Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Editorial: Inexorable Prarabdha

In the last issue we endeavoured to discuss some points dealing with faith as the equivalent of shraddha. A logical enquiry follows: suppose a devotee has developed unflinching faith in God, does it in anyway help him to get rid of his prarabdha (fructifying karma, that karma which has started yielding results)? Though the question smacks of a barter, we take it for granted that it is a result of our unwilling, deep-rooted anxiety. So let us broach the subject.

Though the term is a philosophical jargon special to the theory of transmigration, we shall expatiate on its definition to get over the apparent bewilderment about it. After all, the idea that something called prarabdha forms the material of our life is perfectly in keeping with our strong claim for doership, i.e., purushakara (self-effort or self-enterprise). The theory reveals that from our previous births we carried forward some impressions, both good and bad, which have set in motion our present life. `It follows knowledge, work and past experience ' confirms the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.¹ It is everybody's knowledge that a person's worldly business account ends in a net gain or a net loss. Whereas this karmic account varies from it in a peculiar way; it retains both good and bad entries. Everyone has to suffer her or his demerits or enjoy her or his merits. Even the effects of good karma can be called `sin' as they lead to repeated births and deaths (Apapaviddham = dharma-adharmadi-papa-varjitam; Shankara). What we are today is the effect of our past karma. So the question of the future is open to us. It will be shaped by our present only. Between the future and the past there is a continuous change which is called the present. Present is nothing but an awareness of a presence. For, this change presupposes an awareness of the presence (of the Self) of which we are unconscious. He who lives in the past is dead even as he who lives in the future is never born. A serious reckoning of the present (the prarabdha), therefore, is the sign of sanity.

The scriptures are doubtless about the law of karma of which prarabdha is the dynamic part. It is said: avashyameva bhoktavyam kritam karma shubhashubham--one has to reap the fruits of one's actions, both virtuous and sinful; or prarabdha-karmanam bhogadeva kshayah--fructifying karmas are exhausted only by reaping the results; and when all the prarabdhas are destroyed, the manifested universe vanishes.² However, a reasonable understanding of the variety of prarabdha is necessary to gird up our loins against it. Our own experience has helped us to classify prarabdha into three groups: svechchha prarabdha (what is produced by our desire to enjoy), anichchha prarabdha (what is produced unexpectedly) and parechchha prarabdha (what is produced through the desire of another). As we have already seen, God does not thrust them upon us.

Svechchha prarabdha: It is not unfamiliar. It evokes in us the desire to enjoy life. We are enchanted by a spell of its apparent charm. No wise man is required to tell us that a major part of our suffering is caused by our unbridled hankering for enjoyment. We suffer deliberately as we commit ourselves to harmful, risky or irresponsible activities. A patient under strict diet eats forbidden food; the result is obvious. Who is to blame? A thief steals and, if caught, suffers detention. Who is to blame? No act of dishonesty ever goes unpunished. If the act is acutely dishonest and harmful, an immediate punishment befalls. Instances around us are aplenty to prove the truth in it. What to speak of ordinary people, even the chosen ones, the men of wisdom, cannot escape such prarabdha. We get a big word of hope when the Gita (3.33) comments: Even a man of wisdom behaves according to his own nature. Beings follow their nature. What can restraint do?

In respect of instinctive actions, Shankara does not reckon any distinction between a jnani and the animals when he says: pasvadibhishcha avisheshat (Shankara's introduction to the Brahma Sutras). It is normally beyond God's concern to do otherwise; because, if a person intentionally harms himself, what law can prevent him? As we are our best friends, so can we turn to be our worst enemies. Like moths we fly into roaring fire. What can restraint do unless it is imposed by ourselves?

Do we ever find time to cogitate how a larger part of our time is wasted unthinkingly under the sway of this prarabdha? We do not reckon on this, because we don't feel anything abnormal about it. All our day-dreamings, building castles in air, are instances of this kind of prarabdha. It seems to be relentless. So it is indeed inexorable, say its advocates.

