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The Enigma of Karma - PN Santhanagopal

Are the Laws of Karma universally applicable? Or are they just meant for Man?

If someone can count all the insects, just the insects, excluding the animals and birds that live within an area of one square kilometer on earth, their number will exceed the present total human population on earth. If one can count all living organisms including the plant kingdom, within this area, the number would still be bigger than the total number of all the human beings that have inhabited the Earth, since the time the first man made his appearance on its surface.

The question is, in the scale of evolution, if one also concedes, for the time being, the theories of Karma and Reincarnation, then, are all these lives on their way to becoming one day human beings who are the only creatures on earth with the capacity to think and rationalize?

The question arises because our scriptures tell us that the goal of human life is to reach the stage of self-realization, which is realizing the fact that there is only one reality and everything else is only a projection of this reality. Every life that has power of cognition, everything in existence that procreates and sustains its species, is as much a life as a human being.

If every life is a spark of divinity in manifestation, it is reasonable to assume that every life, from a cell that begins to divide itself to the dictates of the code embedded in it to the human beings, have souls of their own and hence have to ultimately progress towards acquiring the capacity to reason and think.

Should this assumption be correct; it is going to take billions of years for these organizations to evolve into human species. One can have a fair idea of how vast this time gap is if we compare the time that has lapsed from the time first life appeared on earth till the present times to be equal to a day, then man has been moving around the earth only during the last few seconds!

Creatures, being limited in their cognitive abilities and cannot think and rationalize, it is ridiculous to believe that karma binds them to the effect of their actions. One can reasonably assume therefore that the karma theory comes into the picture when we consider human lives.

The beautiful reddish leaves of the ‘sundew’ plant trap an unwary insect that touches one of its flexible, glistening hair tips out of curiosity. All the neighboring hairs on the leaf close over the victim. Only after the nourishing part of the insect has been digested and absorbed, do the hairs straighten out, waiting for the next meal. When an insect touches one of the sensitive bristles on the leaf blade of the plant Venus’s-flytrap, the bright green leaves promptly close up. The leaf then acts as a stomach and does not open again until the insect has been digested. These two plants, for example extinguish other lives in order to ensure their own survival.

When plants themselves eat insects, when a tiger pounces on a deer and kills it for food, when a praying mantle catches an ant and devours it up, when a falcon swoops upon a flying pigeon and tears it up, when a big fish gobbles up smaller ones, are they all acquiring bad karma?

If a carnivorous animal does not kill another animal, it will starve to death. If an herbivorous animal does not eat plants, its fate will be no different. The life cycle of every being is linked to another: One can survive only by consuming another one. It is because nature has intended it to be so. There is no question of right or wrong acts. It is a matter of the natural selection by the evolutionary process.

What keeps the chain going is a limitless and continuous supply of lower order of beings. Nature keeps a balance and equilibrium, through its activity of creation, sustenance and destruction, shrishti, sthithi and samhara.

Do we kill when we pluck a vegetable or a fruit off a tree or a plant? Vegetables and fruits occur on plants in multiples. When ripe, they fall off themselves and the life cycle of the plant or tree is not affected at all. Similarly when grains ripen on stems of plants, they fall off and set off further lives by sprouting more plants.

If the insects and birds and other animals did not consume the seeds, the entire surface of the earth would become swamped by the growth of grain yielding plants alone, long ago. Because of the consumption of the grains by other beings that depend upon these grains and leaves of the plants for their survival, nature maintains a balance. The same reason is applicable when we come to the eating of herbivorous animals by carnivorous animals or eating of insects by birds or eating of birds by other birds, or eating of small fish by bigger fish. What happens in these cases are not extermination of lives but maintenance of balance and equilibrium by nature.

The story however changes when it comes to human species. The body and the structure of humans are not made to depend upon eating of flesh in the first place. The teeth of human beings are designed to grind grain and not tear flesh. The gastric system also is meant to digest only plant food and not non-vegetarian food.

One might of course ask what will happen to an Eskimo if he is to depend upon vegetarian food that does not exist in the arctic regions where he lives. Or of the people who live in the colder regions of the northern and southern hemispheres where for months the sun does not appear or it does not set for months, where perennial sheets of snow and ice cover the surface of the earth, where vegetation is scarce and inadequate to support other life systems.

The anthropological studies available tell us that man first originated in the tropical regions and spread to other regions. While he was equipped by nature to be an eater of fruits, nuts, grains and vegetables, he settled to hunt other animals and started eating them, long before he learnt to grow vegetables as food. Some, who migrated to the cold and still colder regions, adapted themselves to the harsh living conditions, where in order to survive one had to depend upon hunting and fishing.

The ancient Vedic texts reveal that even the Brahmins ate flesh of animals. There are descriptions of sacrifices of animals being made and their flesh eaten. It is only during the periods of the Upanishads that people, especially the Brahmins, who became vegetarians by choice. The advent of Buddhism and Jainism gave an impetus to vegetarianism and cruelty to animals became an act of sin.

Killing animals for the sake of food by man, who is equipped with a system suitable for only vegetarianism, can be a cause – a Karma, out of which an inevitable consequence can follow.

The laws that govern the macro classical world of Newton go haywire when it comes to the micro world of the atom and all that it contains. Similarly, the rules that apply to human behavior are totaly different from those that govern the behavior of all other beings that share the earth with man. Karma takes effect when violence is perpetrated not only at the physical level but also at the mental level. When violence is even contemplated mentally for gain of some kind or for satisfaction, it attracts the Law of Karma.

Aggressive behavior towards those who are dependent, especially those who cannot retaliate or defend themselves, will positively result in reversal of roles, sometime in the future, either during the present lifetime or during the lifetimes that are ahead. Karma is dispassionate. It is a Law.

Application of the doctrine of Karma begins when violence begins in the mind. Triggering off such thought is always done by desire of one kind or other. When violence is perpetrated for gain or satisfaction of some kind, it always attracts the laws of karma. Can one overcome the effects of Karma? Yes. How?

By achieving total and absolute non-attachment. When realization dawns that ‘thou art that’, Tat twam asi, and ‘I am Brahman’, ‘Aham Brahmasmi’, Karma vanishes. When a soul merges with the ONE, there is no such thing as past or present or future. When Time vanishes, everything else vanishes, including Karma.

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