00:00Question, when something good or bad happens to someone unexpectedly, is it karma or mere
00:15coincidence?
00:24The happening is just a random coincidence.
00:33How you experience the happening is your own decision, your own doing.
00:43In other words, karma.
00:47Get the difference right, please.
00:51The material world is not predetermined, it is not even deterministic.
01:04It is random in the real sense of the word.
01:13There are just too many cause and effect nodes to take care of.
01:28And additionally, there is the unpredictable element of free will involved with respect
01:39to many of the actors.
01:43Even if the entire material world were a colossal machine, we could have said that a day will
01:53come when we will be able to fully map the machine.
02:00And if we can know the machine fully, then we can determine, predict all that would happen
02:10in the machine at a particular time, at a particular place.
02:15Then everything becomes predictable.
02:19But not only is the machine gigantic.
02:28Several parts of the machine carry free will.
02:33So unexpected things happen.
02:35Therefore you cannot know really what's going to happen next in the external world.
02:44It is going to be a coincidence.
02:45Kindly do not think that things are predetermined or that certain things are happening to you
02:54because you are destined to experience them.
02:59Think of that kind.
03:01Fatalism is a sham.
03:06The external world is truly unpredictable.
03:09Having said that, how you respond to what happens to you is very much your own decision
03:21and you have all authority there, all ownership there and a lot of possible freedom there.
03:29Are you getting it?
03:32So things happen.
03:33Whether they are good or bad depends on your response and it depends on your inner constitution.
03:43From where does your inner constitution come?
03:46Your inner constitution is not really random because you are a conscious being.
03:52You have freedom in deciding what you must be and you have freedom in building yourself up.
04:05The one who responds to an experience from within is not a random occurrence.
04:13The one who responds to an external stimulus is the result of your entire life journey.
04:22Are you getting it?
04:24See the same thing can happen to two people and they might respond very differently, correct?
04:31So how are these two people responding differently?
04:35Surely the external event is the same.
04:38Surely then something inside them is different.
04:45From where does this thing inside really come?
04:53It comes from the accumulated set of your choices and that is what is called karmine
05:04popular parlance.
05:07So you bring yourself to a stage where you will respond negatively or favorably to an incident.
05:17You bring yourself to a stage where an incident will impact you greatly or not impact you at all.
05:28That's your doing, that's what you have done.
05:32So it's not that good things are happening to you or bad things are happening to you.
05:36These are things, situations are situations, events are events, external stimuli are just external.
05:46You have no control over them but potentially you have all possible control over the one
05:54within who responds to external situations.
06:00That's where your authority lies.
06:04That's what you can control.
06:06That's what you must have all power over.
06:12That is life.
06:13That is the entire purpose of life and that is freedom.
06:17Otherwise you are just a slave of situations.
06:21Situations can come and drive you mad.
06:24That's no way to live.
06:25Are you getting it?
06:28So you ask me, good and bad things that happened, are they coincidence or karma?
06:37In other words, a result of our past actions, deeds, choices, etc.
06:45Both.
06:47To what extent are these things coincidental?
06:51To the extent they are external.
06:52The external world we said is random.
06:55Anything can happen anytime to anybody.
06:59There is no guarantee of any fixed thing happening.
07:05At best things are probabilistic.
07:12But when it comes to the inner world, how you respond to what happens to you, it is
07:20your choice, your decision.
07:23And that decision cannot be taken fully in this moment itself.
07:31Because it's a thing that accumulates.
07:34You have to build yourself up rightly.
07:40You cannot say I want to remain under-influenced by all the catastrophic situations outside
07:50and wish that what you want just happens.
07:58If you really want to be un-influenced by external situations, you'll have to work very
08:05hard at developing that kind of a core within.
08:10And that is karma.
08:11Are you getting it?
Comments