III / (ii)

Pralabdh Karmas

These constitute one’s present fate, his stock-in-trade or destiny as it is called. The fruit of these has got to be borne, no matter how bitter or sweet, for one cannot avoid reaping the harvest already sown. The Master, therefore, leaves them untouched for man to endure with loving sweetness and to finish up during his present lifetime. If these karmas were to be wiped out or tampered with in any way, the body itself would dissolve.

In grappling with these, a disciple is, however, not left alone. As soon as the Master initiates, the Master-Power takes charge of the disciple. He is helped a good deal at every step. By gradual Spiritual Discipline, he learns the process of self-analysis and withdrawal and grows strong in spirit with the result that the otherwise painful effect of these karmas just blows over as a gentle breeze, leaving him unscathed. Even in serious and incurable cases, the Master-Power brings into operation His laws of Sympathy and Mercy. All the troubles of the devoted disciples are greatly mitigated and softened.

Sometimes the intensity of bodily and mental troubles is increased a little to shorten the duration of the suffering involved, while at others the intensity is greatly reduced and the duration is prolonged as may be considered appropriate.

But this is not all. The sufferings, troubles and diseases of the physical body accrue from sense-pleasures. Bodily troubles are, of course, to be borne by the physical body. The Master, as Word-personified or Polarized God, knows all about disciples, wherever they may be, either at a distance or near at hand. He may even take over by the law of sympathy the burden of the karmas of His devoted disciples on His own shoulders to bear Himself, for the Law of Nature has got to be compensated in one form or another. This happens in very rare cases as the Master may think fit.

Besides, no disciple would like to adopt a course, in which the Holy Master should suffer for his wrongs.

On the contrary, a disciple must learn to pray to his Master sincerely and if he does so, all feasible help is sure to come to relieve him or to soften the situation and to minimize the resultant suffering; the soul itself becoming strong by feeding on the Bread of Life and by drawing sustenance from the Water of Life.

There are, however, things over which a man has no appreciable control:

1. the sweets and bitters of life with comforts and discomforts, physical as well as mental;

2. riches, opulence and power or destitution, penury and abjectness;

3. name and fame or notoriety and downright oblivion.

All these are the usual adjuncts of life on earth and come and go as predestined. All human endeavours are directed to gaining one or more of the sweets of life and in avoiding what is bitter, without realising that life itself is as evanescent as a cloud, a shadow without a substance, a mere mirage and will-o’-the-wisp; ever flitting and eluding the unwary pilgrim on the scorching desert-sands of time.

The Master-Saints by precept and practice bring home to the Jiva the illusory nature of the world and all that is worldly, and manifest in him the perennial fountain of life; finding which one gets saturated to the very marrow of his bones and the fibres of his being and becomes fully satisfied, able to sing away life itself.