Why do we get karmic reactions for one life in another life?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
We have to suffer the reactions of our past sinful life in the next human form of life. Yeah.
Firstly, the actions are like seeds. And the reactions are like the harvest of the seeds. And it’s just the system of nature that different actions, different seeds fructify after different time durations.
Now if we just sow some grains, they will harvest after a few months. If we sow mango seeds, they may take about 10 years. Some other trees may take 50-60 years to have new fruits.
So it’s just the system of nature that different actions produce reactions after different times. If I put my hand on a hot pan, the reaction comes instantaneously. If on a cold night I eat half a dozen ice creams, probably the next morning when I come, ice cream, my throat is gone at that time.
The reaction comes after 6 hours. If somebody starts smoking as a teenager, maybe by the age of 40 they get some lung problems. So even in this life we see that some actions come, that different actions produce reactions after different times.
So when we talk about karma, the same principle of cause and effect correlation, this is extended before this life and beyond this life. Why is this extension required? Because different reactions may require different circumstances for fructification. So for example, in the Mahabharata, after the war gets over, one of the later retellings of the Mahabharata says that Dhritarashtra asked Krishna, Krishna, I had a hundred sons and why did all of them die? Why couldn’t I have at least one son? So Krishna told him, 50 lifetimes ago you were a hunter and you wanted to kill some bird but the birds flew away.
And when they flew away, you very ruthlessly destroyed all the baby birds which were there in the nest. And this is the mother and father bird, they were watching helplessly as you killed all the baby birds. And there were hundred baby birds that you killed at that time.
And that’s why your hundred sons had to die. And Krishna said, this was 50 lifetimes ago. Dhritarashtra heard this and he became pensive.
And he said, if that was 50 lifetimes ago, why did it take 50 lifetimes for the reaction to come to me? She said, you needed to accumulate Punya for 50 lifetimes so that you could have hundred sons in one lifetime. And then that reaction came. So Gahana Karmamogati, the way karma will work is very complicated.
The important thing for us is, that no matter which reaction is coming from which lifetime, if we practice bhakti, either Krishna can remove the reaction or Krishna can give us the strength to tolerate and consent that reaction.