This is part X of “Guruji in the Horizon”, a spiritual novel consisting of many parts. To read the previous parts, please go to the labels on the right bar and click on this title or click on this link:  Will You Come Back Guruji

“Guruji, in a nut shell whatever you think for others or do for others, one day they will fall upon you.  If you do good to others, your life becomes enjoyable and if you do bad to others, your life becomes a misery.  Once you had sown, you have to reap whatever you had sown either in this birth or in future births.  Your life is made only by you. God merely watches.  Am I right guruji?”

He was visibly pleased.  This is the difference between a true master and a paid master.  A paid master will never allow you to outgrow him, whereas, a true master wants you to outgrow him.  Though it is not applicable to me, I have heard this several times from my yoga master.  After all, he did not teach me for money. 

Guruji continued. “If you surrender the end results of all your actions to God, then you do not accrue karmas at all.  Once your karma becomes nil, you are ready to merge with God.  You will never be reborn.  If you are born, at some point of your life, you are bound to undergo miseries. Anybody’s life is full of ups and downs. Do not think that I have deviated from the subject of birth and death.  Understanding of karma is necessary to know about birth and death.

“You always need two objects to create a third.  Tell me one instance, where an object was created only out of one object alone.  It is not possible.  The two objects needed for creating a third object should be of naturally opposite as well as attractive forces. A bulb and a bulb cannot make the bulb burn. Only a bulb and electricity can make the bulb burn.  In the case of humanity, a man is attracted to a woman or vice versa.  As a result of their physical contact, a foetus is formed. The procreative fluid of a man is pushed into the womb of a woman to conjoin an egg.  The action of pushing happens with the help of air.  The air that helps fertilization carries with it the subtle body, the causal body and the soul.  Soul is the central point around which causal and subtle bodies are formed.  After fertilization, the gross body begins to grow.  The gross body cannot grow without the presence of the other three bodies.  One’s karma is embedded in the subtle body.  When the time is ripe, the karmic account induces his mind to indulge him to act in a particular way.  Because of this, a person’s quality and character is determined. You become a good person or a bad person depending upon your karmic account. 

“Karmic account is of three types.  Total karma, karma for this birth and carried over karma at the end of the present life are the three types.  Let us assume that your total karma at the commencement of your present birth is 80, out of which you are destined to undergo 50 in this birth. At the time of your birth your karma to be spent in this life is 50.  You have an option to accrue karmas or to spend away your karmas.  If you perform karmas without attachment to the end result, in all your actions, you will be spending all the 50 karmas in this birth itself.  At the time of your death, you do not carry any further karma and your total karma at the beginning of your next birth is only 30. 

“Even if you do good karmas, they will be added to your total karma.  You may be doing poor feeding with a lot of publicity.  Here, you accumulate karmas.  Your 30 becomes say 50, the addition 20 being good karma.  After doing this poor feeding, you could have cheated somebody.  Let us assume that karma for your cheating is 30.  If you add this 30 with existing 50 your karma now becomes 80.  This 80 consists of both good and bad karmas.  Depending upon the quality of your karma, you either enjoy or suffer or have both.  Let us assume that you had spent only 20 of your karma of 80 and you die at that time. Your carried over karma becomes 60, against your opening karmic account of 30.  Here you are adding karmas, whether they are good or bad does not matter.  You cease to have further births only if your karma becomes zero. But whatever karma you are destined to spend in this birth, you have to necessarily spend that in this life itself.  Your life span is decided on the basis of your karma that is to be spent in this birth.

“At the time of death, the air pushes the subtle body, causal body and the soul out of the physical body causing death.  The subtle body, the causal body and the soul together is generally called soul.  It is only for the sake of convenience, they are called soul.  This soul traverses to higher regions.  Depending upon the karmic account, the subtle body also undergoes pain or pleasure.  This is called heaven or hell.  In the heaven, the subtle body undergoes pleasure and in the hell the subtle body undergoes pains and sufferings.  Therefore, you must understand that for a single karma, both the subtle body and the gross body have to undergo either pleasure or pain depending on the quality of karma. The subtle body enjoys pleasure in the heaven and pain in the hell.  The transport of the subtle body is possible between heaven, hell and earth. 

