If good karma can’t change bad karma, how does atonement work?

Transcript

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for going spiritually can good karma not cancel bad karma then how does prayaschitta work is this prayaschitta good karma or what is it generally with respect to karma it’s gahana karma no gati karma is very difficult to understand we often take one set of statements and just absolutize them when we say karma can’t be changed when that kind of statements come in the point of those statements is that we need to be responsible while making our actions while doing actions while making our choices but when it is said that the karma can’t be changed does it necessarily mean that after we have made a mistake we should not try to correct that mistake obviously we should if I have made a mistake now as soon as I realize let me do course correction and if I do course correction then the consequence of that mistake will be minimized so if I acknowledge my mistake if I apologize if I rectify the purpose of then again the reaction will be minimized say if somebody somebody is caught speeding somebody goes above the speed limit and then the cop pulls them over now if they refuse to pull over and keep running then the penalty may be much lower if somebody is just pulled over for the first time and they say I am sorry this happened or whatever they explain the cop may let them go also so now it’s not that there are rules but there is also time, place, circumstance just to be considered so similarly we don’t have to absolutize these statements karma is very complicated and sometimes we just take one statement and we absolutize it for example some people say that the number of breaths that we are going to take is fixed ok it’s true but then in the same tradition which from which the statement has come also comes another statement also comes a whole branch of knowledge called Ayurveda and the whole purpose of Ayurveda is to increase Ayu Ayu is life span so if our life span is this time then how can the life span be increased so the point is that if a person has died in order to accept the death of the person at that time life and death are this time at this particular point this death has happened let’s move on in life but when we are living we have to do what it takes to improve our health so if we have to take a right diet, we do the right exercise, we act in a healthier way that’s within our hands so no need to absolutize any one statement in karma the only statement if you want to absolutize is that karma is too complex to be absolutized the basic principle we understand Bhaktivinoda Thakur says in his Chaitanya Shiksha Amrit that the basic principle of karma is that our actions have consequences and therefore we should choose our actions wisely specifically which action has what consequence, which consequence can be cancelled, which consequence can’t be cancelled that is too technical for us to know so when we do Prayaschitta when we atone for some wrong doing what are we essentially doing there we are simply it’s like if we commit a wrong doing and we ourselves go and admit okay I did this wrong doing then quite often even in our man made system of justice a person who makes a guilty plea acknowledges and cooperates with the justice system that person will be considered less culpable than a person who keeps running away and evading from there and escaping and denying so similarly for us also if this is this is a basic principle of fairness in a man made system surely it will be there in the divine system also so if we recognize we have done some wrong and we atone for it then definitely there will be some minimization of the reaction for that the purpose of karma is not retribution it is reformation retribution means you did this wrong, you have to be punished with that wrong by that thing that’s not the purpose the purpose is reformation to help us to reorient ourselves so that we become directed towards Krishna devoted towards Krishna so if that is happening then retribution itself is not required if reformation is happening then purpose is not simply to give retribution, the purpose is to bring about reformation does that answer your question?