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RE: karma and transmigration

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Krishna Kalale • September 28, 1999 


Dear friends,

Of course this question is enigmatic and tough one for any text or 
scripture to answer.  The book Yoga Vasista mentioned here is an Advaitic 
Book.  For example, the explanations here below can be viewed in different 
ways both in terms of advaita or visistadvaita.  However,  the text Yoga 
vasista itself has clear orientation towards Advaita.  Visistadvaitins 
generally do not use this book for deriving siddhanta or sampradayic 
truths.


adiyen Krishna Kalale


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When Sri Rama poses a similar question to Sage VasishTa (in the Yoga
VaasishTaM): "Why does this imperfect world arise from the perfect
Brahman?", Sri VasishTa gives the arguably oblique answer: "Rama, in the
mind of a self-realized JnAni, such a question does not arise".

Perhaps what Sri VasishTa means is that in the self-realized person, the
sense of individuality- which is the most basic instinct of all sentient
creatures- is dimmed by the understanding "guNA guNeshu vartanta iti"
[worldly activities consist simply of an interplay of the modes of Nature-
Srimad Bhagavad GItA], and that our kartRtvam [doership] is an illusory
front for our real status as nimitta-s [instruments]. As such, this person
becomes a "dumb terminal" thru which the mainframe of Brahmic
consciousness acts. Thereby the entire field of SRshTi is viewed as a
light-hearted leelA. The Yoga VAsishTam further says that during every
eye-wink, thousands of universes are created and destroyed within the
consciousness of Brahman. The particular body and the particular world
with which the JnAni is physically associated are thus seen by him as no
more than a minor detail in the ocean of a higher Reality, a sort of
vacuum fluctuation in consciousness. It is simply a manifestation of
BhagavAn's leelA vibhuti, perhaps not unlike a child going to play for
play's sake, in which we may or may not discern an overall purpose.

Just my puerile thoughts on this ultimate mystery!

Namo NarayaNa,
Srikanth