Book Title: Practice of Karma Yoga
Author(s): Swami Sivananda
Publisher: Divine Life Society

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Page 177
________________ KARMA AND FREEDOM Dharma. Rishi Viswamitra took forbidden meat from a Chandala when there was severe famine and offered this in his sacrifice to the Devas. Ushashti, a learned sage took the Ucchishta beans from the hands of an elephant-driver when he was suffering from acute hunger and when he was not able to get food from anyone. Performance of one's own duties brings happiness, quick evolution and freedom. 3. AS YOU SOW SO SHALL YOU REAP This world runs on well-established laws. There is no chaos. There is no such thing as accident or chance in life. Events occur in succession or order. There is perfect harmony. The child grows, attains boyhood and adolescence, begets children, decays and dies. The child becomes a father and the father brings forth a child. How is it that a human being is born of a human being, a horse of a horse, a cat of a cat, a dog of a dog, and a monkey of a monkey. A seed sprouts and comes out with leaves, stems, twigs and flowers. It brings forth fruits and seeds in due seasons. A seed from this fruit brings forth a tree like the parent tree. The seed of a mango tree cannot give rise to the growth of a Jambu tree. How is it that only a mango tree comes out of a mango seed, a Jambu tree from the Jambu seed, an apple tree from an apple seed? This is a great mystery indeed. There is some mysterious power that is working behind all these phenomena. That mysterious, all-pervading power or 173

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