Why Doesn’t Karma Work For Me? I Feel Hopeless Due To My Misfortune

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Everyone has some or the other speciality in him. And your biggest speciality is that you are a human being. Being a human, we are able to observe the reality within our self and come out of all hopelessness. Nature has gifted this power to humans alone! And believe me, there is no better time to make use of this gift than the one when we are completely surrounded by our misfortunes. By the end of this article, am sure you too will be convinced of it.

So to begin with, let’s address your question that why doesn’t karma work for you?

The Fact is that Karma Works Uniformly for Every Living Being

The law of Nature is impartial and very just and precise. But owing to our lack of understanding, we think it is otherwise and hence feel miserable in life.

Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan explains that there are three levels of karma:

1. Seed of karma.

2. Fruit of karma.

3. Result of the fruit of karma.

For example, in our past life, we may have intended that, ‘Temples of God must be constructed. If need be, I would love to donate for this cause.’ We’ve just intended, have not donated anything as yet. This is called the seed of karma.

Subsequently, in this life, it so happens that some temple is being planned to be constructed in our neighbourhood. And the trustees happen to approach us for some donation. We too feel, “Yes, it is a good cause. Let’s donate Rs. 50000/-” Accordingly, we give them a cheque of Rs. 50000/-. We, giving this cheque of Rs. 50000/-, is the fruit of the seed of karma that we had sown in our past life.

Seeing this donation, people appreciate us, “Oh, how generously this person has donated. He’s indeed a great donor!” This praise and honour that we receive from people is the result of the fruit of the karma, that of donating Rs. 50000/- for a noble cause.

Now after donating the money, in case we harness feelings of doubt, “Oh I’ve donated money. But who knows whether they are right people. What if they’ve swindled my money? I did a wrong thing by giving them this money. I should never have given them any donation?” By having this intent, we sow new seeds of karma, as a result of which we will not be able to donate at all in our next life.

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This is how karma works for all of us at every step in our life.

No, Never Feel Hopeless!

We feel hopeless because we want something and are unable to get that thing for long. This something could be anything; a thing, a person, a thing from some person, a particular situation or anything else. Now, your desire for something is a natural phenomenon; hence it is bound to be there! But when our want is not satisfied, we feeling hopeless or miserable is wrong; that is not how it should be. So, here’s what you can do to set things on track…

Try your best to get what you desire. But inspite of your positive efforts, if you are unable to get it, don’t feel hopeless. Rather, motivate yourself to try yet again, afresh, on an absolute positive note! When we remain positive, this attracts positive evidences that help us get out of our misfortune.

Let the past not hover over your present. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan says, “Learn to remain in the present. If you forget past, only then you can remain in present. Past is gone, so by remembering it today, what would happen? You will lose the profit of present.” Describing his own state, he says, “We remain in the present. That is why people say, ‘Dada, you are tension free.’” Tension is to the one who gets lost in the past and for the one who delves in the future. Eg. You have to handle an important case of the day. But you somehow cannot get into the train and hence you miss your major appointment. Whatever happened, happened according to the law of karma. ‘I missed the appointment’ is a thing of past now. And ‘what will happen in the court?’ is future, which is in the control of Nature. You remain in the present and do whatever best you can do in the present moment. This will not let you feel hopeless. The Lord has told us to remain in the present only.

Help others. The whole world is entangled in worrying about the future, ‘What will happen to me? This will happen; that will happen!’ Rather than worrying about your own self, help others. This not only helps sow good karma which will bear good fruits in future, but it brings us happiness in the present too. We always feel happy when we make someone else happy and impact their life in a positive way. So continue doing good karma, sat-karma, and see a beautiful dawn usher in your life!

Do not blame anyone. Our misfortune is because of our karmas. They are karmas that we had created, which is why the mistake is our own. No one else is at fault. Others, who we think are contributing to our misery, are actually mere ‘instruments’ that come to deliver the results of our karma. Eg. would we hit the postman who brings us a telegram carrying some great bad news? Just like the news is for us that comes via the postman, likewise the suffering is ours but it comes to us via these instruments.

Have a constant intention of not hurting any living being in this world. When we cause misery to others, we are not aware of the dire consequences we will have to face. Whatever we do always comes back to us. The slightest misery we give to any living being will for sure return to us. So, if we want to be happy, we must not hurt any living being even slightly. And daily before going to sleep, we’ll try to remember where all we have knowingly or unknowingly caused hurt to someone through our mind, body or speech. And then we shall pray to God, “Lord! I made such and such mistake for which I am very sorry. Please forgive me and grant me enormous strength so that I do not commit this mistake again.” All misfortunes are a result of our mistakes. Once the mistakes are gone, the misery will be over. Hence, maintain this as a daily practice.

Focus on that which is permanent. Fortune or misfortune, both are after all temporary. Then why not pursue something that is permanent?! And we don’t have to go too far hunting for it; for this permanent factor happens to lie right inside us. The Pure Soul present in our body is an eternal element. And this itself is our real Self. Yes, our real identity!

The misfortunes are there today, and they shall be gone tomorrow. But the Pure Soul, which is an abode of eternal bliss, is our real Self, and hence will remain with us forever. So, this is what we want to get to in our present human life. And to our help, we have the Living Gnani Purush, with whose grace we can directly attain Self-Realization in just two hours!

After you attend the Self-Realization Ceremony, you realize that, “I am Pure Soul and my nature is only to see and know.” With this, your belief, ‘I am indeed the one who is suffering the karma’ also drops. And thus, it will become easy to keep your misfortunes separate from yourself. Applying the above points too becomes fairly easy after Self-Realization.