Law of Karma

SR No.: 007009
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nirmala Jha
Publisher: Capital Pubishing House Delhi
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 168
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 143

Conclusion
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the processes that it uses for the purpose. For him, our soul is greater than its karma.
All is not Law and process, there is also Being and consciousness, there is not only a machinery but a spirit is things, not only Nature and law of cosmos but a cosmic spirit, not only a process of mind and life and body but a soul. ... If it were not so, there could be no rebirth of a soul and no field for a Law of Karma.17
Mahatma Gandhi also advocates the efficacy of the Law of Karma. His belief is absolutely a product of his extreme respect for Hindu beliefs and tradition. He describes the metaphysical status of man in terms of his karmas. According to him, every individual is unique because of his peculiar physical and mental inheritance. What an individual now is, is the effect of his actions, habits, thinking, feeling and speaking in the past. Man makes himself what he is through his diverse activities. But, for Gandhiji, it is the moral significance of the Law of Karma which appears to be important because it is consistent with his moral beliefs. The realisation that one's own karmas determine the future nature and status of man gives rise to the further realisation that it is man himself who is the architect of his own destiny. Gandhiji says that such realisation helps man to create a sense of responsibility. He will realise the responsibility. He will realise the reality of the Divine latent in him.
Swami Vivekananda is of the view that our actions produce tendencies, in accordance with which our future lives are determined. He affirms that man does his actions out of ignorance. He somehow or other forgets his own real nature and fails to discriminate between the real and unreal. Consequently, he performs the actions in the light of his wrong and false notions. Such actions create samskārās or tendencies which determine our future nature.
In spite of the determination stated above, Vivekananda holds that freedom constitutes the real nature of man, Freedom does not mean absence of all kinds of determining factors. Freedom in that case would be the state of chaos. Truly