“But, always remember that if you do an action without any attachment to its end result, it is called renunciation.  If you continue to perform your actions, unconcerned about the fruits of actions, karmas do not accrue to you.  Always remember that liberation is possible only if you do not have any karma.  Even if you have only good karmas, you are bound to be reborn.  You may have all the best qualities in you but of no use to you to attain liberation.  Liberation is possible only through spiritual path.  Foundation to liberation should be strong.  First you should begin following religious customs and practices. If you seriously and sincerely follow these principles, you automatically transform as spiritual person.  Towards the end of spiritual journey, you begin to renounce and move towards liberation.  If liberation is not possible in this birth, then, in your next birth, you begin from where you had left in this birth.”

Guruji completed a short discourse.  The time could be tickling towards noon.  My mother invited us for lunch.  I really missed Jimmy when she called.  On hearing her voice, he will first run into the house.  When I entered my home, I saw Jimmy’s plate kept in a corner.  Tears rolled down my cheeks. I took his plate and kept in a remote corner so that it is not visible to me when I move around the house. I saw guruji coming in, by wiping his hands.  We sat down for lunch. Guruji as usual took a glass of water.

“You should never get attached to any physical body that is perishable.  We will discuss about this in the afternoon” he said.

The lunch was simple, as my mother had not done her nitty-gritty job of slicing vegetables. Her method of cooking is different.  She makes it a point to boil vegetables and does not waste that water.  Even much of the vapor is not allowed to escape while cooking as she covers the vegetables while boiling.  She does not use much salt.  She uses lot of ginger, garlic, coriander leaves and curry leaves as pudding.  They make the preparations tastier.  She uses neither red chilies nor its powder. She will often say a controlled flame while cooking makes the dishes tastier. 

Though, it was not a feast, the food tasted delicious.  Guruji used to drink a small quantity of water after finishing his meal.  Once we are done with our lunch, he took a slow paced walk into our land.  Our land has two portions.  The first portion has more trees and is shady.  The second portion is open where paddy grows. It will look like a green carpet.  I personally take care of my land.  Only during planting and harvest, I hire people.  Guruji stopped under a huge mango tree.  The place was shady and cool. 

“If you stand under a tree during daytime, you get more oxygen.  Apart from oxygen, the trees produce prana or the vital force.  You can draw both prana and oxygen by using some techniques.  Though there are different sources for prana, trees are the only source for oxygen. As you know, you can draw oxygen through your breath.  But prana can be drawn by your back head.  Just below the cerebellum of brain, there lies a cluster of nerves called medulla oblongata, at the top of the spinal cord. It is the link between the brain and the nervous system.  It has centers through which one’s breath is controlled. To draw pranic energy, you have to concentrate on your back head chakra, which is exactly behind the meeting point of your eye brows, on the back head of your head.  Many have a small protrusion in this area.  If you concentrate on the back head chakra, it gets activated and you have to visualize that you draw prana through this chakra.  You will notice that you body is getting energized.  You can also draw pranic energy through the crown chakra.  Drawing pranic energy is nothing to do with your breathing.  Prana is capable of curing many of the common illnesses.  Water, earth and sunlight are the other sources, where you have high level of pranic energy.”  After giving a small lecture, he looked at me. 

He speaks more through his eyes, when it comes to command. I could understand from his eyes that he wanted me to draw prana now.  I tried to draw some prana through my back head chakra. He was noticing me, probably my silhouette.  After observing me for some time, he said that I am not activating my back head chakra. He asked me first to concentrate on my back head chakra.

“Concentration is very important to open this chakra.  You can know that the chakra has been activated when you feel some prickling sensation there. Once you feel this sensation, you have to visualize that prana is entering into your body.  Once good prana begins to spread throughout your body, bad prana is eliminated through your feet into Mother Earth.  She is capable of absorbing both good and bad.  Creation begins and ends in earth” he said, walking towards the verandah. 

(to be continued)