Commentaries by Vee Jay Attri during the Book Study - Secrets of Karma
We shall continue from the book Secrets of Karma. Yesterday, we were reading a very important passage.
Love and kindness without discrimination and inaction, when right action is needed, make you incur karmic debt. Even if you do not sin but encourage others to do wrong actions, it is still bad karma.
Karma in the Bible
The teachings of karma are universal and form part of an important teaching from the Holy Bible: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what he sows.
(Galatians 6:7)
Saint Paul
This is an important teaching from the Holy Bible. It is indeed very unfortunate that the theory of karma or the laws of nature has been somehow not openly spoken in the discussions.
It is inevitable to reap what you had sown and time and again in the Holy Bible, there has been several indications in that directions but for reasons that nobody knows, many things from the Holy Bible have somehow been overlooked.
But we are not here to talk about the religion. We are here basically to discuss about the spiritual side of Christianity. There has been so many hidden secrets in the Holy Bible that are not actually revealed.
For example, Mary Magdalene, who has been one of the very close companions of Lord Christ, has not been mentioned and has not been given the place she deserves because she was, as per one of the teachings, as per some scholarly research, the person was being right till the end when Lord Christ has been crucified and as per some scholars, she was the one who actually announced the resurrection of the Lord to the apostles.
In some way, she is considered to be the teacher of the apostles, a very close accomplice of Lord Christ. These are all things that we are discussing within this forum, not to be publicized to create any kind of issues to people who believe in whatever they are believing.
That is good but the point is, so many sacred teachings, so many secrets in the Holy Bible, were not revealed for reason that no one knows, Divine knows. One such teaching was the teaching of the karma.
Repeatedly, it has been indicated in several places, whether it was the story of the blind man, where the apostles of Lord Christ were asking, “Who sinned, was the sin committed before the man was born or is it the sin of the parents?”
Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
The disciples of Jesus, John 9:2
Here, there is a very important clue. If the sin was committed, before the man was born, obviously, the apostles were talking about the past life of the blind man. So, in this way, there were many places where Lord Christ has been hinting about the laws of karma.
So, one such story in the Holy Bible is the story of Jacob. You all might be knowing about Jacob. If you do not know about Jacob, perhaps, you know about the Jacob ladder. Someday, we will be talking about the Jacob ladder which is an extremely important esoteric teaching that talks about the involution and evolution.
So, here we read about the Jacob story:
Jacob fooled his father and got the blessing meant for Esau. Esau was his elder brother and this made Esau very angry and very wild. To save Jacob from Esau, Rebekah, his mother, sent Jacob away to work for his uncle Laban.
While working for Laban, Jacob fell in love with his daughter Rachel and wanted to marry her. Laban agreed to this on the condition that Jacob would work for him for seven years but after seven years, Laban tricked Jacob into marrying his other daughter, Leah. As a result, he had to work for seven more years to marry the woman he loved.
So, these are all very interesting anecdotes, stories, appearing in different scriptures. You will find that somehow, the number of years that people were spending in exile or suffering or in deceit are actually tallying in many places.
For example, if you look into a very great scripture from the East called Mahabharata, there also, it is mentioned that the Pandavas, the five brothers were in exile for 13 years to 14 years. Similarly, if you look into another scripture called Ramayana, which is actually a history, there also, it is said that Lord Rama was in exile for 14 years. He had to spend 14 years in the forest.
So, very amazingly, there has been some correlation in all these figures, 13, 14 and so on. These are all things that you can possibly ponder upon because there is some deeper level of esoteric significance in all the teachings.
Jacob was also cheated by Laban in the wages that were due to him. Later, his other children also deceived Jacob, falsely telling him that Joseph, his favorite son got killed by a wild animal killed and this caused Jacob intense pain.
Now, Jacob, for reasons that nobody knows, has cheated his brother and this short story simply helps us to understand that the fruits of whatever karma that he generated, had to be borne by them within that particular lifetime.
So, here is where Saint Paul says, God cannot be mocked: A person reaps what he sows. Now, the question you need to ask yourself is not all the time people reap what they have sown. There are so many people who do so much of injustice, so much of harm to others, but somehow, they are not being punished to the level they have caused harm. Now, they just leave the body.
So, what happens to all the sins? And it is unthinkable for the soul to be waiting for the doomsday to happen for millions of years. This is actually not a very wise divine plan as we can say. It’s impossible that the soul waits for the Day of Judgment for eons of time, for millions of years until the Day of Judgment comes, when justice is revealed.
These are all things that you have to ponder upon and do not have to go by what I’m telling. It’s important that you should ask questions and understand everything properly.
Now, we come to the next subject:
Mental and Verbal Karma
Besides physical actions, karma is also created through your thoughts and your speech. Mental criticism and harsh words cause much harm to people and are an obstacle to learning and growth.
It’s a very important point that, anytime you have negative thoughts towards somebody or you have a judgment passed on unnecessarily on somebody, this is actually a negative karma. There is a difference between discernment and there is a difference between criticism or unnecessarily judging the people.
Discernment is very necessary. That is actually an act of intelligence but judging people or criticizing people mentally, is actually considered to be a very harmful action. It is a part of the karma.
When you say karma, it means action. So, actions are actually performed even in the act of thinking. So, thought also results in either a positive or a negative karma.
Thoughts are energy and are real. You would have experienced that sometimes as you think of someone, that person calls you at that very moment and you’re wonder-struck and exclaim: “I was just thinking about you!”
Many of us have these experiences, isn’t it? When you think of somebody, that person calls you, seldom have we thought for a moment, how is it possible that I’m thinking of somebody, or somebody thinking of me and there is a response happening naturally?
So, these are all certain deeper levels of contemplation that is necessary. You might be knowing this but unfortunately, you may not be fully aware because if you are fully aware of, that thought is energy, then I don’t think any of us would be having negative thoughts towards any one of us.
So, that is very important because once you know that thought is indeed energy and you are aware of this at a deeper level, you will refrain from having any negative thought in the first place because thought is creating some effect, either positive or negative, moment to moment.
So, if someone is having 60,000 thoughts a day, that is exactly what is one study saying and out of the 60,000 thoughts, if the majority of the thoughts are unproductive, useless thoughts or thoughts of pessimism, thoughts of judgment or criticism, you can imagine what exactly we are creating out of our own thoughts, because they say, “Sankalp Se Srishti.”
We create our world through our thoughts. So, you can easily understand what kind of a world that you are creating, not only one lifetime of world but for eons of times, you are creating a world of reality just with your thoughts and that is exactly what is called awareness.
So, though you might be knowing about what we are discussing, but think for a moment, do you really know? Are you fully aware? That is a question that you should ask yourself.
Your positive thoughts produce positive effects on people and the environment, while your negative thoughts create negative effects.
Therefore, a benevolent thought creates karmic income while ill will or intense hatred for someone makes you incur karmic debt.
Further reading: Secrets of Karma, Mental and Verbal Karma, Page 8
