How do we resolve the paradox between the freedom of choice and the determination of karma?
One should improve the quality of mind and perception. Man has the potential of freedom. He will have to discover the laws. Scientists discovered the laws of nature and matter. In yoga you will have to discover the laws of the mind and super mind. In tantra you will have to discover the laws of the extra-terrestrial force. Then you know how to deal with the subject.
When man lives in his animal body, he has no freedom of choice. We are homo sapiens, and we have a consciousness. We do not exercise and improve that consciousness. Even though we have the possibility of awakening our consciousness, we do not do it. We live as animals do. Animals eat and we also eat. Animals sleep, we also sleep. Animals are impelled by insecurity and fear. Animals have sexual urge, we too have it. Then, where is the difference?
Why should you have freedom of choice if you live like animals? It is only when you transcend the instincts which control life, that you can have the freedom of life. Through your willpower, you can influence the child in your womb. Through your willpower, you can change the situation in your family. Through your willpower, you can change your nature overnight. Through your willpower, you can change any attitude, any habit that you consider bad. If you do that you can have freedom of choice.
Life is in your hands. You will become a master and life will become like a puppet. So, first change little things in your life, then big things in your life. Then change the course of your life. Life is not just eighty years. These seventy or eighty years is just one act of your life. There have been many acts which you have gone through, and there will be many more acts which you will have to go through. You may not believe in the infinity of life, but that is your problem. If a man is blind and he denies the sun, that is his problem.
This is, in short, the science of karma. What I have said is nothing; you will have to study this. Everything that you think is karma: your working in the factory, in the office is not karma. Your interaction with your children, wife and society is not karma. Every thought, every desire and every passion is karma. You drink one bottle of whiskey that is not karma. The desire to drink whiskey is karma. Passion, anger and greed are karma. It is very difficult to stop this chain of endless karma. The actions and reactions are equal and opposite.
Man has thought for many thousand years about how to become free from karma; he has not yet become free. He finds it easy to renounce the external karma, but he finds it difficult to renounce the inner karma, the cause of karma. Therefore, there is one way – try to realize your own self, and then the karmas will cease to affect you.
What does detachment mean? How is it possible to obtain it with the emotions, poison and western way of living which poses as a barrier?
It is a very difficult subject you are asking me. If you can get it, you are the master of yourself. In India, we have been thinking about this for many thousands of years. How to live a detached life? Why not renounce everything and go to the mountains? We realized that does not serve the purpose.
There is a very good book which most Indians study every day, known as the Bhagavad Gita. This book deals with this basic problem. It is neither the western society nor the eastern society, but it is in the nature of man to live a life of attachment. This instinct of attachment is so peculiar that it cannot only bind you by a big property, but it can also bind you through a small needle.
You may have attachment for a very big property and I may have attachment for a little gold, but the sufferings are the same. Therefore, you will have to analyse the whole situation. There is no use fighting with the items of attachment. There is also no use practising detachment now and here. There are certain procedures, preparations of the mind which bring you to a point of detachment.
Detachment does not mean disassociation with the objects, your people and property. Detachment is a philosophy, an outlook, a way of dealing with the matters of your life. Even if you renounce your duties and obligations, even if you renounce your family, friends, beloved and relatives, even if you renounce your present situation of life, even if you renounce your country and everything, or you remain half clad in the mountains living on a little food, still you may be attached to your ego.
This external attachment to the object is an expression of your attachment to your ego. If you can detach yourself from your ego, it does not matter where you live, with whom you live and whom you love. This detachment is called sannyasa.
In the Bhagavad Gita, the dialogue takes place between Krishna and Arjuna and this is a constant dialogue on the nature and the after-effect of karma on man. After all, your suffering comes from the karma, your interactions. You think if you did not have family and obligations you would be very happy. If you had a lot of money in the bank and did not have to work, you think, ‘Ah, how nice it would be,’ you would be the happiest person. You think, ‘I have to work for my family, my parents, my children that is why I have so many sufferings.’ The Bhagavad Gita deals with the problem. The essence is, ‘Work is not the cause of suffering; interaction between two individuals is not the cause of suffering. The consequences of the karma are not the cause of suffering. The cause of suffering is man’s involvement with his own ego.’
Ego is ahamkara. This is your real personality; this is what you are. You must offer this ego either to God, guru, or a higher purpose in life. If you do not dedicate your ego, you can never practise detachment. Whether you have a family, or you are a monk or mendicant, it makes no difference unless you have dedicated your ego to somebody.
In the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita this is discussed and it is really a very wonderful discussion on the philosophy of practical life. The Bhagavad Gita is a book in Sanskrit which has seven hundred verses. It has been commended by great scholars of the world. Throughout the spiritual history of India, all the great people received inspiration from the Gita.
22 September 1982, Lipica