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Part 1: The Nature of Karma and Destiny I would like to offer a glimpse into the concepts of karma and destiny, explaining them in a simple way. The word "karma" originates from the Sanskrit language, from the root Kriyā, as in Kriyā Yoga. Kriyā means that which is happening, that which is functioning. This flower grows, forms a beautiful bud, and blossoms. This process, this growth, is a function. When we eat, the process is called digestion—in Sanskrit and Ayurveda, pachan kriyā. Pachan means digestion; kriyā means functioning. The entire earth is working. The four seasons, the changing climate—the earth is functioning; that is Kriyā. All planets and stars are moving and working; that is Kriyā. The whole universe is in motion, with atmospheres changing; that is Kriyā. All elements—space (ākāśa), fire (agni), air (vāyu), water (jala), earth (pṛthvī)—are functioning; that is Kriyā. Even this building works: it contracts in the cold and expands in the heat. In this world, in this universe, there is nothing that is not working, that does not have some movement or process. Where there is action, there is a reaction. And where there is a reaction, there will be another action. Every action has an answer in the form of a reaction, and every reaction will produce another action. There are two broad kinds of kriyā. One is natural, involving expansion and contraction, requiring a space for tolerance, like in a mechanism. The second kind of Kriyā belongs to a living being, to what we call the soul. We have a body, mind, emotion, intellect, consciousness, soul (jīvā), and Ātmā. These are different functions within us. This plant also has life. Where there is life, there is, in some measure, the reflected light of a soul within; otherwise, it would not grow. Yet, what happens to this plant is governed by nature. It consumes water and air, it occupies space and earth, just as we do. But this tree has little selfish desire. Other creatures have more selfish desires. Humans have endless desires. This soul is individual, while the Ātmā—what we call in Sanskrit—is universal. It is like the light of God, if you believe in God. Otherwise, you can call it cosmic light. In reality, we are all one light; there is no difference. But as an individual soul, it is like a seed. One cherry tree produces many cherries each year, and each fruit contains one seed. Similarly, all living beings carry within them one seed as the jīvātmā—a mixture of the Ātmā and the reflection of Ātmā within the existence of non-reality, the soul. That soul grows with karma, like a snowball. You start with a little snowball and roll it in the snow; it gathers more and more snow, becoming bigger and bigger. So each day, each life, every minute, we humans accumulate more and more karma, making it increasingly complicated. But if we work in a good way, it is like the sun rising: its heat melts the snow. When the snow melts, only water remains. When the jīva, the individual soul, becomes free from the action and reaction of karmas, that is called liberation. We call this bhāgya in Sanskrit, kismat in Urdu, and vidhātā—destiny. Kismat is destiny, and in Urdu we also say qudrat. Destiny, kismat, kudrat—you will often hear these words. They all have the same meaning. If something happens in your life, we say in Hindi or Urdu, Malik kī kudrat. Malik means God. This is His līlā, His mercy, kudrat. I hold this flower in my hand. If I wish, I can keep it. If I wish, I can throw it away. Once I throw it, I cannot run to catch it. It will fall where it must. I cannot catch it again. I may go and pick it up, but it is gone. Similarly, a bullet in a gun is in your hands. But when you pull the trigger, the bullet is gone. You cannot run to catch it. It will travel and hit its target. Desire is similar. We have many different kinds of desires—many, many. The desire to go buy flowers is also a desire. Desire is not necessarily bad; there are good desires too. But an iron chain and a golden chain can both bind you. So, good karma and bad karma will both affect you. We will discuss good and bad later. As long as the flower is in my hands, I have a decision, I have control, I have power, I have the right to keep it. But when I throw it, it is no longer in my hand; it is gone. How it will react will be different. What is gone is bhagya—destiny. That distance which you cannot recover. The past minute, the past second is gone. Even if you fly in a rocket, the past is past; it is gone. Hari Om Tat Sat. What you have done is done. The fruits that will come will be according to the quality of the action. We perform karma through four primary means: tan, man, bachan, and dhan—through the body (physically), the mind (mentally), speech (through words), and wealth or social position. For example, if you ask someone, "Dear sir, could you please help me lift this heavy bag onto my shoulder? I would be very obliged." Even if the person does not want to, your kind words may persuade them: "Here you are, my friend. Next time, don't take such heavy luggage." They may call you "my friend." In contrast, if instead of saying "dear sir, please," you say, "Hey, you, come and help me!" what will happen? In both cases, what kind of energy did you put into your action? With words, we can create an enemy, and with words, we can create a friendship. Remember, a bullet fired from a machine gun will not return, and a word that leaves your mouth will not come back. When it returns, it will be as a reaction. Therefore, it is said that each word we speak, especially when emotional or angry, should be weighed in our heart for its heaviness. More powerful—either harmful or greatly helpful—are our thoughts, our mental thoughts. These thoughts create mental pollution