Question: If someone steals, are they creating new karma or are they suffering some karma from the past?
Action and reaction are one and the same. You can’t separate the action from its reaction. If I see a person lying injured in the street, I can’t say, “Oh, it’s his karma. Let him die there. He is suffering because he did some wrong action in the past,” and then walk by. His karma may be bad; he is suffering for that. But I also have a duty—a duty to help. As a human being, love and compassion are inherent in me. He may die, I may not be able to save him, but I must try. If I don’t I will suffer for it. I will incur bad karma. I’ll give you an example. One day a neighbor near the Yoga Camp told me his dog was missing and to let him know if I found it. The following day I was driving to Montreal and saw a dog just like his lying injured on the road. It had been hit by a car but was still alive. I thought it was the neighbor’s missing dog, so I put it in the car and brought it straight to him. It wasn’t his dog!! Now what was I to do? Throw the dog back on the road? Of course not. I had to do whatever I could to help. I took it to the vet who told me it would never walk again and moreover was in tremendous pain. Out of compassion, it had to be put to sleep. This was very hard for me, but it was the only thing to do. Now I have sanctioned the death of an animal. Do I get bad karma for this? No, because my intention was to end its suffering. It is not the action but the intention that creates good or bad reaction, good or bad karma. My intention was to prevent the dog from suffering. I would have done anything to have saved it. But the dog’s karma was that it had to die, and it had to be my decision when. That was my karma. Somehow some past relationship existed. But I did not do my part with malice or anger; I felt helpless.
I’ll give you another example of how karma works. I was on a pilgrimage as a swami. The rules of such a life were that we were not allowed to touch money. We had to wander penniless, begging for food when hungry. I wanted to go to the Himalayas, to Badrinath, at an altitude of 16,000 feet. I had only one small blanket. I had never seen snow before in my life. I was barefoot and I had no money. Pilgrims generally carried their own food. In those days there was no transport, just a small, tiny path. Each day the pilgrims walked about fifteen or twenty miles and then rested and cooked a little food before continuing to walk till evening. But as I had neither food nor money, I had to rely solely on begging in order to survive.
After walking a few days, the hunger became more and more pronounced. One morning I climbed up to a nearby village to beg, but only very poor people were there and I came away with nothing. I lay under a tree. I had only my cloth, blanket and bowl. I was really hungry and tired—it was early evening, and I knew that I would have to walk again to reach my destination for the night without having eaten. Just as I was thinking that I had to get going, an old pilgrim walked by. He saw me lying there and asked me if I wanted something to eat. Pilgrims usually carried just enough food for thirty days—to get them to their destination and back—as there was nothing on the way. He had dried beet fried in butter and sugar. From his small ration he carefully gave me a portion. I put out my cloth and he placed the food in there. I was so happy—something to eat—it smelled so wonderful.
I was hot and dirty and went to the nearby river to wash and to offer the food to the Lord before taking it. But my cloth caught on a twig and the food dropped into the water. It was gone immediately. Can you understand the suffering I went through? Food had come to my hand, almost to my mouth. But my karma was that I was not to eat it. The pilgrim’s karma was to give me from his own rations. It didn’t matter to him whether I was going to eat or not. That was not his problem. He had to share his food with another hungry person. That was his karma. And he did so with all his heart. But my karma was there—which was that I was not to eat, that I was to suffer hunger.
Now do you understand how karma works? My karma was that I must have taken food from someone’s mouth before, perhaps in a previous lifetime. So, I had to undergo the same suffering as I had created for that person. I had not shared, so I had to suffer. That evening I walked painfully and slowly until I reached my overnight destination. Again, an old swami came up to me. He asked me where I came from. I told him I was from Sivananda Ashram and was on pilgrimage. He took me by the hand as if he knew me and led me to a small hut. There a meal was waiting. After we ate, he said, “You cannot go alone; you must come with me. I will take you.” From then onwards he fed me. So I must have also earned some good karma at some previous time.
Actually, you do not know what karma you are undergoing, but you must practice ethics and morals. Every action has a reaction. Keep that in mind. Then you don’t have to worry. You do whatever you can. Karma has brought me so many things. I have ashrams, centers, cars, boats and so forth. But none of them do I keep for my sake or in my name. I don’t have a penny. I will not keep any money in the bank in my name, or a house or anything. If I did that while all these people who are working in the organization don’t get a penny, my karma would be so painful, like the lowest animal eating human flesh. Your karma will work itself out. Your duty is only to love and to serve. We don’t know whether we are making fresh karma or enjoying old karma. We don’t know. Don’t worry about good karma or bad karma. Then peace of mind will come.