The Journey out of Guilt
A gang member asked me if his karma would be forgiven...
“A Guru can definitely relieve a person of their sins, though the person must also make some effort of their own.” — Gurudeva
A young man once stood before me to ask a question that had been troubling him for years. He was a gang member and drug dealer, and had hurt many people along the way. He wanted to know if those actions would follow him for the rest of his life. Would he have to pay for his wrongdoings? Would his karmas be forgiven? Such were his questions.
I told him, Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, whatever wrong a person might have done in the past, the moment they come onto the spiritual path, they are already moving in the right direction. Then only good things will happen to them.
The young man said, “Already, better things have started happening to me.” For this shift to stay, this knowledge has to be there in the mind. You have to come back to it again and again, until it settles in completely. When this knowledge resonates more and more in your mind, there is no way anything can go wrong.
He had made a real commitment, and that commitment mattered more than the years that came before it. It does not erase what happened, but it does change what happens now and in the future.
In the Srimad Bhagwatam, there is a similar story about a king named Ajamila, a man whose life was marked by many vices. But when he was on his deathbed, he called out for his son, whose name happened to be Narayana, one of the names of God. In that instant of calling out God’s name, even though his intention was entirely personal, he found liberation. This story helps to build trust in people that, however their past has been, there is no need to waste time worrying, being tense and guilty about it. Even at the last moment, chanting God’s name can help you attain liberation.
This does not mean that you do whatever you want in life and at the last moment chant God’s name. It doesn’t give you a license to indulge in vices under the assumption that everything is forgiven regardless. It only indicates that you don’t have to be guilty of your past and continue repenting it. The past is gone, and what matters now is devotion and connection to the Divine in the present.
Carrying guilt for years is like the fire that burns you from inside. Guilt does have some purpose. It stops a person from continuing a cycle of actions that harm themselves or others, acting like a brake at the right moment. But once that purpose has been served, holding on to it further does nothing but weigh a person down. That person who made the mistake has packed their suitcase and left. What remains is a new person. Start believing in the innocence of the present moment.
This is where the role of a Guru becomes significant. A Guru can definitely relieve a person of their sins, though the person must also make some effort of their own. When you sin and you realise that you made a mistake, you cannot relieve yourself of sin, but the Guru can definitely do it for you. At the same time, you have to do Purusharth (self-effort). You need to do some good work. And the sense of love and devotion is equally proportionate to the amount of karma that gets released.
There is a simple way to understand how this works. If a room has been in darkness for twenty years, it does not take another twenty for a lamp to dispel the darkness in the room. In the same way, if negative karma is there, there is little darkness; there is no light there. Put the light on; darkness vanishes.
How to get rid of negative karma? With meditation, knowledge, and service. Meditation settles down the feverishness in the mind and makes you more aware. Through awareness, wisdom dawns in you and purifies you, burning all your karmas. Wisdom is the prevention, and meditation is the cure. The deeper you go in meditation, the urge to share increases. If you do some work for others, you gain merit for yourself. If someone is happy, just know that they have done some seva in the past. Conversely, if you are not happy now, do seva and gain more merit. It’s like improving the bank balance. The more you give, the more strength will be given to you. The more we open ourselves, the more room we will have for God to fill us.
Know that the negative karma does not touch the true Self in you. The way a shadow does not touch a person standing in the sun.
How to get rid of negative karma? With meditation, knowledge, and service. Meditation settles down the feverishness in the mind and makes you more aware. Through awareness, wisdom dawns in you and purifies you, burning all your karmas