around our own being, physically, mentally, emotionally, and in the astral body. We are covered like a baby in the womb with a fine membrane, or like a fish caught in a net, or like driving a car in heavy fog—you must slow down or stop. Mental power is the most powerful thing we humans possess. Therefore, we should govern our mind; our mind should not govern us. The mystery is that we do not know where our mind is located in our body. The mind governs us, forces us, uses us. It makes us dance, work, cry, and suffer. But where is it? If you can tell me where it is, I will catch it, hold it in my fist, and say, "Mr. Mind, now I will put you in a box." None of us know in which part of the body it resides, in what form. We have never seen it, never had contact with it, never felt, smelled, or touched it. Yet the mind is within us, and so the mind is the problem. That mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy. When the mind falters, it has a friend called greed. Greed has another friend called pride. Pride has another friend, a criminal: anger. And when anger lingers, ego arises. So, my dear, one after another, these torment us, and we do not know where they are. They live in this castle. People say, "My home is my castle," but someone said, "My body is a temple of my spirit." In this castle, these forces—ego, greed, anger—pollute our intellect and abuse the external world. The resulting action may not bear fruit in this life, but in another life afterward, it can be very painful, very terrible. What we call dictators around the world will have a very hard time. No one will listen to them, no one can see them, no one can feel them. That is an unbearable, torturous pain in that soul, which we cannot see either. We have only this body; we can see and feel it, yet we do not fully know it. We may not know 80% or even 90% of our body. When we are ill, we are helpless. So, tan means body, man means mind, bachan means words, and dhan means your wealth or social position—where you become a boss and begin to do things unacceptable to society. A whole country can suffer because of one minister, dictator, or president. The law may give them rights, but the law also says they should not act against the people. Power, combined with ignorance, is blindness. This is the literal meaning of karma: what you do, you will get. Do not do to others what you would not like done to you. If you want others to be good to you, you should be good to others. Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. This is a glimpse of karma. Whatever you do, you get back. If you work for one hour cleaning this hall, you get five pounds or a hundred pounds—I do not know the economy here. When you clean for one hour, you receive money. That is the law of reaction, the fruit of your action. That is all. Whatever you do, you get. Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. Another clear example: you drink poison, and you will die. The reaction is swift: death. You performed the action of drinking, and that action brought death. So, my dear, karma is whatever we do; it will come back to us. There is also karma that can influence others—a whole family, a whole group, a whole country. Sometimes, unfortunately, one person has such bad karma that, sitting on a bus, an accident occurs, taking many others with them. This is like a flood. This is how karma operates. Karma brings you together. There is family karma. This is a very interesting point. This earth is called the mortal world, Mṛtyu Loka. Whoever is born here will die, and whoever dies will come back. Who came will go, and who went will come back. This is the cycle of birth and death. 8.4 million different kinds of creatures are created by one creator. Out of these 8.4 million, one is the human. Humans have the ability, power, and chance to come out of this cycle of 8.4 million births. If we miss this chance, we do not know where we will be born again. Many good and bad things happen and have happened in our lives. But the most terrible tragedy is for a human to die without attaining liberation—without becoming one with the cosmic light or God. Now, God is a question mark. We humans created God, in a sense. If you ask your cow, "Do you know God?" Or ask your cat; it says, "Meow, give me something." Ask your dog. The dog might say, "Turn the alphabet around. DOG becomes GOD." Who created God? We humans. What does that mean? We researched, we found, we understood, we realized there is something supernatural, universal—some light or functioning force governing the entire universe. To that we give the title "God." There is only one God. That is called Brahman. Christians call Him the Holy Father. Muslims call Him Allāh. The difference is in the name, the language. We are all human. Even modern science now says there is no racism, there is no race. There is only one: the human. Scientists have found that the first humans began in the Himalayas, near Tibet, on Mount Kailāśa. That is what we have always said: Śiva, Svayaṃbhū, manifested there in Tibet. So we all, regardless of country, should not discriminate based on color, gender, culture, or nation. There is only one: the human. Similarly, there is only one God. You may call Him Allāh, Bhagavān, or God. Only the language is different. We are the reflection, the essence of that God, the light of that God. Day by day, pollution covers this light. One day, this light will merge back into that light. For our mortal world, the moon is more immediately important than the sun. Of course, without the sun, we would freeze and perish. But the moon sustains this life and the cycle of life. The moon changes every 14 days. From the dark moon, it waxes day by day from a crescent to the full moon, and from the full moon, it wanes slowly back to the dark moon. This influences our biorhythm and all of nature. