Commentaries by Vee Jay Attri during the Book Study – Secrets of Karma
We proceed with the study from Secrets of Karma. We will begin from the acceleration of karma. We talked about it yesterday. Let’s have a quick recap.
Sometimes your spiritual progress can accelerate a process of karmic cleansing and may force you to clear your karmic debts rapidly. Hence, it is quite natural for people on the spiritual path to experience several challenges that crop up all at once. Though quite painful at times, it is a blessing in disguise that enables one to clear the path for rapid progress.
Unless and until you clear substantial portion of your negative karma, even the masters cannot use you as a good instrument. So, even for you to be used as an instrument for peace, instrument for transformation, you should have cleared substantial portion of your negative karma. That is a prerequisite.
So, when these things are happening where you have to cleanse rapidly and successively, do not be alarmed. Just stay in tune with your spiritual practices. Keep on generating good karma and most importantly unshakable faith in the divine order, in the divine plan, knowing that in everything that is happening, there is some hidden goodness. This unshakable faith should all the time dominate your life.
That means, you are going to be fearless, you are going to be cheerful under all circumstances. This is the way to ensure that you do not incur any additional burden of karmic reactions. Also when you are seeing people clearing their own karmic debts rapidly, could be a very close member of your family, at times, it is indeed very painful.
You have to do whatever you can, including blessing the people but beyond that, cultivate Saakshi Drishta, learning to be an observer. When you learn to be an observer without any pain of what you are seeing and radiate peace to the situation, you can help healing of the situation rapidly. You having pain and sorrow, looking at the pain and sorrow of others, are only going to add to the pain and sorrow.
That is why after you have done whatever you could do, whether it is for yourself or for others, learn to become an observer; Saakshi Drishta. You have to practice this. It is this single most important quality that is necessary on the spiritual path, learning to be an observer.
It is like you are the co-creator of God. God being God, the ocean of mercy and compassion but he is the witness to everything that is happening. You, as a co-creator, you need to develop this quality. It is in this quality that you will develop fearlessness. It is only through fearlessness you can conquer the world spiritually and this is the prerequisite for a spiritual warrior.
So, just keep in mind that when you are confronted with challenges for yourself and others, you have to understand it is a part of the balancing process. Once the storm is over, suddenly you will find rapid progress, rapid clarity happening on all levels. That is exactly how it is.
If it is not happening, the learning is not internal. All the time internalize the learning. That is very important. Simply keeping quiet and not saying anything while the heart is aching, heart is paining and having all forms of negative emotions including fear is actually tantamounting to fear reactions. This is not going to heal the situation.
So, somehow muster that extra courage and faith and learn to put yourself in a state of zero reaction. This is so important. Though quite painful at times, it is a blessing in disguise that enables one to clear the path for rapid progress.
The story of the great Tibetan Yogi Milarapa is a classic portrait of the life of an earnest spiritual aspirant:
About 1000 years ago, there lived in Tibet, a boy named Thopaga who was later known as Milarepa. On the instance of his mother, he learned the black arts of sorcery to wreck vengeance on the family of his uncle and aunt who had deceived them. With his black power, he killed several of their family members and punished villagers by causing hailstorms that ruined the fields of barley crops.
Milarepa deeply regretted his evil actions and approached Lama Marpa. To help him work out a great deal of his evil karma, the Lama deliberately put him to strenuous physical labors. He asked him to build a stone structure on a high rocky ridge, then instructed him to demolish it and build a new one on another ridge. He made him repeat this ordeal three times. Milarepa’s body was worn out with bruises and sores on his back, yet the Lama made him build a multi-storey edifice on a fourth ridge.
Also, when he tried to join other disciples to receive teachings, the Lama would drive him away with angry shouts causing him great distress. Once, he even threw him to the ground with great force and in many such ways, the Lama forced him to cleanse his past karma. Finally, he initiated Milarepa into many advanced spiritual practices and instructed him to meditate in a cave.
