Self-realization · 5 of 11
Action and reaction
What people call fate is the return of their own actions. No one else keeps the account.
On each page the marked passages are the words of Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti, from the books. The lines between them are ours and only lead from one passage to the next.
As one sows, so shall one reap
Every action brings a reaction equal to it. When the reaction has not yet come, it waits.
As one sows, so shall one reap. The amount of reactions to be undergone by the unit entity is equal to the total actions previously performed. Destiny is the totality of unrequited reactions of actions performed. Its reactive momenta are called saḿskáras.
Saḿskára: a reaction that waits
An action distorts the mind, and the mind has to return to its balance. That return is the reaction. Until it comes, it is carried as a seed.
Manovikrtih vipákápekśitá saḿskárah. [A distortion of the mind-stuff waiting for expression (i.e., a reaction in potentiality) is known as a saḿskára.]
Virtuous or non-virtuous, whatever the act be, it begets a sort of mental distortion. The mind, however, regains its normal composure through vipáka, that is, after undergoing the consequences of one’s good or bad deeds. Where action has taken place, but the consequences thereof have not been gone through or served, that is, the vipáka has been kept in abeyance, such suspended or deferred vipáka is called saḿskára [reaction in its potentiality].
Not fate, and not chance
It looks like fate only because the action is forgotten by the time its result arrives.
This experiencing of the result of previous actions is called the unknown future or fate (adrśt́a). One experiences the result of one’s actions in a subsequent life and cannot then recollect the actions whose results bring happiness and grief, because a person’s memory is not large enough to remember or know the deeds of their past lives.
Destiny keeps them so tightly in its grip that they think it is the controller of their fate (bhágya-niyanta), as though it had already determined their path of progress. But destiny cannot be the absolute factor, for if you do not exist, if you do not act, destiny cannot exist either. Being dependent upon your doership for its existence, it cannot be the supreme controller.
Behind every event that takes place in the universe there is the law of causation.
Acting without binding oneself
If every action binds, the good ones included, is the answer to stop acting? No. It is to change who is held to be the doer.
While performing virtuous deeds people must consider themselves as instruments of the Lord. By ideating that the Cosmic Being is the actual doer, and by surrendering the fruits of all actions to Him, one will not have to undergo any reaction.
As long as microcosms exist, action is a must. Thus all human beings should be persuaded to engage themselves in righteous deeds.