Commentaries by Vee Jay Attri during the Book Study – Secrets of Karma
Welcome to the session for study and Great Invocation. Atma Namaste! I salute the divinity in each one of you! How are you all keeping today? Super happy, yes! Some of you mentioned that you are in quarantine, including hospital nursing staff. This is good for you.
These kinds of moment and solitude do not come very often. In Bhagavat Gita, Lord Krishna says, “Become an Ekant Vasi!” Ekant means solitude. So, when this kind of an opportunity comes, try to be cut off with the world.
Put off your mobile phone if possible and be with yourself. This kind of an activity, you can do it once or twice a day for about 5 or 10 minutes, completely disconnecting yourself from everything around including people and this kind of practice will really take you leaps and bounds in your spiritual practices.
You see, greater clarity comes only during the moment of retreat or stillness. So, from time to time, you have to retreat. Take full advantage of these wonderful golden moments if you are in quarantine.
Alright, I hope you are also part of the morning Great Invocation, at least most of you. Please be part of group activities as much as possible to reinforce our effort in making the world a better place. We have to accelerate the process of reaching the critical mass.
Once the critical mass is reached, we don’t have to do much about it, the energies will take care of everything. But until that time, every second of your contribution matters a lot and because it matters a lot, what you give now will return many manifold to you.
Our time, our resources are most required at this time. After a few years, hopefully by 2024, we will be in a position to continue the activities with effortless ease because we have already set the energy and the energy will take care of everything.
At that time, your contribution will be of lesser value. So, when it is needed and you are supporting, that is exactly where is the benefit that gets accrued manifold. Please do take advantage of these golden moments.
Let us take a few questions before we proceed for the study from the Secrets of Karma. Someone has quoted from the book, “The Secrets of Karma,” page 121, paragraph 2:
“What you experience during a cycle depends upon karma you need to work out and the lessons you need to learn from those karmic conditions.”
Are these two different, karmic conditions and lessons? Well, both are interconnected. A condition provides you an opportunity for learning a lesson. For example, if people are nasty towards you, that is the condition.
It helps you to develop patience, tolerance, acceptance, unconditional love, compassion, mercy towards that person, forgiveness. So, these are the lessons. So, according to the condition that is given to you, you have to learn a lesson that you are expected to learn.
Next question is, “If 10 people have to learn the lessons of developing patience, will the karmic conditions too be different for them, if they are not in a group karma?” Of course! Each has to learn their lessons through a specific condition.
Endurance for example. If you are subjected to strenuous hard work, endurance is very important to develop. So, that is actually a form of spiritual training. So, endurance can also happen in an environment full of challenges, when you are surrounded with people who disturb your peace over and over again.
How much are you able to sustain, endure the people in your life? For example, you want to do meditation but the people want to do something else around you. They want to watch a television program. How much can you accommodate that situation despite being in the sound? “Aawaz se pare,” going beyond the sound! How much of practice you can do?
How much of acceptance and patience you can have towards such people who are making your practices difficult? This is very important!
Again, back to the days when I was witnessing a very great spiritual teacher visiting a home and in the surrounding area, there were so many people preparing non vegetarian dish. And of course, the smell was very uncomfortable but then, the way the person was dealing with the situation, incredible! I mean there was no comment about anything. It is there, it is there. Not a word the person uttered. He just smiled, “Ah okay it is alright, everything is good, everything is perfect.”
This is a very beautiful and very profound experience which I must certainly mention. I have got 2 more sharings. Of course, because I was connected with Brahma Kumaris from a very young age, I have so many beautiful incidents to narrate with you, one after the other. So, in one incident, I was in Mount Abu and at that time, the in-charge of the kitchen was a yogi by name, Bholi Dadi.“Bholi” means innocent, “Dadi” is a grandmother but not exactly the grandmother that you understand.
So, Bholi Dadi was in charge and I was actually doing some “seva,” service in the kitchen of the Brahma Kumaris headquarters in Mount Abu, and Bholi Dadi was carrying burning charcoal in her hands. Suddenly, for reason I do not know, the burning charcoal fell on her feet! I thought she is going to now scream but no! She was saying, “Oh oh oh, it has fallen on my feet!”
Very patiently, she was picking one by one and putting it back into the pan that she was carrying and the feet was obviously you can see, burnt, not a trace. She just bent and then put some cold water and continued with her business. That level of endurance, that level of incredible patience! I mean when a test comes, how do you handle it? So, that particular incident was an awakening for me.
You get me what I’m telling. So, you should be ever ready all the time to face that kind of situations. This is endurance. Another incident, this is what is called accepting the divine plan 100%.
So, I was posted in Calcutta, in the eastern zone, where I was working for a company called HCL in India. I was posted in Calcutta in the Eastern zone. I was staying in the Brahma Kumaris Ashram for 3 years while I was working. So, once we invited Dadi Janki who was the Head of Brahma Kumaris a few years back. She passed away recently. So, she was staying with us in Calcutta Brahma Kumaris Centre. Then, we organized for a press conference in Press Club of Calcutta.
