How is it fair to be punished for past karma without being told what that karma was?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
we get karmic reactions we often get punished without being told what is the cause for which we are being punished so how is this just? yes there are two ways of looking at this first is that there is a transition from one life to another life by which we get an opportunity to make fresh beginnings and that’s why there is if you know sometimes some people live too much in the past you know, if only I had done that if only they had spoken like this if only I had done this then they just can’t live and especially if some loved one passes away then people live in grief for very long and then they are told you have to come out of your grief, how long can you stay in grief like that so living in the past is not very healthy learning from the past is healthy but living in the past is not very healthy and if we had the memory of all our past lives it will be just overload for our head even in this life if we started remembering everything from the past at all the moments or at any moment it will be very confusing for us we remember some things, we don’t remember much of the things so there is this the memory overload for us is avoided by the breakages from one life to another so usually we don’t remember our past lives most people don’t remember their past lives, most of us that allows us to make fresh beginnings each lifetime and as a part of the system of fresh beginning at each lifetime if suddenly we are given flashbacks of our previous lifetime and we did something wrong then it would disorient us a lot and ultimately when we talk about karma the principle of the principle of karmic learning is more of it’s a subconscious osmosis it’s not something of a conscious choice osmosis means let’s say now I am speaking to you now I know that I am using my language you are using your language but if somebody asks me when exactly did I learn ABCDEFG I may not remember exactly when did I am I using a particular word right now when did I learn this particular word I may not remember that but all that language has become integrated into me it’s like osmosis, it’s just going in going in and then it comes out so like that when we learn principles also of living there is a subconscious osmosis that happens all that learning percolates inwards and inwards so it’s not just that when a particular reaction comes at that particular time alone we are meant to learn the learn the lesson that we have learned about the wrong thing that we have done in the previous life that reaction itself contributes to changing our mentality especially if you are spiritually oriented so that’s the first aspect that the learning is subconscious it’s more like osmosis learning and we would have too much of a memory overload if we remember everything so for example if I am walking and I slip and fall now if you start going in causal chain did I slip and fall because there was water over here and I didn’t notice the water or did I slip and fall because I had done some karma in my previous life once you start getting into causes it can become very very complex, very confusing it can become a overload for our head that’s the first thing the second thing is that this is from a more practical perspective that we all have to go through life and while go through life we have to make we adopt that system of thinking or we could say that world view that philosophy that makes the least that makes the most sense so from the ultimate perspective karma if you look at what are the alternatives basically you have three alternatives only everything happens by chance everything happens by the arbitrary will of god everything happens by a system of justice under the working of god I have only these three choices what else can I believe broadly speaking so if you compare among these three choices everything happens by chance that’s a doctrine of helplessness and we don’t function in our life like that we do work towards that’s a doctrine of helplessness we normally assume cause and effect connection in our day to day work and similarly god is arbitrary and cruel how can we connect to such a god so from the intellectual point of view we can say that karma is the least unsatisfactory explanation it is not really very fully satisfactory as you rightly said we don’t know the exact cause about why we are getting a particular reaction but with the kind of knowledge that we have this is the thing this is the world view that can help us to make the most sense and that’s how we accept and move onwards and more importantly if you understand that karma is more of subconscious learning rather than conscious choosing see broadly speaking that way even in our shastra nobody takes karma in that past stage say when Sita is kidnapped nobody goes and tells Sita it was your own karma because of your kidnap when we act in this world we have to act based on this world so why was Sita kidnapped because Ravana was lusty for her because Ravana conspired and misled everyone else and he took her so if a thief robs a person and a citizen goes to the king and says that I have been robbed and the king says it was your past karma because of which you got robbed whole system of justice will collapse even the scripture nobody does like that so in terms of functioning in this world when we face some sudden problems and we can’t make out the cause for it so if we ask the question why ultimately there is no answer for this we may not come to know the answer so why this if I ask I don’t know the answer but if I ask how oh god this has happened how do I act now how do I serve you now that can show us the way that’s why karma is ultimately a pragmatic philosophy it’s not so much about what choices I did in the past and which consequences I have got for which choices it is more about so karma is not for post mortem in a post mortem something has been done and I analyze after a person has died, karma is not for post mortem it is more for prognosis that means if I make this choice this consequence will come therefore let me make wise choices now that is the focus of the principle of karma