One day, four hunters in that area who were passing by his cave demanded some provisions as they had no hunt on that day. Since Milarepa had nothing to offer them, they got furious and picked him up and dropped him several times – even kicked him and made him roll on the ground, causing great pain to his body which was quite weak due to starvation.
Milarepa repeatedly underwent many sufferings that forced him to neutralize all his karmic debts and made him one of the most revered Tibetan saints.
I heard Dalai Lama once talking about Milarepa and as he was talking, he was actually in tears. He was actually in intense tune with Milarepa as if he was experiencing all that Milarepa had experienced. Fortunately, none of you are having this level of spiritual path. For us, it is actually a very luxury spiritual path.
You will come across people, if they like, they listen, if they don’t like, they leave. And they keep on shifting schools after schools and eventually one lifetime has gone and nothing they have acquired. Spiritual path is not actually for the weak minded or the meek souls. Spiritual path, as Dr. Annie Bessant said, demands nerves of steel.
So, if you are on the path which is providing lots of challenges, understand that is exactly is the nature of the spiritual path. Certainly, it is not going to be a bed of roses for sure. If it is happening, it is simply a spiritual honeymoon.
You cannot make much spiritual progress without clearing a substantial amount of your karmic debts. However, as stated earlier, you can generate good karma that can act like a shock absorber when your negative karma matures. Practicing advanced spiritual techniques without sufficient good karma would be like driving at high speed on a bumpy road in an old car and without shock absorber! That is why in the ancient times, the disciples had to commit themselves to service in order to balance the acceleration of negative karma.
So, if you look into the tradition, a disciple is expected to serve the master for several years. Even before they are taught anything about the spiritual path, they have to serve the master for a very long period of time.
Only when the master finds the disciple is ready to receive teachings, they teach the disciples different disciplines including meditations. So, service is an extremely important integral aspect of spiritual development without which you cannot sustain your spiritual practices for a long time, for sure.
For this reason, it is extremely important to serve in proportion to the wisdom you gain from spiritual teachers. The accelerated spiritual development as a result of acquired wisdom will automatically speed up repayment of your karmic debts as well!
You have to remember that the biggest treasure in the universe is wisdom. When wisdom comes to you, there is no price for it. It is invaluable and therefore, the source from where you get the wisdom, you need to reciprocate it. If it is from a spiritual teacher, do some service to the spiritual teacher.
This is very important. Otherwise, the problem is there is spiritual stagnation and not only that, you will find some reason or the other to give up your spiritual practices. Excuses will come in wholesale. I have seen this happening in many spiritual practitioners.
They blame the teachers. They blame this, they blame that. They will keep on blaming everything around, not realizing that they are the one who are affected and they have dropped the spiritual practices because, because, because. There is nothing called ‘because’ on the spiritual path.
You have to perform under all circumstances. You have to progress no matter what is the challenge. You have to belong to the group which you have chosen. That is exactly how the plan is. If simply leaving the groups and you keep on switching over, you do not learn the lesson that you are expected to learn.
And consequently, even though a lifetime has gone and you think everything is beautiful, in another lifetime, the lessons that are not learned will have to come back to you in another form. This is very important to understand.
The bottom line is, you will have a set of experiences from your home, from the spiritual group, from the work environment, from anywhere for that matter, including the country where you live. Amidst all these situations, you have to demonstrate that you are the Yudhishtir, the one who is stable in the battle.
You have to demonstrate that. Only when you demonstrate that, the lessons will leave you. The karma connected with that will also leave you gradually. It is bound to happen. So, focus on these important aspects of your spiritual path.
Some people simply receive and do not share anything in return, and sometimes look for free services as well! Simply receiving and not sharing sufficiently will result in ‘spiritual constipation’ and the karmic liability that will block your progress.
Further reading: Secrets of Karma, Page 104 – 106