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Karma Philosophy
311 certain that good activity produces good results and evil activity produces evil results.
Sometimes we see that a cruel, treacherous, wicked and sinful person is happy while a good, virtuous and righteous one is unhappy. Let us solve this anomaly by an illustration. A man at present has wheat which he has formerly produced and stored. Therefore,at present he eats wheat (i.e., preparations of wheat) even though he is at present sowing kodarā (a kind of cheap coarse corn), but afterwards when all the stored wheat is used up he will have to eat kodarā only, which he is sowing at present. Similarly, a wicked man too can enjoy riches and luxuries earned on account of diverse auspicious activities performed by him in the past birth and accumulated in the form of material karmic traces, but afterwards at the end of the period of fruition of those accumulated auspicious karmas his vicious and wicked karmas with their grave and terrible fruits will rise before him. Take an example of a person who at present has kodarā which he has formerly produced and stored. Therefore, at present he lives on kodarā even though he is sowing wheat at present; but afterwards when all the stored kodarā gets exhausted, he will come to have wheat which he is sowing now. In the same manner, a virtuous and righteous man at present experiences miseries as a result of the evil acts performed by him in his past birth, though he is engaged in auspicious activities at present; but at the end of the fruition of the inauspicious karmas, that is, at the end of his hard times his auspicious karmas along with their auspicious fruits will rise before him.
Some particular result necessarily follows from certain situation or circumstance. Nothing else than this result can ever come into existence. This is called the 'Natural Law'. As is the situation or circumstance, so is the result. This is called the 'Natural Law'. This law never commands man to do this or not to do that. It simply lays down that if he wants to reap a particular result, he should perform a particular act. Nature prescribes that if he sows wheat, he will reap wheat; and if he sows seeds of thorny plants he will have thorns. But Nature never orders us to do either of them. One may sow whatever one chooses or likes. It is because Nature has given him freedom of choice from the very beginning. But once one has sown a particular seed, it is but vain to wish the fruit contrary to it. The law of Nature is unalterable. One who sows wheat will reap wheat only; and one who sows the seeds of thorny plants will get thorns. This is inevitable. Accordingly, if a man performs good acts, he will secure
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