Commentaries by Vee Jay Attri during the Book Study – Secrets of Karma
Let us joyfully continue with our study from Secrets of Karma. We were talking about obligations towards parents. There were some few questions about obligations, the order in which we have been talking about. First is obligation towards the self.
If you do not take care of yourself, you cannot have any reverence towards the spiritual teachers because you will not be of much help or support to the spiritual teachers.
Karmic obligations towards spiritual teachers
Now, you have to remember that spiritual teachers come in various levels and some of the advanced spiritual teachers, they are with you lifetimes after lifetimes. Parents may or may not be with you lifetimes after lifetimes.
This is not basically to discredit our parents in any way because without them we would not be in this embodiment. But what is necessary to understand is that, while the parents are nurturing you on many levels, our spiritual teachers nurture the real self, that is you the soul and some of the spiritual teachers have been associated with us for several lifetimes.
I would not know whether it is eons of times but for sure, with experience, we can say that some of the teachers are so closely connected for several lifetimes and we have got deep gratitude and a very intense obligation towards them.
That is the reason why traditionally Gurus are considered to be superior to even God because they are the personification of God and without the Guru, we cannot be what we are and therefore, the order of priority is very important to understand.
Obligation to the self. That is important. If you do not take care of yourself in a responsible way, you cannot carry on the mission of the Great Ones responsibly.
First of all, obligation to the self makes you suitable for the work. Without that, you cannot move to the next step of expressing your obligation or gratitude towards spiritual teachers. So, the order needs to be understood properly.
So, we said that the first teacher as we are born are our parents but then, the parent is basically a lifetime of activity or a few lifetimes, I would not know.
Teachers are even far greater and therefore the order of obligation is teachers and then comes the parents but this is in no way to put the parents in any level inferior to anything in the world because they are absolutely in the most adorable level already, pertaining to a lifetime.
I in fact had witnessed many times in the last over 40 years, that people who did not take care of the parents well, neglected them, had to go through so many painful hard lessons. I had seen this definitely, I can tell you that any negligence towards the parents really, it’s a very huge karmic burden. I would not like to go very deep into this because what I had witnessed, I cannot actually share it here.
It is not very uplifting I would say but all that I can tell you is that, please do take care of your parents when they are in an embodiment. This is so important and as I told you, sometimes, the work of the spiritual teachers or masters supersedes our attention towards parents. I’m not saying obligation, I am not saying responsibility, I am saying attention to the parents.
I recall there were times when I had to leave my parents for weeks together because the demand of the situation was that I was needed for the task of spiritual work which superseded my immediate responsibility to both my parents.
So yes, it was not easy but then between right and more right, sometimes you have to choose more right and this is very important. So, there are times when your dharma or your duty supersedes your obligation. That appears to be right.
So, if you study the life of Mahatma Gandhi, you can understand that between right and more right, he had to choose more right and that is exactly how he had to sacrifice many things of his life. The same is the case with many spiritual aspirants.
So, again, a word of caution. If it is not applicable to you or if you are not understanding what I am telling, it is okay but there is a very amazing episode in the Holy Bible where one of the disciples of Lord Christ, he came and told Lord Christ: ‘Master, my mother is dead, I have to go and bury her.’
So, Lord Christ replied to him, saying, ‘Let the dead bury the dead, you do my work.’ Now, these are not basically applicable to everybody but this is applicable to some of the disciples who have already attained a certain level and at that level, the first thing is the work of the master then anything else in the universe.
So, in this light of view, the teacher’s work or the master’s work supersedes everything and anything in the universe. It will take time for some of you to understand but that is okay. We move to the next level of obligation; obligation towards our family which is extremely important to understand.
Karmic obligations towards family
Family is your first school. Parents are our first teachers.
So, we said that parents are our first teachers whereas the family is our first school. If you had lived in your family, especially in bigger family, many lessons are happening every moment, including practicing understanding, forgiveness, harmony, unconditional love.
You are repeatedly challenged over and over again with the people who are very close to you. Always take a note, the people who give you maximum pain are the ones who are very close to you. Maybe there are exceptions here and there, but most of the time, it is the truth that people who are very close to you are the ones who give you the maximum pain.