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa said, "Through the moon, I enter into vegetation as nectar." Today is a full moon. Tomorrow is also a full moon, but we have a lunar eclipse. This moon influences our life. We have a connection with our ancestors up to the 27th generation. Up to the 27th generation, you have a karmic relation or connection with your ancestors. You find certain qualities, not gender—the word I have forgotten. For example, British lineage is found in Australians. What is it called? Not gender. Genes. Thank you. Look at this example. I do not want to break the flower petal. This petal has a vibration, a color, a shape, a scent—all qualities. The origins of flowers go back many, many generations. Similarly, you carry the genes of your parents for 14 generations, and then their influence slowly decreases over another 14 generations, until you become free from them. Now the question arises: which parents? We have two parents: the father's side and the mother's side. So, both parents, both ancestral lines, have equal rights and energy protecting, guiding, and dwelling within us. How do we become free from this? As long as you do not perform positive karma, positive ceremonies, rituals, pūjā, and prayers, life will be hard for you. They left behind a debt of karma upon death; you now have to pay it back. Therefore, it is said that even if you do not like to do it, for the sake of your parents or ancestors, you must pay back the karmic interest that is due. Part 2: The Web of Karma and Destiny We have relations and connections spanning many generations. If our ancestors are not happy with us, this dissatisfaction returns to us as problems and disturbances. You may not find work or good partners. Your children may not be good. There will be some kind of trouble. This happens because the energy is disturbed. When energy is disturbed, you cannot find what you want. Consider Christianity. In November, they have the first of November: the Day of All Souls and the Day of All Holy Souls. People go to the cemetery to give flowers and lights. In one way, we don't believe in this, because when you die, you are with God. You go to heaven, your true home. So who is there in the cemetery, in the graveyard? To whom are you giving flowers and light? There is a karmic vibration there, and you ought to do it. If you do not, you don't know where you are lost. This becomes another destiny, a disturbing factor in our life. Therefore, in India we also have what we call Pitṛ Pakṣa. Pitra means ancestors. Paksha means a period of time. Indian astrology, lunar astrology, is according to the influence of the moon, and that is correct. Therefore, sometimes we have 13 months in India, and sometimes, very rarely, only 11 months. How? If in one month you have two full moons within 30 or 31 days, then it is counted as two months, because the count is until the next full moon. So it is not only 365 days; it can go to 395 days. Through this, lunar astrology calculates time. Similarly, our contact, our karmic connection, our destiny is connected with our ancestors. You may have good karma, but still you have to pay back your parents. You may have good money from your work, but you have to pay the debt of your parents. If you inherited all the property of your parents and there was some debt, you have to clear it. The same law we have in this material world applies in the spiritual world. There is a story of a king who became a saint, took sannyāsa. He said, "I shall greet all the goddesses, different devas." Then he thought, "Why should I greet all goddesses? They are all bound to karma." He thought of bowing to all holy saints, but they also have karma. Then he thought, "I shall greet God." But again he reflected, "God also has karma." Which incarnation had no hard time? Tell me, please. In Indian religion, in Sanātana Dharma, in our mythology, there are twenty-four incarnations. Everyone had a very hard time. Jesus—he is not considered an incarnation but the Son of the Father—see what karma he had. How nice he was, how simple, how much he taught. The end of his life must have been destiny. So the king finally said, "Why should I not bow down to karma itself?" Karma hi merī pūjā hai. "My prayers, my rituals and ceremonies, are my karma. What I will do, that I will get." Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa said, "You have the right to do your karma, but you have no right to ask for the fruits, because I will give the fruits according to the action you perform." In every culture, country, and religion, there are stories about destiny. Destiny is very hard to avoid. I often tell this story from Greece, which is near to many of your countries. There was a king who had a son. Someone prophesied, "Your son will marry his mother." The king gave the child to a shepherd to abandon him in the forest. But someone found him. A lady named Sophia also said, "I don’t want to see this one; he is a sinner who will marry his mother." The son, when he grew, wandered with closed eyes to avoid going in the direction where his mother might be. But in the end, it happened. He did not know it was his mother, and she did not know it was her son, and they married. So, my dear, destiny is powerful. We can pray to God and do meditation and sādhanā; we can avoid the worst and make our destiny a little easier. The mystery of karma and destiny, how to work it out, is a vast topic. A lot is written in my book, The Hidden Powers in Humans, about destiny and our chakras. Now I would like to take some questions on this subject. Question: There seems to be a contradiction in what you described. Can you explain? Answer: The fruits of karma must not come immediately. In