Does the fact that whatever happens to us is a result of our own karma imply that we passively accept whatever happens to us or not bother about the results on others of what we do?

From Ravi:

According to Gita, You get something in response of something you have done. “Jaise karoge, waisa bharoge”. Hence what ever any body is getting, one is getting and other is losing is the response of their past work. This is the way world continues. When ever some one loses, he should analyze what wrong he has done in past and what good he can do.

Question from Ravi Prabhu. This is a comment on the article. Does our happiness cost others misery? According to Gita, you get something in response of something you have done.
Jaise karoge, waise bharoge. Hence, whatever anybody is getting, one is getting and other is losing is the response of their past work. This is the way the world continues.
Whenever someone loses, he should analyze what wrong he has done in the past and what good he can do. So in the article, the main point was that when we seek worldly happiness, we cause misery to others. For example, when people mint money through industries that cause pollution to others, that cause pollution to the environment and harm the health of others, then they are getting pleasure at the cost of the misery of others.
So how does the law of karma factor into this? Are the people who are building these polluting industries not responsible? Because the people who are suffering the result of pollution are simply suffering their own karma. Actually, this is a very incomplete and incoherent understanding of the principle of karma. The Vedic philosophy focuses not so much on what happens to us, but on what we should do.
The Bhagavad Gita is spoken not just to tell Arjuna to accept whatever is happening. Oh, this war is happening and all your relatives are going to be killed and you have to fight. It is not so much about what is happening.
The purpose of the Bhagavad Gita is to tell Arjuna what he should do. And what he should do is certainly not passive acceptance. If Arjuna had to do passive acceptance, then he could have gone to the forest.
And Krishna precisely told him to not go to the forest. So Arjuna could himself have justified by the law of karma by saying, oh, whatever is happening to us, we have been exiled, our wife has been disrobed, we have been cheated of all our property. It’s all that is happening is our own karma.
So let us accept it. Arjuna did not do that. And Krishna told him not to do that.
Krishna exhorted him to take assertive action by engaging in the war. So why? We shouldn’t get a lopsided understanding of the karma principle, which equates it with total passivity in life. The principle of karma is primarily meant to help us make sense of life when the normal course of events doesn’t seem to make sense.
That means if a student studies in the exam and doesn’t get marks, then why is that happening? That’s because of the student having done some inappropriate karma in a previous life, or in the past sometime. Now, if we twist it, conversely, the student doesn’t study carefully, and then doesn’t get marks and then says, oh, I didn’t get the marks because I didn’t do the karma properly. I didn’t, I didn’t get marks, because it’s my karma to not get marks.
That is passivity. And that is completely unjustified as per the law of karma. Why? Because the principle of karma is not meant to justify our irresponsibility.
But it is meant to make us not discouraged, even when after being responsible, we don’t get the results. So there is an elaborate lecture on this website on the topic of karma as well as there are several articles also which you can read it if you just give a search for karma, where you will get a clearer understanding. But briefly over here, this was the argument that Dhritarashtra was giving to Vidura when Vidura told him, stop Duryodhana from his course, otherwise your whole dynasty will be destroyed.
Dhritarashtra said, oh, if it is in the will of destiny, if it is by the karma of our dynasty that the dynasty is going to be destroyed, then what can I do to stop it? So Vidura told Dhritarashtra at that time, destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. So destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. That means, after a student has studied, whether the student will get marks or not, that is determined by destiny.
But whether the student studies or not is not determined by destiny. So coming back to the example of pollution, destiny doesn’t determine whether that person who is investing in a polluting industry is actually, should invest in that polluting industry, should spend his money and try to mint money more through that polluting industry. That is by that person’s individual choice.
Now, as a consequence, certain people may suffer, but because that person has become an instrument for suffering, for causing suffering to others, so surely that person has to bear the consequences. Those people will get their karmic results in some way or the other, if not through this person and through another person. But this person is not starting the industry because he thinks that I want to be a part of a cosmic justice system and I want to give the karmic results of the people to them, of those people.
And that person doesn’t have the authorization to do that. That person is simply motivated by the desire to earn more money. So when the point here is when we seek material enjoyment in unregulated, insensitive ways that trespass on the right of others, we get the karmic consequences for that.
And this awareness should make us more responsible about the actions that we do. So here we are confusing two essential issues. One issue is the reactions that we get to the actions.
And the second is the actions that we choose to do. So, for example, say, recently in the T20 championship, India crashed out before reaching even the semifinals. So now many Indian fans were heartbroken by that.
So now the pain that they went through at that time, was it their karma? Yes, it was. But what was the karma? The karma was not just something that they had done in their past life. The karma was also that they got so attached in this life to it.
So cricket as a form of recreation or entertainment is one thing. But cricket as an obsession is certainly something much more damaging. When Sri Lanka lost in the finals, two Sri Lankan pacts committed suicide.
Now, is their committing suicide a result of their past karma? Obviously not. It is the choice that they made in their own this very life. And why did they make that choice? Because they sought enjoyment in an obsessive way through cricket.
And when they didn’t get that enjoyment, they became so frustrated that they ended their life. So the point here is that if we seek material enjoyment in inconsiderate ways, then that seeking itself comprises a form of bad karma that piles, that adds to our karmic consequences, which we have to bear. So we need to be intelligent.
Now, if a boy starts developing an affair with a girl, and then that girl breaks that boy’s heart and goes away. Now the boy can say, oh, it was my own bad karma. That is fine.
But what bad karma was that? It is not necessary that bad karma had to come from the previous life. In this life itself, the boy became infatuated with that girl. And that hope for the enjoyment led to the whole complication led to the frustration.
So ultimately, even when we say the karma from the past, what is the karma from the past, the karma from the past was caused by certain material desires from the past, certain hopes for material enjoyment from the past. And those hopes are what need to be abandoned, especially when the hopes for material enjoyment are disproportionate, obsessive and uncontrolled. So that is the thrust of the article, that if we seek enjoyment in a disproportionate, uncontrolled, obsessive way, we cause suffering to others.
And eventually we also get suffering ourselves. So when we say we are causing suffering to others, what does that mean? That means from this life’s perspective, our actions are causing others trouble. And of course, we will sooner or later get the trouble back ourselves.
But the point is, we are causing trouble to others. Now, our issue is not here that others are going to anyway get the karmic suffering. That is fine.
But we don’t have to become instruments to give others the karmic suffering that is the response of the cosmic justice system and that will take care of that. We shouldn’t pervert the logic and principle of karma by using it to abdicate moral responsibility. For example, when a doctor is treating a patient, the patient is suffering the doctor’s own karma, the patient’s own karma.
But should the doctor think like that? Oh, this person is suffering his own karma. Let him suffer. No, it’s the doctor’s duty to save the patient.
So this sort of misunderstanding about the principle of karma can make us very, very passive and irresponsible in life. We need to understand that the principle of karma is not destiny centric, it is duty centric. It is focused not on what happens to whom, but it’s focused on who does what.
The whole Bhagavad Gita is not focused on what happened to the Pandavas or the Kauravas. The whole Bhagavad Gita is focused on what Arjuna did. And this whole Gita daily article is focusing on that point.
Are we making intelligent choices when we are doing our actions? Thank you.