Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

28. The Impersonal Law of Karma

(Darshan given in May 1999)

Swamiji: One man's karma does not touch another man. If one man is happy, the other man will not be happy merely because of some kind of relation. This shows that there is no relation between one person and another person. The idea that one person has some connection with another person is false because the karma of one person will not impinge on another person, whether it is a good or bad thing. They have no relationship – completely isolated a hundred percent. As Madhvacharya will say, nothing is connected to anything else. Everything is different. Every leaf in the tree is different from every other leaf. Is it true? When I eat food, your stomach cannot be filled. If I am happy, you are not happy. If I am unhappy, you are not unhappy.

What is the connection between one human being and another human being? Even karma is different. Your karma cannot impinge on somebody, either good karma or bad karma. One person dies, and another person does not die simultaneously. It does not take place. Even two brothers who are intimately related to each other are totally different. If one brother dies, the other brother will not die. So much difference. This is Madhvacharya: There is no connection of one with another. Mata nasti, pita nasti, nasti bandhu sahodara: There is no use of crying. Nobody is there for you. Forlorn, wretched, unbefriended, the soul goes to its destination like a culprit caught by police and jawans and dragged to the concentration camp. “Oh, where are you taking me?” “Chup raho. Baat nahi karna. Bas.” You cannot ask the police man, “Where are you taking me?” “Don't talk. Keep quiet,” he will say. He will drag the soul.

It takes one year, they say, for the soul to reach Yamaloka. Yama does not mean a bad man. He is the judgment seat, and he will decide who is what. “What have you done?” “Oh, I have done so many good things and so many bad things. I cannot remember anything.” “Oh, you cannot remember anything?” And a hot iron rod is kept on the head. It is called Yama Danda. Then he remembers everything. “Oh, yes, yes. I remember everything. But I have got relatives, so many are there. They will do prayaschitta karma for me. Then I will be free.” “Take him back,” Yama orders. So one year after the death of a person there is some ceremony in all houses. After that, he comes back. Then another thirteen days it will be dragging on, looking, and it will be very eager to enter the body. So much attachment to the body. If the body is not consigned, it will again want to go inside. So people dispose of the body either by cremation or burying, or whatever it is. The body should not be there; otherwise, it will be agonised: “I am sitting there. I go, I go, I go.” Then they do puja. They give charity of objects which were very dear to the person who passed away. They give cows for milk, umbrella for heat, various cereals, and all this.

Otherwise, if the modern man doesn't believe in any kind of ritual, then again he faces Yama. “What have you done?” “They have not done anything for me,” he cries. “They have not done anything.” “Weigh him, whether the bad is more or the right is more.” They find it is a serious situation mostly. There is a vague description of these conditions in the Puranas. If the bad thing is more, they hurl him somewhere into the cockpit of flames, and he is made to run through a forest of leaves, grass, which cut like knives. The grass is as sharp as a knife. He is all injured. Yatna sharira – yatna sharira is a body which is intended only for suffering, and it cannot die because it is a special body of a subtle nature, not a physical body. The physical body will die immediately, but this is not like that.

Ativahikasharira it is called in the Yoga Vasishtha – a subtle potential – but it suffers. Even now our joys and sorrows are of the subtle body only. It is not that the physical body is happy or unhappy. The mind inside the subtle body, consisting of this prana and sense organs, it is suffering, and that will take place afterwards also. “Oh, nobody is there to help me. All have deserted me. Nobody is there. My brother, my son, my wife, my children, they are not caring for me.”

“You eat your karmas,” Yama will say. “Go and eat your karmas. Don't talk of brother, sister, and all that. They have no connection with you. Throw him.” And seventeen hells are described. You go. And there is the Vaitarani River. Horrible things are described. Vaitarani means a kind of river where hot pus is flowing, and you cannot cross it. But if your relatives have given cow dhana, charity of a cow, they say that cow will spread its tail across the river, and on that you can walk. And suffering, suffering, suffering. It suffers.

Then afterwards the relatives who have the sense of some concern for the departed soul do Rudra yajna, and Lord Siva is pleased. He releases that soul to go further up. Then they do Narayana Bali. Narayana Bali is a very complicated yajna, and Vishnu, Narayana takes the soul, and by this purificatory process it can attain moksha after endless suffering, endless suffering, endless suffering.

And nobody will come there for helping you. You cannot talk to any person. If you are hungry, you will be hungry. You eat your karma, that's all. Nobody will give you food like that. There is no friend there, no compassion, no pity. You should not say you are thirsty. Let the thirst be there. It is your karma. Like that the Yamadutas will threaten. Pitiless condition. “Oh, oh,” the soul will cry. “So much was there. All gone. Nobody comes. All my friends have deserted me.”

You must have thought all this earlier, even before coming there. You must have thought that you have no brothers, you have no wife, husband, and all that. They are all culprits, selfish people. They have deserted you. Why do you cry now? You must have had sense to realise that at that time. There were no friends at that time. Nobody is benefactor of anybody else. Nobody likes another person. You ought to have learnt it. Now you are crying. Pitiless torture is meted out to him.

I was mentioning that each person is independent, and one person's karma does not impinge on another person's karma. You should not say 'my brother', 'my sister', 'my this', and all that. There is no 'my'. Each one is totally independent. You have come alone, and reap your karma alone, and you go alone also. Nobody comes with you. Ekaḥ prajāyate jantur eka eva pralīyate, eko 'nubhuṅkte sukṛtam eka eva ca duṣkṛtam (Manu 4.240). Ekaḥ prajāyate jantur: You are not born with another friend. No friend will come with you. Eka eva pralīyate: You go, you go alone. Eko 'nubhuṅkte sukṛtam: If you enjoy something here, it is due to your karma, not your friend's karma. Eka eva ca duṣkṛtam: Your sufferings also are created by you only.

