Therefore, all the actions of God are correct and
justified. You should not mistake God for any trace of cruelty. Even if
there is a trace of possibility [to show kindness to the soul], God will act
even before you recommend. He is the Father of all the souls and you
are only a brother to other souls. The love of the father is far superior to
the love of a brother. Moreover, you misunderstand His action of
punishment as revenge. The action of God is only for the welfare of the
soul and not for revenge. When Krishna killed Shishupala, his soul in
the form of a light merged into Krishna. It means that the gatekeeper
had reached the abode of God after three births as the Lord’s enemy.
You misunderstand Krishna as cruel for punishing him just because
Shishupala abused Him. But you do not know the background that
Shishupala was His gatekeeper and was very anxious to reach God.
Since, your knowledge about a soul is just limited to the present birth,
your conclusions regarding God are always wrong.
Divine Banking
When you serve God, you expect a clear expression of the grace of
God and this is not good. Suppose you are given a cash award of one
lakh rupees for your service, you will spend it lavishly and suffer after
sometime. If you do not expect the cash award, that amount is invested
in the bank of God and you will constantly get one thousand rupees as
interest every month. Your principal is safe and will be spent by God
whenever there is an emergent need. When you do not expect any clear
fruit from God, God implements this system. In this system, the result of
your service is not clear because there is no emergency. But if you do
not aspire for any trace of fruit from God even in the deeper plane of
your heart [subconscious], the system is completely different. Then
there is no account between you and God just as there is no account
between father and son. Without any account the father will naturally
spend for the requirements of the son. When Draupadi tore a piece of
cloth from her sari to bandage a bleeding wound of Krishna, there was
no account in this bond because Draupadi never aspired for even a trace

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of fruit in return. She did not even recollect this incident when
Duhshaasana dragged her sari in the court.
Action-Result in Karma Cycle
Do not link your service to any fruit from God. Link the fruits to
your own actions. Sometimes your actions fail and unexpected negative
results appear. People think that a good deed has given a bad result and
a bad deed has given good result. Based on this, people doubt the
existence of the divine system of the cycle of deeds. Every action has its
corresponding result after sometime. The time gap may be even longer
than this lifetime. Some actions give results at once. If you put your
finger in the fire, it will burn immediately. But generally one’s actions
are enquired by the divine system under the supervision of God and the
result of the action may be delivered after the sometime in this lifetime
or even after this life. The time gap is a decision of the judge and not
you. You might have done some good deed and its result may be
received after ten days on a particular day at 10.30 am. You might have
done a bad deed on that day at 10.29 am and its results will be received
at a particular time after some days. Now the observers think that the
good result at 10.30 am is the effect of the bad deed done at the
10.29am. The observers criticize the divine system of God. This cycle of
deeds is a very complicated multidimensional network system with so
many parameters of time and place correlated with each other (Gahanaa
Karmano Gathih—Gita). The superimpositions and coincidence of some
actions and some other fruits mislead you and you end up
misunderstanding the intricate system. Except God nobody can analyze
this network system. A deep analysis of all the parameters is impossible
for the human brain. Therefore, never criticize the administration of God
and unnecessarily earn sin.
Negative Blessings
Generally, one worships God through practical devotion (service)
in order to avoid negative results. Such an attitude is a failure to achieve
real love and the permanent grace of God. You must learn to enjoy the
negative results also like hot dishes in the meal. Infact, due to the divine
knowledge attained by the grace of God, try to find more benefit in the
negative result so that the negative result can atleast be enjoyed equally
with the positive result. Whenever, you start to do some work, you

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always pray for the blessings of the Lord to get victory and benefit. You
never expect defeat and loss even in the mind. Elders always bless you
to succeed and get profit. They will never bless you to enjoy even the
negative result, if attained. They feel it is inauspicious even to utter the
possibility of a negative result as an alternative. But Lord Krishna says
to Arjuna in the Gita “If you die in the war you will enjoy the heavenly
pleasures and if you win, you will enjoy the pleasures on this earth”
(Hatovaa Prapsyase Swargam —Gita). The Lord is giving blessings
announcing the negative result in the beginning and the positive result is
mentioned only as the other alternative. The Lord is showing more
happiness in the negative result than the positive result because
heavenly pleasures are far superior to the pleasures on earth. It is just
like saying that if you are defeated in something you will get a treat in a
five star hotel and if you win you will get a treat in an ordinary hotel.
The Lord says that He is giving the analytical faculty to laugh at
results of deeds (Buddhyaa Yukto—Gita). The ignorant fellow may
laugh at the statement of Krishna, but a scholar will laugh at the
ignorance in judging welfare based on [our common attitude towards]
positive and negative results. Actually the negative result giving you
misery, is for your greater welfare becoming closer to God. The positive
result is for your loss by which you go farther from God. The
punishment purifies you from all bad effects and the boon will pollute
you with ego and ignorance. You must have faith in God that He is
always doing everything for your welfare. Then, you are never upset in
the life and hence there is no need of linking your devotion to the favor
from God. You are mistaking the favor of God as His anger and the
anger of God as His favor. The divine knowledge, which is harsh to you,
is always in your welfare and the Satguru who gives such divine
knowledge is the human form of God. Majority likes the sweet, which
harms your health in long run; they welcome the knowledge preached
by the preachers who are the human forms of Satan.
Divine Medicine
In the lower level, the divine knowledge is also sweet but such
divine knowledge is only a sugar coated bitter medicine. The knowledge
of the messengers of Satan is totally sugar, which is sweet and causes
diabetes. The lower divine knowledge is like a sugar coated bitter
medicine to cure the disease and the sugar coating is needed for

