Rnaanubandhana
Q: Thanks for your simplification. Probably, you are talking about rnaanubandhana while referring to the example of the grand parents being born abroad, for their love of their grand children. There still are some queries going in mt mind. That is of mental prayer. How good is mental prayer and chanting of mantras mentally and performing anushthanas mentally? The premise is that mental prayer is better than verbal prayer more in Kali Yuga more because of wrong pronunciation (uchcharan) of the mantras. Or more so we don’t have much time to sit and perform. Hereby some questions creep in my mind related to karma again.

Horo Veda: Karma are also formed very powerfully just by thinking. A simple story will explain its power:
King Shrenik and Mahaveer are talking to each other. There is another king who is in the forest doing tapasya (he left every thing to his sucessor son). A army is passing by where the king is in the forest as sadhu/muni. The army is taking rest under trees in the forest. Soliders are talking to each other. “We are invading —-city and the former king is doing tapasya here, he does not know that our king can easily kill his very young son (now king). The tapasvi king is listening this talk, he gets irritated and his mental thoughts started going up and down. On other side, King Shrenik is asking mahaveer that where this king who is doing Tapasya will go as he is doing imense tapasya.

Before the army was there in the forest, Mahaveer replied to Shrinik that he will go to 7th heaven but as the thoughts waves started on other side in the jungle in the brain of tapsvi king, mahaveer also keep changing his statement that he is going to 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 heven and then 1,2,3,4,5 6, and 7th hell. By that time, the muni king in forest started to think that he will take his sword and defeat the army. By that time he puts his hands on the head to fix his crown, he realized that he is no more king and he has no hair (as a sadhu). he felt very bad and realized what he is doing. he changed focussed his dhyan and involved in Dhyayan again as before. As he was focussing again, Mahaveer also changed his statement, that the sadu king is now going to 6,5,4,3,2,1 hell and then to 1,2,3,4,5,6, and 7th heaven and then at that moment he attained moksha.

I am not sure about the names of the king and the places but the story will give you an idea about mental thoughts and its relation to accumulation of Karma. I have seen many who has excellent powerful planets placed but they failed later on, I think they have silently used their mental power to hurt others and lost thier punya Karma.

Dreams and Karma
Q: If we can invoke God through Mental prayer and even may be move a mountain with the mental shakti, do the acts carried out in a dream be liable for being credited to our karma’s account? More so the dreams we see with our eyes open. One is a dream which we see while sleeping, and the other a dream while we see while awake. It is said that the world is Brahma’s dream (Brahma ka brahm). He’s sleeping. And we all are his dream. When he awakes the world will be finished. Similarly, we all create a world in our dreams, while sleeping or awake. For example, while in my college days, I used to ride a scooter and sometimes in the evening while coming home, I used to get sort of hypnotised by the head lights of vehicles coming from the opposite side. I would go into a dream world of my own forced by my thinking process. There are two realities here. Now, in this world I would love, hate, preach fight, argue, or do any other things. Meanwhile there was this sub-conscious mind which was guiding me home without my knowledge. I would overtake properly, stop at red lights, take the right turns and the right path back home. But I would be brought to this real world after say about ten kilometres. When brought back, I didn’t realise how I covered those ten kilometres. Whom all I passed and which red lights I stopped or other things. What all I would remember is the oter world I was in. So what is the truth here. And which karmas would get credted to my account here? One is that I took all the right moves without my knowledge and one is what I realise – the dream I saw and remember.

Horo Veda: Yes, it will depend and the karma part will still be applied. You must be remembering the story of RAJA HARISHCHANDRA. How he gave all of his kingdom to a muni in the dream and next day really a muni came to his court and asked the one that he gave him in the dream. We all travel after we sleep to another level or another dimension. we have different bodies, it is comlicated to explain in the E mail and I thus stop here. Example: A person drinks alcohol and drives car and kills some one, is it fair that no karma will be accumulated? If so, who will pay for the suffering his family will be going through? The person under alcohol hypnosis does not remember any thing??? The qn is at the first place why did he choose to drink it? If so, he is not innocent and some one has to pay the price for the killing of some innocent person!!!.

Same thing, in the last example of a child, the child is born in a particular family, even he is small but he made choice (MOHNIYA KARMA, intense attachment towards some one) in last life to come to new family. Thus if the parents feed him non veg food, he/she is also responsible to some extent, does not it?

Q: Also is rnaanubandhana a form of karma only. Or is it a result of karma?

Horo Veda: Both, some from previously accumulated and some are formed as a result.

Q: And the dream process and the reality. What’s real? The dream I lived in or the distance covered?

Horo Veda: To me both are real. As I said before, ignorance is not a bliss. same way, dream appears like a dream but it exists in some other dimension and we are connected with it. This is why it is said that practice that your thoughts are the same in three stages: Thinking, by speech and by your action, they all have to be the same.