The world is careless, pitiless. It extracts the last drop of blood from everybody. And don't say, “My friend, my relative, they will help me.” There is no relative. Nobody will help you. You stand by yourself. Terrific is the truth of this world, and Yama tells that. Why do you cry here? You must have cried even before you came here. Terrible – the Manusmriti tells everything, what is the truth. Your father and mother will not stand to protect you. They will not even recognise you. You are a totally independent child. They will say, “My child, my child, my son, my daughter” in the ordinary world. When you come to this realm, nobody will know whose son you are and whose daughter you are. Only dharma will follow you – dharmas tiṣṭhati kevalaḥ (Manu 4.239).

Manusmriti law is a very pungent, strict law. There is no compassion or anything, like with the law of electricity. Electricity will kill, even if a child touches it. Electricity will not say, “It is a little child. Why should I kill it?” Let the king also come, emperor come – finished. They are pitiless forces. Gravitation – if you go on the top of the tree, let the king be there, a child be there. If you fall, finished. Om tat sat. Gravitation is pitiless, electricity is pitiless. The sun is pitiless. He can cause sunstroke. All the forces of nature are pitiless. They are not our friends. Beware. Na putradāraṃ na jñātir dharmas tiṣṭhati kevalaḥ: Only dharma follows you. Who follows you? Not your bank balance, not your money, not your cloth. Your body also will not be there. The result of what you have thought, what you have spoken and what you have done will come with you.

We should not be caught by the maya of attachment, belonging to somebody or feeling that somebody is belonging to us. Nothing of the kind. The worst kind of feeling is that we belong to somebody and they will help us, or somebody belongs to us. Nothing of the kind. One leaf in a tree will not touch another leaf. Each one is different. When you come you are alone, when you go you are alone, when you enjoy or suffer your karma, you are alone. Law is not a friend of anybody. Court judgments will tell you if a judgment in the court is the friend of anybody. It will look that the judges are pitiless persons – pitiless, harsh. It will look like that, but they follow section so-and-so of the Indian Penal Code. They have no heart, no feeling, nothing, only section number so-and-so. No pity. A judge is not a human being. He will follow only code numbers. Under section so-and-so, it is execution, hanging, that's all.

If you want to weep, you must start weeping now itself. Why weep afterwards? All the weeping you finish now itself. Don't weep afterwards. Nobody will give you even drinking water, such a condition. People will not give you even drinking water. They will not give food. All these are mentioned in the Puranas and Manusmriti. Like a Supreme Court judge it speaks. The chief Justice of the Supreme Court is Manusmriti. To the point he talks. For a Supreme Court judge there is no brother, no mother, no father, no relation. He works like a computer. You press this, something comes out – like electricity, like flood, like gravitation. If you go into the Ganga, it will pull you inside. It will not say, “Oh, it is a king, emperor. I should not drown him.” It won't say that. Let it be the king or whoever it is, it won't bother. A child also will go. Natural forces have no human feelings. And we expect human feelings from Yamaraj also. Nothing of the kind. Yama represents natural justice. Like a Supreme Court judge, he has no pity. You should not consider him as a... Otherwise, order of execution he passes, life imprisonment, death sentence.

These are all horrible things to hear – death sentence, and all that. What does it mean, actually? Even the meaning is not clear. What is the meaning of 'death sentence'? Flabbergasted. The person who receives a death sentence cannot even understand what it means. Like a pig he will be moving about. One human being cannot execute a death sentence on another human being, but the Chief Justice is not a human being. The whole point is that. Law is not a person, so it has no pity. They are all very difficult things to understand in law. Is the Chief Justice of the Court a human being, or he is something else? He is not a human being. The Lieutenant General, Field Marshals, they are not human beings. Though they have got father, mother, relative, husband, wife, everything, but they are not thinking like human beings. They are all like machines. You push the button, it goes. Section so-and-so of the Indian Penal Code, you go, bas.

This is the way in which the world is working, really speaking; and we are all fools, flabbergasted idiots not understanding anything, simply sleeping and eating as if everything is going on well. They will not go on well like that. Everybody is under the law of the country, and nobody can be exempted from that. For any silly reason the police can arrest you. You cannot say, “I am scot-free. Why the police should come to me?” But something, some foolish somebody has made complaint. Law can protect, and law can harass if it is mishandled.

There is no friend or anybody. We stand by ourselves. “Let us go for a walk.” There is no “Let us go for a walk”. Nobody will come with you. You walk alone, that's all. There are no chums in this world. Impersonal is the law. It has no connection with human beings or anybody. Law is not meant for men and women and some individuals. It goes like a flood of the Ganga, simply pushes out anything – elephant or man or village or human beings or gods or demons, it doesn't matter. Ganga will throw them out. She will go to Bihar and for several miles she will flood everything. All the villages have gone, people have died. What does it matter? Ganga is not affected. This is how law works. You may say Ganga is committing sin and she has washed off all poor people. In an earthquake, everybody goes inside. You cannot say the earth is committing a sin. Drought and flood, who makes them? All are beyond our control.

It looks that we are alive in this manner only by some mercy, I should say. Mercy – there is no other word for that. There is no legal law that permits us to live like this. It is a severe situation. We think we are sleeping on velvet. Velvet means the soft fur of the tiger. That looks like velvet. On that you sleep. This is the happiness you have got. The shade under the cobra's hood is very cool. Will anybody sleep under that? What do you say?