Christianity and Hinduism talk a lot about what the right way to live according to God is, by not committing adultery, stealing, women’s desires, and more. Ten Commandments are all about that. So in the ignorance, if someone does wrong things according to our human justice, if there is no punishment concept (not referring to judicial laws) then do they face consequences according to nature, as God does not punish. How to understand this?
Doing good is one thing; Mukti is another. Doing good or more specifically engaging in Sattwik acts helps prepare us for Mukti unless we get too attached to our goodness and develop the ego of being good. Mukti is to go beyond good and evil. Its purpose is to step out of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The traditional premise here is that the world is incorrigibly bad, a place of suffering and hence the only choice is between a flow of lives subject to sufferings of various kinds or else quitting the cycle by stepping out of it. Goodness at best mitigates the suffering; it does not remove the possibility of various kinds of suffering that afflict earthly creatures. According to this traditional account, the knot of karma generates good and bad accounts for which the soul must take birth endlessly and reap the results of its karma and, in the process, go through the attachments, fresh karma added to the store, and consequent return in the play of ignorance. Saints like Kabir, Shankaracharya and others teach us the way to be released from this endless cycle by realising the state of Mukti if we follow the path advised.
Naturally, this prevalent understanding of the law of karma creating bondage to good and evil leaves many things unexplained. In fact, it raises more questions than answers. For example, does intent matter or not? Logically it should, but in the strictest and rigid doctrine, it is not given the importance that it should be given. For example, killing is considered a most serious karma, but is all killing bad or evil? What about killing in self-defense or in war? Or a judge sending someone to the gallows? There are many such unanswered questions that we find comprehensively explained in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.
As to reward and punishment, there are cosmic agencies that handle it. God is not directly involved in the process of justice. Besides, His vision is very different from ours. What we may consider sin, is for God, the stumblings of an ignorant child. He helps the child to grow into wisdom and strength rather than punish.
Christianity and Islamic theology keep it simple by removing the idea of rebirth. But that makes the whole thing even more absurd. So absurd that all that is required sometimes is to simply convert oneself to the religion. There are many such absurdities and unexplained issues in traditional religious and spiritual literature which we find comprehensively answered by Sri Aurobindo. These and other related questions have been dealt with in my various talks on the subject on auromaa.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
