Guru Sri Subramanium talks about the background of our karma and how we can pay this karma by serving God in all of creation. This satsang was given during a spiritual seminar in Kiental, Switzerland, 2002.
Love will wipe out your karma
If you are going to wipe out your karma you must have immense love. And not constantly look over your shoulder saying: “Now I am paying my karma, I am resolving all my difficulties”. Good Lord, if all of you can see the background of your karma you would not even sleep. You will be terrified even to shut your eyes.
Can you imagine the different stages of your path of evolution to be who you are now? Can you imagine the power of negativity in the path of evolution of a human being to come to realise God? How many lifecycles you have gone through to be in this position that you can even decide to talk about karma?
When you see a cat catching a mouse – and he plays with it with his paws – you have done that. And then you rolled it around and didn’t eat it for quite a while. And you killed it then and you went “crunch” – and now you say “ouch” that must have hurt that animal. Now you feel it but then it was your survival. You are now exceedingly sophisticated to be able to say: “I would not do these things.” But there are people in the world today who can go “zipp”, knock your head off and for the most simple reason. And that is their way of thinking.
In different degrees the human being has evolved. You are now reaching the point of sensitivity. This culture that you have come to term with didn’t happen over night. It has taken you a long time to feel the impact of aggression on any life. And even now you are willing to accommodate it in different degrees. You don’t have that feeling that anything that is done to any life is an abhorrence to you. Now slowly your sensitivity is growing because your relationship with God is developing and so you do not like any aggression to any life and you say to yourself: “I don’t wish to be associated with any form of killing.”
Many changes need to occur for the human being to come to know God. You must refine yourself so much that you can feel that texture of life, of everything and how much it exists, the karma of others. You have to interact with all of nature on a different level of consciousness to realise God because you are conscious that in their path of evolution you are assisting even the smallest microbe to evolve to discover God.
Begin to change your attitude towards nature
The human being begins to change his attitude towards nature, the trees, the mountains, the rivers, the flowers, the plants, the birds, the bees, every single life should not be pushed away from your mind, for you are in a privileged position having reached this point that karma enables you to assist others to develop their nature and evolve spiritually.
All the time you are saying to you: “I have had such an amazing experience of love and I have come to know God and I want it for all of you. All the things in the world that surround me are there to assist them to discover God.”
The canticles of the sun that you chant for St. Francis of Assisi is about praising God in His creation. You transcend all the boundaries to praise God and realise that you are there now having evolved quite a bit in your path as a human being to help and assist other life forces to achieve that goal of Divinity.
That assistance you will develop instead of measuring your pain or pleasure or displeasure. Every life force that you encounter in your life is about your preoccupation of helping it on its journey in the part of evolution.
Spirituality is serving Got at every given moment
Spirituality for me is the opportunity at every given moment to serve God. I want to serve and teach you how to serve God. Through that service you can automatically pay your karma without calculating how to do.
Through many cycles of births and deaths you have killed, you caused injury, you have cheated, you have done so many things like all of us. So when you have an opportunity to amend to help life, to reinstate itself towards God you must grasp that opportunity very quickly.
Don’t think that you can always say “I and mine”. There is a much wider horizon of application of your service to God in creation: that is the hightened awareness and mindfulness of God. If ever you want to evolve spiritually feel the hunger of others, feel the homelessness of others, do whatever you can in your life to help them! That is the way to God.
Karma is for you to identify with other life forces. How you can help them. Feel the pain, the anguish – then you want to find a solution. The Divine will give you that solution. It is our way of thinking how we can help somebody else to discover God.
You will develop an immense sensitivity without even somebody saying to you that he or she is hungry that you feel the pangs of hunger inside you. That you feel that a person is unable to be successful in their life and you will give a helping hand to that individual. You do not wait to be told. That is spirituality.
There is a beautiful song, but I cannot sing it because you would not understand it. But it says: When I was hungry I visited my son. And the son looked at me, he was a very successful human being, and he said: wait there. He told his mother to wait there on the steps because he did not want her to come into the house to be seen because he was very successful in his life. And so he went into the larder and measured a measure of rice and said: “Mother here is this measure of rice for you. Go and cook it and eat it.” So the mother looked at the son and said: “My son, I am amazed that you even went out to measure a bit of rice for me. Do you recall me measuring the milk I gave you when you were young?”
That is the measure of thinking that the human being must transcend. You must have immense love and compassion, not measuring everything. This is what I want you to change in your life that you do not measure everything and say: “It is very important I give you this and you give me that.” No! The measure of love is greater than measuring what the mother was given by a human being. For all of you could be mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters through many cycles of births and deaths.
And that is what is important for karma. You have to not measure anything, but measure it against or how many unfortunate things you have done to nature and life and mind yourself every time: I am in debt to nature.
I love travelling to Switzerland. But before I travel to Switzerland I feel that I have missed feeding my beautiful wild birds. Throughout the whole winter they come on the balcony, the roof and many, many, many! And if I am late Swami feeds them and if Swami does not do it they come and pick on the window glass. There are so many and they always say to me: “I have a lot of babies to feed, don’t miss me.” And you have to think all the time that the life that surrounds you is not some unit that has to survive without your help. You have to help. You have to pay your karma in different ways. For you have killed as I have in the past. And we have to pay our debts.
Don’t put yourself on a pedestal, to believe that you are so cultured and have evolved to a point that you can disregard nature. That is the biggest mistake that the human being can make. Some way you have to pay your karma. Whenever you have an opportunity you should save life because you have taken life and imagine how many life-cycles you have gone and destroyed life, but now having paid much of your karma you are now enlightened enough to want God.
Share everything with life. Don’t exclude anybody. Any lifeforce that you can encounter, share it and give a helping hand to everybody who is blind in their sight. When you use the word “blind” how many people can see? How many people can see clearly what they want to achieve in their life? They live in ignorance. And you have evolved and desire God, then it is time you begin to see clearly where you are going and what you want to do. If at all a spiritual path is set before you, you must want to serve God in all of life.
Love – love everything that you encounter in your life. You want to pay your karma? When you have a little bit of pain, don’t rush to swallow a whole bottle of paracetamol. Just let it be a little bit, it is good for you.
Suffer on to Me, said Christ. Through your suffering you can find Me. Do you think that Christ’ suffering was for nothing? Christ’ suffering was for a specific reason to pay the karmic debts of those who believed in Him. Don’t run away from thought and even He at a point in His suffering said: “If it is Your will my Lord, my God, may You take this immense debt that I have to pay away.” But almighty God said: “No, You have to fulfil the scriptures, You must do as You have been told and pay the karma.” So He was crucified.
A lot of people would like for the karma to be removed and make it very easy. But if you know your background then that is the reason you do not see God at the moment. So don’t worry, it is a matter of time. Through patience and perseverance and sacrifice and your service to life, you will discover God.
Guru Sri Subramanium