the end, bad actions will have a bad result. At present, you may think you are happy. You did something and are getting good things now. But in the long term, or in the next life, the result will manifest. The result is not always immediate in this life. This temporary enjoyment is a temptation within the cycle of life. Question: Is massive service the most powerful way to burn karma? And through collective prayer, when people from different religions come together, can we burn the collective karma of the planet? Answer: Yes, correct. Karmas are of two kinds, which I intended to speak about tomorrow. Niṣkāma karma and sakāma karma: selfless and selfish action. Selfish karma is done with expectations. Selfless action has no expectation at all; that is called Śiva Dharma, the highest Dharma in the universe. There is a story where God was measuring Śiva and mokṣa (liberation) against seva (service) to see which was better. Seva was found to be greater than liberation. So God gave up his residence in Vaikuṇṭha or swarga and came into this mortal world, mṛti-loka, to do seva and help all pious souls. Collective prayers are powerful, but which religion is ready to come together? That is the biggest problem. In Kali Yuga, religion itself is a problem. Everyone says, "My religion is best." The Hindus, Muslims, Christians—each claims superiority. All the divine beings, sitting in their conference, say, "How stupid are our people? What are they talking about?" As long as religion fights, wars will not finish in this world. Every conflict—war, economy—is unfortunately very much connected with different religions, and with greed and the desire for more power and more followers. Seva, service, does not matter if you are Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, or Jewish. Help all, love all. Like a doctor in a hospital: when any religious person comes, the doctor's duty is to save that life. That is seva. When we do seva with equal vision, we will attain liberation. Question: How can we clean family karma and specific work karma more quickly? Answer: In Buddhism, there are two main things: Dharma and karma. Karma means action, and dharma means obligation, duty. We have obligations towards four entities: Mātṛ-ṛṇa, Pitṛ-ṛṇa, Deva-ṛṇa, Ācārya-ṛṇa, and Ṛṣi-ṛṇa. These are the four debts we must repay. First, our obligation towards our mother. The Upanishad says, Mātṛ deva bhava: "Let the mother be your God." Then, Pitṛ deva bhava: "Let the father be your God." They brought us the elements. We must protect these elements—water, forest, air—and not pollute them. What is life? Life is water. God is love, and love is God. Without air, we die immediately. All five elements are within us; they are God. Our Grand Master, Dīpanyā Mahāprabhujī, said, "Don’t go against nature, otherwise nature will take revenge." You will suffer the consequences. Today, mental pollution, mental karma, is the most dangerous pollution in the world, creating our current global situation. We talk about sustainability, but we do not stop what causes the pollution. We owe a debt to Mother Earth. If we cannot give to our children what we received in good condition, we have failed. What will the new generation say? "Why did our ancestors destroy our life?" The third debt is towards our teachers who taught us wisdom and how to live. The fourth is towards spiritual masters and great saints who gave us holy books and the spiritual path. We owe them something; we should pray to them and be respectful. Work spiritually in this way towards mother, father, and all. Automatically, you will feel peace and security within. Money is the dirt of the hands. It comes and goes. But in Kali Yuga, money is God. Still, God gives you something to eat; don’t worry. As we say, "Who gave the pig will give the food." God gives a small corn to the little ant and a hundred kilos to the elephant. Don’t worry about having no job. Don’t just search for a job; work the job. Create the job. Modern education has made people one-sided, limited to one profession. Learn to do everything, many things. You will never have a problem. We are looking for people with good abilities. I am searching for good workers but cannot find them. If I put one handful of seeds in my field, I want two bags full in return. But if half is eaten and half is thrown, and no care is taken, the birds will eat it and I have nothing. There is a mantra for Lakṣmī, for money to come. I will tell it tomorrow. There is a yantra and a mantra. What are we living for? We don’t need money; we need God. When God is here, so much money will be here. Lakṣmī runs after Him. Tomorrow we will talk about this. For parents, if they are alive, ask them, "What can I do for you?" If they have passed away, pray for them every day. Send peace and light for their soul. Say: "Oh merciful Lord, please bless all my ancestors from my mother’s side and father’s side with eternal peace and light." This is a mantra for evening and morning. It will definitely reach them. There are also offerings, pūjā, which I will explain tomorrow. We will speak more about karma and the soul. The soul is covered with many layers, like an onion. There are mantras and sādhanās to peel these layers. We shall talk tomorrow. There is a powerful mantra from the Ṛg Veda, thousands of years old, called the "victory over death," meaning the path to liberation. It has a beautiful melody, a beautiful sound that clears the environment. Tomorrow I will bring the Lakṣmī mantra as well. My dear ones, thank you for listening. If I spoke something wrong that you didn’t like, please forgive me. If you liked it, think it over. I wish you a good evening. God bless you, and may God bring more good karmas to you and purify all your karmas which are not pleasant. Jaya Hari Om.