Now, the Press Club is basically a club where the reporters and the journalists come and meet there. So, we organized a meeting with the journalists in the Press Club of Calcutta and we had to drive for almost 2 ½ hours to reach that place. Very far, outskirts of Calcutta, I guess beyond Howrah and all, if you know these places. I’m recalling an incident that happened in the year 1983 or 1984, long years back, almost I would say 37, 38 years back.
So, Dadi, we took her there. Of course, the main in charge of the place where I was staying was Dadi Nirmal Shanta, who happened to be the daughter of the founder of Brahma Kumaris, Dada Leckraj. These are all golden moments of my life, to see these people and to learn every moment living with them, sitting with them, eating with them. I would certainly consider myself to be one of the most fortunate souls, definitely.
So, we took Dadi Janki to the Press club, driving 2 ½ hours because the traffic is unthinkable in India in those days, even now but perhaps today, because of many flyovers, it might be less. We waited for the journalists to arrive and with great hesitation, one journalist appeared. Now, imagine a person like Dadi Janki, coming all the way from Mount Abu and she was actually in charge of United Kingdom Centre, she was placed in London, coming to Calcutta and we are taking her to another place for a press conference, only one journalist appeared and when that one journalist saw that nobody had appeared, that journalist also was moving away.
Then, Dadi Janki said, “No problem, you can go but let’s just think of God for a moment and then, you can leave. So, she just was sitting in silent meditation for 2 minutes and then, thanked the journalist for coming and then, he left.
Not a trace of any question mark on her face. Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance! All the time, she used to say, “Everything that happens, happens with a purpose, there is something good in that.” Not a trace of question mark! Not a trace of disappointment! Such was the stage of this soul! Incredible and we were travelling back to the center in the same car.
No utterance at all! Both Dadis were sitting at the back seat, Dadi Janki and Dadi Nirmal Shantaji and I was sitting in front, next to the driver. Throughout, they did not mention anything about that incident. Something else was being spoken!
This is what is called living spirituality and what a motivation! What a motivation! So, this is exactly what we are talking about lessons and this is exactly what all of us need to understand. So, coming back to our question here, “If 10 people have to learn the lessons of developing patience, will the karmic conditions too will be different for them, if they are not in a group karma?” Yes, of course.
Group karma, of course, means that everybody has got a common lesson to learn. Second, “Is it necessary to have a negative condition to learn a lesson?” For example, patience can be learned through becoming school teacher. Of course, you don’t have to have a negative condition. Any condition is conducive for learning a lesson.
You are learning a lesson of unconditional love, of patience with your baby when you have to keep changing the diaper all the night and you have to feed the baby all the time. That is again a condition for you to develop the aspect of unconditional love, compassion, understanding, patience, tolerance. Is it clear?
So, it doesn’t mean that you need to have a negative condition. Any condition is conducive for learning lessons. Another question! Today, it seems that we are just going to address the questions. Please do share your comments about our study sessions.
This is very important because you see, when I am sitting here for the study session, there is no planning. I just would like to flow with the energy and that is exactly what I do. There is no preparation. There is no planned activity for this session. So, if you can kindly guide me how we can make it better so that for the 30 minutes that you are investing, yields maximum benefit for you, for everybody.
So, do kindly send your comments in the group or whichever way you find it. It’s perfectly all right but comments and feedback are very necessary. Okay! Second question, “What if you are unable to learn the right lesson, though one learns some good lessons, will the harsh situation still keep repeating?”
As long as a particular lesson is not learned, the conditions and the situations will follow you for lifetime after lifetime. However, the lessons that you have already learned perfectly, those lessons will not attract any condition for learning.
“If in one’s life, harsh and angry people keep coming and he or she starts practicing forgiveness, unconditional love and patience but still harsh people continue to keep coming.” They will continue to keep coming because you have to understand you are dealing with eons and eons of “Sanchita” karma.
“Sanchita” karma means sum total of the karma that you have been doing for eons of time. How many lifetimes you could have been a not so good person? Sometimes, you could have been a brutal king, sometimes you could have been Hitler, sometimes you could have played many roles, many parts and a part of being a merciless person.
So, when we are dealing with karma, we have to understand it cannot be wiped off in one go. On one side, you are learning the lesson, on the other side, there is also a partial balancing of your karma also happening.
Both are going hand in hand. However if you notice, once you have learned the lesson, even when the condition is existing, you will not be affected by that. Please read this again carefully. Even though the condition might be existing but once you get the lesson, the condition will not affect you, you will be beyond that.
That is exactly, symbolically we show the lotus. The lotus in the pond is not affected or touched, untouched by the water, that could be the life you would be experiencing. It’s a very important point that I would like to touch again tomorrow.