feelings and intentions may be able to reveal the type of evolution which one has
reached and the distance that one maintains at present from the goal that is beyond.
The practice of yoga is, therefore, not a kind of karma that we perform. It is the
solution for the bond of karma by setting at naught the causes and the other factors
mentioned previously—hetu, phala, asraya and alambana. Yoga sets at naught the
very root of the problem by detecting where the problem lies. We cannot answer a
question unless we understand the question. We cannot solve a problem unless we
know what the problem is, and then we must know where the problem lies. The
problems of human nature lie in human nature itself; they do not come from outside.
They are certain results that automatically follow from the very nature of
humankind. The way in which we think and feel is behind the way in which we act;
and, inasmuch as the act has to produce or reap the consequence, it follows that the
consequence is actually caused by our feelings, our thoughts, our notions—our total
outlook of life itself.
Therefore, unless the outlook of life is changed, the bondage of karma cannot be
severed. There should be a complete reorientation of the mode of life of the
individual in such a manner that it sets itself in harmony with the way in which
nature would like him to think and act. That is, one has to become super-
individualistic—transcendent to individuality. Until that time, karma will bind.
Wherever one is, whatever one be, whatever be the distance in time between one
birth and another birth, the forces of karma will pursue a person: jāti deśa kāla
vyavahitānām api ānantaryaṁ smṛti saṁskārayoḥ ekarūpatvāt (IV.9). “Just as a small
child of a cow finds its mother in the herd of cows by wriggling through the crowd,
hither and thither, so will the result of your karma find you wherever you are,” goes
an old saying. We may run away to a distance of thousands of miles, or we may go to
the distant galaxies, but the karma will pursue us wherever we are. Even if there is a
gap of thousands of years, or even millions of years, between the time when we
performed an action and the time when it fructifies, the karma will not leave us.
Time and space are not obstacles to the operation of karma. It will pursue the
individual wherever he is or she is, and whatever be the circumstances under which
the individual is. Karma is like a tax collector who will not listen to our woes of
family, etc. He says, “You pay the tax.” We cannot cry, “I have got a sick child and an
old mother. I cannot pay the tax.” There is no use telling him that. He will say, “You
must pay the tax.” Similarly, there is no use crying before the law of karma, “I made
a mistake, I’m very sorry.” Well, if we made a mistake, we pay through the nose,
that’s all. The law of karma will not leave us.
The species into which one is born is the jati. The place where one is born is the desa.
The time when one is born is the kala. They may be variegated from one
circumstance to another. At different times, at different places and in different kinds
of species one may take birth, but karma will be uniformly operating under all these
conditions and it cannot be set at naught by the difference of space, time and
species.
There is a causal connection between the source of action and the fruit of action. That
is called anantarya. There is a continuity of process between cause and effect. There
is no gulf between cause and effect. There is a connection, and this connection is
universal, cosmical in nature. The fruit of the particular karma can be born at any
place and at any time when it is ready for manifestation. Throughout the universe it