The law of karma, which dictates that we reap what we sow, is an eternal truth
We were taught this in our early childhood that we would reap what we sow, so why is it that the good ones turn bad and the bad ones turn worse? Despite the law of karma being in operation, why do people not shy away from doing the wrong? This lack of fear of being punished has thus resulted in a world where people with low morals are holding high positions & in contrast, law-abiding persons are often seen suffering. They are crushed under the weight of a system that serves the corrupt and the clever.
In short, we can say that the vices of greed, anger and ego are overpowering the virtues of compassion, humility and benevolence & the whole world has been left to the mercy of corrupt human beings. Secondly, if the karmic accounts were settled in a just manner, then why is that the world cycle continues to head towards downfall? In other words, if people settle their karmic debts regularly, they must return to equilibrium, so why do they continue to suffer? Hence, it seems as if something is missing that yet needs to be understood by us.
We all know that whenever a soul sins, it repays in the form of suffering in that birth itself or the following births. However, even after it has repaid its karmic account, it does not become completely free of evil in the way that it inherits a tendency to commit that sin. In other words, punishment may clear the soul’s debt but the soul has lost its innocence.
Hence, when the sin is repeated many times, the tendency hardens in the form of samskaras or what we call personality traits and the soul is trapped in it. This also brings to the fore the understanding that when a person commits a wrong he is not just planting a sapling of suffering for himself but also digging a pit for a greater sin in the future. The best examples of such individuals can be found in juvenile homes where a teenager is first punished for a petty crime & is given a chance to reform, but it is not necessary that it would reform him. Most of the time, it has been found that the teenager ends up becoming a hardcore criminal & becomes a hardened jailbird.
It is said that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. However, going by the law of karma, the saint must have done several good deeds in the past to reach a stage of such a spiritual elevation, likewise, the criminal too will surely bear suffering in the future for the crimes that he is committing in present. This also brings us to the conclusion that the initiation of the soul into evil and the formation of the sanskaras render the soul capable of more sins and drain it of its energy to do the right thing. This causes the world drama cycle to undergo a downfall. From the most elevated time of Satyug, it comes down to Kaliyug and still heading to its extreme.
Now as the world drama has reached the end of the Iron Age from the most elevated time of the Golden Age, it is totally in a dilapidated form as it has become old and everyone is settling their karmic accounts. The governments are trying to make new laws, they are initiating new schemes but the condition of the world is still deteriorating. It is this time when the Almighty Supreme descends on this earth to transform this world from the old to the new, to change it from hell to heaven. He is currently performing his highest divine task of heralding a new dawn by giving his beloved children the right knowledge so that they can settle their past accounts well and naturally keep away from further indulgence in vices. So let us all come together to receive the nectar of divine knowledge & burn away our sins and transform our old sanskars from their very root to attain an immortal stage of divinity.
(The writer is a spiritual teacher & popular columnist, views are personal)