Transcendental Nectar of Sadhu-Sanga

by

Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja, Ph.D.

Bhaktivedanta Institute

Dear Robert Searle,

You have written:

Since our choices in this world, and beyond are conditioned from past experiences, and presumably past births via our subconcious, and unconcious sankaras, or mental impressions it must follow that "karmic justice" is ultimately invalid, and a cosmic deception? In other words, souls by rights have the automatic right to liberation (mukti) because they have been unwittingly tricked by the conditioned mind into bad (and good) actions?

Ofcourse, admitting to the above means that reincarnation, and karmic laws are really contrary to genuine justice though superficially they may appear otherwise. This part, or full recognition of this conundrum totally undermines the ethics of mysticism as it is understood especially in the east, and a new revolutionary philosophical/spiritual system is required...and is infact in development.

Reply: I appreciate your critical concern about this important subject, and your attempt to find a solution to what you consider a paradox or conundrum. But I hope you will agree it is necessary for us to consider your proposal critically as well.

Somehow, from the fact that (A) "our choices in this world and beyond are conditioned from past experience, and presumably past births, ...." you write that "it must follow that" (B) "karmic justice is invalid."

I must question your reasoning from the fact (A) "it must follow that" (B). I would challenge that the entire basic premise of your article is erroneous, and consequently your conclusions are wrong.

First of all, we may consider the karmic law, like Newton's law, to be that every action produces a reaction. Generally we don't consider natural laws to be fair or unfair. For example, the law of gravity works in all situations for a child falling off a chair to an airplane lifting off the ground for flight.  The law is not dependent on our knowledge or ignorance of it. The law is the law.

In America, Justice is represented in the figure of a blindfolded woman holding balance pans in her hand. Justice is blind. The outcome will merely depend upon what was done. *

Likewise, the legal principle, 'ignorantia iuris neminem excusat [ignorance of the law excuses nobody]' sometimes translated as, "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is a necessary one, because without it any criminal act can be excused on this basis, and the entire judicial system would become ineffective.

The point here is that blindness or ignorance has nothing to do with the law or justice. The law is the law. Next, we may consider for example, a man strikes a match to light an outdoor fire for cooking his meal. The wind blows a cinder from the fire into a nearby tree, which catches fire, and which subsequently causes neighboring trees to alight. Soon the entire forest is ablaze, and his house, located nearby, also burns to the ground, along with any other houses adjacent to his.

The man purposely lit the match, and We can call the rest an accident, but he had to suffer the consequences nonetheless. We can say he didn't know what he was doing, but this is no excuse for the fact that he should not have been lighting a fire near so many trees and a forest without taking proper precautions.

A criminal who lights a fire in the forest for the explicit purpose of burning down the forest and destroying the surrounding houses, cannot plea that he only lit one tree, the rest followed by the course of nature, and he was not responsible for that. Rather, he is judged responsible for any damage caused by his setting ablaze one tree.

The conclusion is that although we may be caught up in the midst of our karmic reactions to previous activities, that does not excuse one from the responsibility for those actions. This is the law of karma, and it is not an invalid law. Otherwise, all law would have to be considered invalid, and with it, justice would become extinguished.

We are part of a cosmos, not a chaos, and that means a system is in place, and system means that necessity connects the parts of that system into a dynamic whole or unity in diversity. Necessity goes under the name of Law when it is made explicit by rational agents.

A rational agent as a thinking being is endowed with free will, because thinking is a spontaneous activity. It is not caused by any material thing, but rather is the cause of material things taking on their specific quality. The relation between "thing" and "think" is not fortuitous. Thus, for example, thinking is not an act of electrons which are themselves a product of thinking. It is this spontaneity of pure thinking directed toward pragmatic activity that we call free will. So free will exists wherever there is a thinking being.

Free will does not cease to act despite the fact that we may be entangled in a network of karmic reactions. At any time we may remember that material life of frutive activity involves such entanglement. At any point where we recognize our hopeless plight, we may, by the use of our free will, seek to surrender to the Supreme source and controller of all reality, Isvara Parama Krishna, as mentioned in Sri Brahma Samhita (isavara parama krsna, sat cit ananda vigraha, andi adi govindam sarva karana karanam).

It is this stereological dimension of reality that you have not considered as the fundamental choice or free will of the conditioned living entity that liberates one from the karmic law or cycle of birth and death. And this is its only genuine and true function. Otherwise, free will only binds one further to the action and reaction of karma.

*[We may note here that Mercy is beyond Justice, and is granted by a person. But this topic is beoynd the scope of this message.]