The Law of Karma

It has been almost a month now since I wrote in my blog. I had a severe toothache due to impacted wisdom tooth, which needed an extraction 1 month ago. I experienced the worse pain in my life till literally I ‘forgot’ about anything else. I encountered many sleepless night, thanks to the dentist who pull out 3cm of bone together with my wisdom tooth. 

            Somehow or rather, I experienced the law of karma or ‘cause and effect’ within short duration. Let me elaborate. On 15^th Jan 2013, my wife and children left Australia to Malaysia.  I have to find a new place (room) to stay as I had few unpleasant encounters with the tenant whom I was sharing the flat. I could not agree with the final settlement of the bond with her in which on the final day of my stay there a heated arguments resulted. Finally, they gave in after exchange of few harsh words between us.  The second incident occurred 2 weeks later. I yelled at the customer service staff of one of the telecommunication company, as we were overcharged regarding the broadband usage for more than 2 months. During that 2 months duration, my family was staying with me in Australia and my wife verbally informed that particular service provider regarding the cancellation of the broadband before she left Malaysia. In both occasion, I exchanged harsh words, embarrassed the other person with the unpleasant words. As a consequence of it, I suffered for almost 1 week with severe toothache and 10 days after removal of the impacted wisdom tooth.

            Similar ‘cause and effect’ events have been taken place in my life many times before. I don’t have to wait for the ‘final judgment’ day, as I will reap the fruit of my ‘action’ the moment it is sowed.  The law of ‘karma’ really works for me instantly. Even the negative thought we sow minus the actual action will results in negative effect. This is so true for me. Even though I have not done any actual harm but the thought itself will cause a chain reaction of bad effect.

            In a simplistic way, we have grown up to divide all actions in life into two, good vs. bad. From childhood, my parents’ will categorized every action of mine into above. Don’t do this, its bad. Do this, its good. The so-called bad and good has deeply imprinted in my brain cells. Every action of others, and mine I will judge as bad or good. Sometimes, I will justify into very bad, bad, good and very good. Still it falls in either category except the severity varies. The dichotomization of every action into these two categories has resulted me to look at things in a very divided, narrow way. In medical terms, there is a word called ‘tunnel vision’ which means loss of peripheral vision and retention of central vision. The sufferer would only see the centre of the image rather than the actual picture. In the similar manner, I had ‘tunnel vision’ for so many years by dichotomizing every action of others and mine into good and bad.

            Recently I’ve realized, every action are just action. The good and bad action only comes when we attached value to it. The good and bad action only comes when we attached judgment to it. The good and bad action only comes when we attached our past memory into it. The good and bad action only comes when we attached our mind into it. Leave the value, judgment and the past, only action remains. Bad and good disappears with the value and judgment.

            Now this is bad news for the good-doers. This is bad news for the orthodox preachers. This is bad news for the priest. Their whole life has been wasted doing good actions. Now when I say, there are no bad and good deeds, there are only action, everybody will be upset. They want to be praised when good deeds were done. They want to be praised when bad actions are avoided. When the ‘ego’ can’t be strengthened by the praises, it hurts. The ‘ego’ will get hurt tremendously.

            I went for many pilgrimage trips to India before with my parents. My mother always has the habit to donate money to the beggars queuing up outside each and every temple we visited. There were many occasions, she was not happy with my attitude of not donating money to them. I told her, I will only donate the day my ‘ego’ is not strengthen with my actions. I will only donate, the day I feel donating is just an action. I will only donate if by donating, I don’t have a single thought that I have done good. I will only donate if by donating, I don’t have the ‘nice’ feeling that I have done something good. If the intention of the act of donating is doing a favor to the beggar, I won’t donate. If the intention of the act of donating is accumulating good karma’s, I won’t donate. It is easier to donate than getting rid of the ‘good-feeling’ after we have donated. We can go on donating in whole life and accumulating more and more ‘good-feeling’ that by itself will be a burden. The only way to be free from this cycle of good and bad is to break the cycle of cause and effect. See all actions as just actions. Stop giving values to the actions. Stop judging actions. Stop attaching the fickle mind to each and every action. Aum sadguru.