Anichchha prarabdha: This is like getting things we have not even dreamt of. Unexpected receipt of anything comes under this group. We give vent to our ire for suffering only, whether it is expected or unexpected. But what happens if we unexpectedly get riches? A poor fellow digging a well may get jewels worth a fortune. Likewise many unexpected things happen in one's life. The Ramayana says they are also due to one's prarabdha: that unsought for thing which we receive also comes under our prarabdha³. This again has been confirmed by the Gita (18.60) thus: O Arjuna, being bound by your own duty born of nature, you being helpless, you verily do that which you do not wish to do, owing to indiscrimination.

Our delusion or indiscrimination is that we are the doer, the agent. Then why don't we acknowledge this prarabdha as a product of our own nature? Because the sense of delusion is filled with pessimism. Is the theory of prarabdha so fatalistic? Well, the doubt is not unreasonable or unfounded. We shall try to find out the answer that the scriptures give shortly. For the present, let us proceed to the next group.

Parechchha prarabdha: It means a prarabdha enjoyed or suffered by one through the desire of another. It is a third kind distinct from the earlier two groups. Let us rummage through our experience. A peculiar fact comes to light, that in the course of our life we, in spite of ourselves, get into a scrape. We do invite pleasures or pains as a consequence of our feelings for others or out of our personal and social obligations and responsibilities. It is called `fructifying karma through the desire of others'--parechchha prarabdha. Do we ever like to withdraw from such karma to avoid increasing our suffering? Let us remain thoughtful for a while and then say, 'No'. That means there is no way out of this problem! The question is, whether we ourselves want it. We do not; rather we cannot avoid it. Because it is what life is all about. Swami Vivekananda very rightly observed, `They alone live who live for others.' It may amount to embracing death voluntarily. It is so, only in a noble sense. For, it does not imply a termination of life, once for all, but pledging of the whole life for others and in return suffering many death-throes while still alive. The fragrance of such a life wafts along to bring joy to many while the dedicated life itself, like an incense stick, gets burnt to ashes. Such people actually do not bother to burn all their desires for their own enjoyment and happiness. It is a prarabdha which is suffered by the doer and enjoyed by those they serve.

We began with the query: what is the role of God in the scheme of prarabdha? It now appears that there is no respite from inexorable prarabdha. Has the life to go on unendingly then? Let us try to understand what Sri Krishna meant in the Gita when He said: nigrahah kim karishyati, i.e., what can control or repression do? It seems a fatalist's dictum or a pessimist's philosophy! How could the Lord Himself advocate such a closed system, a dead end to all self-efforts or self- enterprise? It beats the very purpose of scriptures even. So this question should not be considered in isolation; we should read the next verse (The Gita, 3.34) also: It is natural for each organ to feel attraction or aversion in respect of objects pertaining to each sense. Do not come under their sway, for they are enemies (to all spiritual aspirants).

Now it dawns on us that the earlier verse raised an issue only, but did not deny the bright possibilities of control. A proper understanding of his enemies by the aspirant is what it aims at. Elsewhere in the Gita (2.66-68) the Lord narrates how man is carried away by the senses, `as wind does a boat on the waters.' If the natural impulses of the senses are not tracked down at the outset, when they are just beginning to fire the imagination of the victims, they will work havoc in no time. `These feelings have to be controlled in the germ, the root in their fine forms, before even we have become conscious that they are acting on us,' Swamiji cautioned. Therefore, if a person is convinced of the detriment posed to him or her by the natural attraction of the senses to their objects, he or she can pre-empt the attack and take preventive moves. The Lord concludes: `Therefore, O mighty Arjuna, he who could completely restrain his senses from pursuing their objects, has his wisdom firmly set.'

As we do not want to and cannot shake off the doership, the choice between bondage and liberation is ours, and not God's. If we choose to end prarabdha and accordingly make a move in the right direction through surrender to God then only the question of God's intervention arises, otherwise not. In the Vivekachudamani Shankara tells us: they who are in bondage have to feel themselves that they are in bondage. Then only purushakara (self-effort) starts functioning. To be concluded

1. Tam vidyakarmani samanvarabhete purvaprajna cha
_ Cf. The Brihadaranyaka Up. 4.4.2.
2. Prarabdhanashat pratibhasanashah
_ Cf. The Varahopanishad 2.69
3. Asamkalpitameveha yadakasmat pravartate
_ Cf. The Ramayana, 2.22.24.