By Sankirtana Das
THE UN says that at least 340,000 Somalis have fled their capital, Mogadishu, in the recent weeks of fighting there. Thousands more are trapped along the frontlines inside the city, under fire, packed in with rotting corpses, and unable to find a way out. Most of the displaced civilians are encamped on Mogadishu’s outskirts, where the scenes are medieval. People lack water, food and shelter. Cholera has broken out. The sick sometimes have to pay rent even to sit in the shade of trees. Things will get worse with the rains, which have started. Aid agencies say people will soon start dying in large numbers. (Thursday April 26th)
Let us understand what is happening here. I do not mean on a political level. That has already been analyzed. But journalists and news agencies, unconcerned with the natural laws of action-and-reaction, don’t comment the way we are going to. In Somalia and many other places a devastating truth is acted out: The law of Karma.
A good number of people accept that what happens to them in live is handled by invisible destiny. They know it is not accidental that one takes his birth in a wealthy family, or gets the chance to be well educated or is born very beautiful. They sense an arrangement behind all these and they know it is because of good deeds in the past. To be in this world means that one gets results of past activities and that one engages in new activities. A fresh pile of karma occurs whenever one endeavors for one’s own benefit. Everyone is working hard but mostly not for others benefit: “What’s in for me?” That what is done for personal interest must be followed by some resultant reaction. Therefore practically everyone is pilling and ripping constant shares of karma.
Often the reactions are awful like in Somalia. Such reactions are the result of unlawful activities which accumulate and are very stringent. At a given point in time, these resultant reactions strike. By the arrangement of the law of nature, when members of a society receive the reactions for their misdeeds, they themselves become sometimes fitting tools to carry out that reaction. At such times, their normal ability to make proper choices becomes disabled and they helplessly respond to the dictates of their environment by acting like a chased animal. They then operate solely on carnal impulses rather than spiritual or intellectual forces. As a brutish animal is enticed by a fleeing animal, humans bounce on each other, their lower instincts triggered by anxiety, fear and hate. Although essentially a human being with conscience, they now act without it, thereby torturing, rapping and killing, frequently worse than a beastly creature would. Such people themselves become instruments to act out the law of karma, enforcing the reaction of past misdeeds on each other. Hence: Afghanistan and Iraq, Somalia and Darfur and further in the past Rwanda, Cambodia and World Wars and so on. All there is and has been and will be is the enactment of the law of karma.
There are compelling reasons why ancient scriptures such as the Vedas consider animal killing, taking intoxications and having sex outside marriage to be improper. They describe universal codes of righteousness. Breaking them is the cause for bad reactions. We experience that not paying taxes is breaking the law and brings reactions of punishment by the state, what to speak of violent and unethical acts? So why should we think that going against the universal laws won’t bring reactions? The karmic toll accumulates and we then pay through experiencing natural disaster, war, death and renewed birth, perhaps in a war torn environment.
Fighting for natural resources, global heating and political unrests – these days one doesn’t have to be a crackpot to fear the worst. Some might conclude that they should pray to God for better times and might be hopeful that God will protect them from miseries. But God is not a merchant. People all along act in irresponsible ways and when the reactions in the form of war, famine and so many other natural disturbances come, they pray to God to stop it. Things just don’t go that easy. For example, consider a criminal: He commits theft and when he is captured by the police force, he pleads to stop his punishment. That is not likely to happen. In the same manner, people are engaged in many forbidden activities, and by nature’s law there must be a reaction. God is not an order supplier. He is an order executer. When millions of poor animals and millions of human embryos are slaughtered, the killers and their accomplices have to bear heavy karmic reaction. God arranges for it to happen.
Yet this is not to say that karma can not be changed. We can change our actions and thus neutralize the reactions. There is no point in wishfully talking of peace and mercy until one first agrees to change one’s actions. Therefore one should learn how the material world works and what one is supposed to do. The Bhagavad-Gita, the original treatise on God, karma, and the world explains all these very clearly. The impetuses to act for own selfish interests have to be transferred so to act for the satisfaction of the spirit. We must become God conscious and awaken to the higher taste of spiritual activities. Merely by mundane welfare activities one can not stop karmic reactions.
The leaders of the world might be hoping for a world government united by an enlightened ideology by which to end wars and suffering. When leaders of states admit allegiance to the Supreme and show that path, then things will get better. If in the past bloodshed has been caused by religious disagreements it is only due to a lack of understanding what religion is. Members of sectarian religions plus everyone else is breaking the universal law and are therefore all at fault. It is scaring to see the numbers of countries with nuclear weapons grow. The global stockpile becomes larger and more deadly. It is a question of time only that it will be used somewhere. By the stringent law of karma we know it will happen, unless we learn to genuinely turn to God. International diplomacy is not the solution. That we have seen. What the world needs is saintly leadership. We need leaders who have genuine knowledge of God, the law of karma and who can show the rest of us how to perform actions that do not bring about material reactions. Until we learn this we will go on hearing shattering reports about genocides and wonder how this thing are taking place and why nobody is able to prevent it from happening.