[LeadersWorkshop] Fw: ~~~~~~~~~...Karma vs. Free Will

 

 

Rajendra.Deshpande.
Trainer.
 Karma vs. Free Will

 

   

Karma vs. Free Will By: Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj  Around 300 years B.C., there was a Greek philosopher named Zeno who lived in Athens. One day, the philosopher caught his slave stealing. He decided to teach him a lesson by giving him a beating for stealing.   The slave, who was a bit of a philosopher himself, said, Zeno, why are you beating me? It was fated that I should steal.   The philosopher Zeno quickly responded, And it was fated that I should beat you for stealing!   This story is rich in meaning for those who think about the question of karma. Many times people say that they committed a wrong because of their karma. They tend to confuse the law of karma with free will. The saints speak of human beings as having twenty-five percent free will. The other seventy-five percent of what happens to us in life is due to the reactions of our past karmas.   The karmic events in our life are those that are reactions of the past. They tend to be reactions that happen to us. Despite our best care to be safe, an accident befalls us without any explanation or reason. We may be working hard to make a living, and out of the blue we suffer a financial setback. We may live our lives as good people, but something bad happens to us. The law of karma is based on the belief that these seemingly unexplained events that occur in our lives are due to reactions from the past, either earlier in this life or in a previous life.   We may not have been trying hard to have something happen, but we have a stroke of seeming good luck and win a prize, get money out of the blue, or meet a special person with whom we fall in love and marry. We may suddenly meet good fortune out of the blue. All these events, both good and bad, that come to us without trying are usually the result of our past karma.   Some people use karma as an excuse to do wrong, but when it comes to our making a choice as to how to act in a certain situation, that usually falls under free will. It is not ordained that we break the law, hurt someone, or steal. Those are choices that we make in our own lives. We cannot blame God and our karmas for our shortcomings. We may come into life with our personality, but what we do is up to our choice or free will.   Just as Zeno and his slave used fate as the excuse for committing a wrong, when we do so ourselves, we are bound to get the reaction. The initial wrong might be due to free will, but the consequence then is our karmic debt that we incur.   As we live our life, we can live by the principle of Be Good, as Sant Kirpal Singh Ji Maharaj said. We have free will to choose between committing good or evil. We need to take responsibility for our actions. Whatever we choose, we reap the reward or the punishment.   Rather than spending time pondering over what is our karma and what is free will, we should take it that we have choices to make and should always choose to do good over evil.

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