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children. An adult eating sweets is different from a child, which is given

a sugar coated medicinal pill. The ignorance of the adult cannot be
excused like the ignorance of the child. Therefore, beginners in the
spiritual path are excused for their ignorance and God favors them by
granting certain boons, which appear to violate the cycle of deeds. Infact
it is not a violation and it is only an adjustment without any violation,
hoping for the growth of the soul in the spiritual line. But the soul
should not sit only in this level and in course of time, should progress
and respect the rigid cycle of deeds without any aspiration of fruit from
God. When Rama turned the stone into the lady, Ahalya, a lower
devotee may think that Rama did a miracle and favored Ahalya by
canceling her curse. But the higher-level devotees will see the same
incident in another angle. The same sage Gautama who gave the curse
limited his curse only till the day when Lord Rama would arrive and
free her of the curse. Therefore, when the duration of the punishment
was over, Ahalya came back in to her original state and in this incident
there is no violation of the cycle of deeds, which not only gives
punishment but also fixes the duration of the punishment. Infact, Rama
followed the divine administration strictly because the curse had to end
only through Him. Thus, the lower level devotees take God as one who
is capable of violating and one who will violate the divine
administration if He likes. But the higher-level devotees take even the
violation as a part of the divine administration itself.
Clarifications on Karma and Punishment
[Shri Surya asked, “One person argued that the soul is only one
among all humans and therefore if God charges a certain soul to become
a human incarnation, the same single soul being present in all human
beings, would make all human beings as incarnations of God.”]
Swami replied: The soul is one in the sense of its basic form as
inert energy, which is the material of this entire universe. In that sense,
the soul is inert energy and the soul is never taken in that basic sense.
The soul is taken as pure awareness, which is the special work form of
inert energy. In that case the souls are many, even though you may
argue that every soul is pure awareness alone. In this sense the soul is
limited to the human body and the awareness is absent in the gap
existing between two human bodies. The awareness is absent even in
some parts of the body like hair and nails. Awareness is discontinuous.

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Suppose you have taken the lump of iron, which consists of atoms of
iron having the same matter and atomic structure. We say that there are
many iron atoms in the lump of iron because there is a gap between the
atoms. You cannot say that the entire lump is one single atom of iron.
You cannot say that the entire lump of iron is only one single item,
which is inert energy because the matter present in all the atoms is
basically energy. The space between atoms can be also considered as a
subtle form of energy and thus the entire lump of iron is a single
homogeneous lump of inert energy alone. The word atom stands for a
particle of the matter and not energy. Similarly, the soul is fixed in the
sense of pure awareness and therefore a single homogeneous unit of
soul consisting of all the human beings cannot be achieved and is also
against practical experience (Anubhava Pramanam).
In the above example, the matter and the atomic structure are
common among all the atoms. But in the case of souls, only the
awareness is common; not the qualities, which are different structures of
awareness. When God charges a particular soul like Krishna, He
charged only the awareness in the body of Krishna and not the basic
form of inert energy of the soul. Otherwise He would be charging the
entire universe, which is nothing but different forms of the basic inert
energy. If this were to happen, it would violate the concept of
entertainment of God from the universe, since the scene of
entertainment is always different from the seer. The single
homogeneous awareness in all human beings is in a qualitative sense but
not in the sense of a quantitative continuity. The gold is one and the
same in two different ornaments. Since gold is one and the same, if one
ornament is purchased, you must have automatically purchased the other
ornaments without paying the cost of the other ornaments, if your
concept were true. You must know that the gold is the same
qualitatively in both the ornaments but there is no quantitative
continuity of gold in both the ornaments.
[Shri Anil asked, “A person asked me whether or not the theory of
punishment of the results of sins in the form of illnesses was violated if
the illness is cured by medicines, yoga etc.”]
Swami replied: The theory is not violated because the cure of
illnesses by medicines etc., is not universal in every case. In some cases
the cure fails. In some other cases the cure succeeds and in such cases
the duration of the punishment was only for that much time. Unless the

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fixed duration is over, medicines and other cures will not work.
Moreover, the punishment of a sin can be converted from one form to
the other. This concept is present even in the world as you see the
penalty for a crime is announced as “Thousand rupees fine or six
months in prison”. Apart from this, there is a possibility of
postponement of the punishment with accumulated interest to a later
time in this life or to hell or to the next life in case rebirth is accepted.
God uses all these facilities when you pray to God to avoid punishment.
In the case of the servant who serves God without the aspiration of any
fruit in return, God can transfer the punishments of his sins on to Him
and this is the main aim of the human incarnation as you can see in the
crucifixion of Jesus.