In this Weekly Wisdom, Gurudev speaks about how karma sticks to you and how grace can help you rise above it.
In response to questions about grace and karma, Gurudev shared the following:
Ending the karmic cycle
Karma sticks to you if your intellect is caught up in it. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, “If someone's intellect isn't sticking to any action, even if he destroys the whole world he will never get any karma from it.”
Your intellect has a photographic memory. That impression is what stays with you as karma. If you're like a mirror, you don't catch any impression. But if you're like a photographic screen, you'll catch it.
One whose intellect doesn't get attached and sees everything as a play, joke, or hologram, isn't getting karma.
An enlightened person doesn't get karma because, like a mirror, they don't hold onto any image. Images are reflected but then move away, so the mirror remains empty.
You've walked on ants without knowing. You don't say, “Oh, my karma has come.”
But If you intentionally harm anybody and that impression stays in your mind, you've caught that karma.
Karma and grace
A terrorist may have some good karma also. This is why Krishna said, “The way of karma is unfathomable.” It's so deep, so vast.
When we say good and bad karma, what do we mean? A karma which brings you misery you call bad. A karma which gives you comfort you call good. But this changes. What you consider bad luck at some point turns out to be good in due course. And good turns out bad.
So, happiness and misery are part of karma. Action is karma, and the cause of action is also karma.
In the larger picture, there's nothing called good or bad karma. Action is action. Action has consequences.
But grace is unconditional and helps one to rise above karma, and brings you freedom.
The right thing at the right time
Many times my interactions with you are completely independent of who and what you are, or whether you deserve it. You call it grace, but there's a time for everything. And at the right time, the right things happen.
Karma doesn’t fit in a box
You think with a linear angle. For you, it's white or black. I say no, it's gray.
You want to put everything into one box and say everything is karma. So meditation, blessings, and grace are also karma. Reality doesn't fit like that. Existence is illogical. It transcends logic. It's beyond that.
Most of your activity is karma. And yet, there's something called grace, which drops into your lap.
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