So, in one of the beautiful seminars, Grand Master Choa Kok Sui was demonstrating this:
You can right now do it. You put your hands palms apart and try to move your hands vigorously. You will notice that nothing happens. Now, put your hands together and again move your hands vigorously; what you see, you find friction.
The closer you are, the greater is the friction. Same is with the people. The people with whom you are very close are the ones who are going to give you maximum challenge. It is not easy. Some of you might have seen some of the spiritual masters as embodiments of love and compassion.
Ask me, I will tell you what it means to be very close to spiritual teachers. You cannot even imagine that. I mean, if you had gone through whatever that I had to experience on my spiritual path, you would have ran away to some place and you would have made the conclusion that after all, people outside the spiritual path are better than the spiritual masters. That would have been your conclusion.
In fact, many people have done this many at times in our organization as well. So, they do not understand the path. This is the norm of the path. Living close to people who are spiritual teachers is not easy, let me assure you.
That is why Dr. Annie Besant said so beautifully, “Spiritual path needs nerves of steel.”
You need to have nerves of steel to sustain the spiritual path. It is not easy. That’s exactly where we come to the mission. If the mission is so focused in your mind, nothing really distracts you from the mission.
You will all the time be focused on the mission, like my teacher used to say “like a heat seeking missile” but at the same time, you learn to understand why certain things are existing. Many at times, teachers make you go through a hell of a lot of experiences. I do not know whether you happen to read about the Tibetan Great Monk Milarepa.
Please read his story and you will understand what it means to be on the spiritual path. Alright! So, people who are close to you, whether it is your family members or it is a spiritual teacher are not easy to handle.
It’s a mighty challenge but once you cross any challenge of your life; listen very carefully, every time you pass through a test, a challenge, you are not the same person. You cannot afford to be the same person. You are already a different person, already an evolved being.
As you successively keep crossing the challenges of your life, it is not about challenges that are bogging you down and making you weak. On the contrary, if you understand the nature of the path, then every obstacle, every challenge, every mighty problem is an opportunity for you to strengthen your spiritual muscles.
Once you cross the challenge, you are not the same person. You are already in another level. Of course, in that level, you will start having challenges. It is like in the boxing competition, you’ve got light weight and heavy weight.
When you become a heavy weight champion, you cannot expect a mosquito to come and give you trouble, you need Mike Tyson in front of you. So, the greater is your spiritual advancement, the greater will be the challenges and you have to embrace this and you have to accept this reality.
If you are going to crumble every time whenever you face an adverse situation, then you are really wasting a very precious lifetime. So, the lesson that you miss whenever a challenge is presenting to you, you have to again catch it up in tougher environments and situations.
Please understand the path very carefully and start progressing rapidly. Once you get the lesson, your karma for that lesson is finished. The karma is existing because you did not learn the lesson internally. Externally you are tolerating, you are patient, you are accepting. This is only external. While you are accepting, tolerating and being patient, your heart is crying, this is not called acceptance. Acceptance means internally you understand the nature of the path. There is so much of joy in whatever that you are enduring.
That is why Annie Besant said so beautifully, “while you are bearing your karma, bear it with cheerfulness.” If you drop cheerfulness and you are bearing karma for the sake of bearing it, you are already sowing another fresh seed.
That is why she said, every time you react, remember her wonderful statement, precious wisdom, “Do not sow a new seed while you are reaping the old one!” She said you have to be cheerful and fearless. These are the two important qualifications of a spiritual aspirant.
Cheerfulness under all circumstances, fearlessness under all circumstances. My teacher used to remind us, “You can never be exhausted!.” Impossible that a spiritual aspirant says, “I am tired, I am exhausted.“ This does not exist for a spiritual aspirant.
If your mental state is very high, regardless of the amount of work or duty that you have to deliver or your duty to deliver, still you will not be exhausted or exasperated. You get tired because mentally you are weak, mentally you are getting exhausted.
Once you fine tune your mental body and your energy level is sustained with spiritual practices, where is the question of you getting exhausted doing your duty or executing the obligations? Not possible at all. We shall continue with our study tomorrow.