Worship without flowers and life
Horo Veda: There were views that shastra support use of flowers and looks like that these people ignored the fundamental right of life:

In my humble opinion, you are ahead of millions by just doing your worship without flowers. First of all, the purpose behind offering the flowers is important. Most people when doing pooja like to decorate with flowers and others like to offer the flower itself to bhagwan because the flower is pretty and the sent is pleasing. Now I know what I am about to say may seem a little extreme to some, but another way of looking at offering the flowers is like sacrificing the flowers so now the distinction is between violence and non-violence. It is the offering of a part of a plant to please another. And the question comes, what right do we have to offer something that does not belong to us in order to please another? The plant is also a living being, and we are naturally doing harm to it by plucking the flower. Now if our intent was different and maybe using the plant for medicine then we are more justified as our purpose is greater than decoration or to please someone. But even then we are creating some negative (bad) karma just not as to the same degree. So my advice is that first of all don’t use the flowers unless you have a justified reason and even then ask the plant for the flower first and then take the flower and in return give the plant water or fertilizer in exchange. So if we really think about it our intent here is to seek Divine help, and the Divine will naturally not appreciate such acts as we are harming another in order to help ourselves.

Yes, to sustain lives, vegetables have use. Let us consider following groups for simplicity to understand the concept little bit more in deeper sense:

• Group 1 : Wheat, and other grains (not taking plant life, no torture or stress to plant)
• Group 2: Underground crops-A: Peanuts, turmeric etc (not taking plant life, no torture or stress to plant)
• Group 3: Vegetables and Fruits (not taking plant life, but torture or stress to plant).
• Group 4: Underground crops-B: Potatoes, Onions etc (life form still persists)
• Group 5: Animal products (killing of an animal that has all the senses compare to plant life)

We harvest the grains when the crop is matured and so also other grains; no killing of the plant is involved. Since no killing of the plants involved, no accumulation of the negative Karma involved. Peanuts etc if harvested immaturely, it is not good for the oil production. For oil production, peanuts have to be matured and when you take it out, again no killing of the plant is involved and thus no accumulation of the negative karma involved. If you put onion etc on the shelves without dirt or fertilizer they will start to germinate as the life still persists. Thus, in this group one can see why accumulation of negative karma may involve. Thus, many people eat some of the crops grown underground but not all (even they know it is good for the health). The concept of non-violence is involved and this is related to accumulation of Karma. How one can imagine that Karma involved in eating above group of products to “sustain lives” will be the same?

Coming back to flowers, they are still the part of the plant like vegetables (like group 3 above). Are they required to “sustain lives”? Or, they are used for decoration, beauty, scent and thrown away and plant does not feel any stress when take it? (Please refer to my previous post with the example of Sanjivini Butti). Unless flowers have a medicinal or eating purpose, I can not think of comparing acts of plucking flowers with that of plucking vegetables have the same purpose. Which act is “wicked” or not is not up to me to decide, as on this Earth almost all can justify their doing. In my opinion, one has to weigh one act over the other, the intention and the purpose involved to reduce the accumulation of karma to free from the cycle of birth and death, the ultimate goal of every life form.

Hope it helps to understand the concept. Thus part of worshiping lord Vishnu to get divine help it is essential that the person is vegetarian if not already so.

Accumulation of Bad Karma
Q: I appreciate your idea about not hurting the plant and gathering negative karma. I turned vegetarian about one and a half year ago. In fact liquor too does have a lot of bacteria used for fermentation, hence one gathers more bad karma by killing millions of bacteria and living beings. I was reading a series of book – Aghora about six months ago. It talked about karma and bad karma in detail. It also talked about how people into tantra make sacrifices while at the same time they pray for the beings (animal) for a higher degree of birth in their next life thereby negating a part of the bad karma they’ve accumulated. Another aspect that it talked about was (I’m saying it with the risk of being misquoted or being misunderstood as it has to be read in totality and contextually where it has been said. Only a fragment cannot be picked up, but any way, let me mention the bit) that karma is like a cheque. If one does not affiliate oneself to the act of doing, the karma does not load itself on to the person. It’s like a cheque of say millions of Rupees given to a person, without signing it. You cannot get the money until signed. Similarly, karma too works like that. But it is impossible for a person to not feel guilty or proud of a karma, hence it keeps accumulating. Why I’m saying this is that while eating meat a thought for the goat or chicken did cross the mind hence karma was accumulated, while at the same time there was not affiliation of sort or feeling while offering flowers or plucking the flowers. So will that karma too be accumulated?

Horo Veda: No matter what, as long as we are in a life form, Karma will be accumulated, knowingly or unknowingly. Our lack of knowledge is not the bliss. As a result, we are born in different country, race, family or specie (not human but may be any living thing). Based on balance, we have an excess to knowledge or this is denied. You may easily see that there are several religions on our earth that do not have an excess to karma knowledge and that does not mean that whatever they do is justified due to ignorance. Thus, it is extremely hard for such people to come out and if they do a little it helps a lot. People may take granted as “free stuff” on this earth but in fact nothing is free, we all have to pay one day, The accumulation may be more or less depending on the intention but taking life in my opinion is not justified.

Q: So does that law of karma apply to a child too who is offered meat without any knowledge of karma by the parents?

Horo Veda: Yes, it will be applied to the child and there is no exemption as action has been performed and some one’s life has been taken away. The extent of negative accumulation may be different and more may go towards parents but after certain an age, it will go to the child’s account. Thats, how the previous Karma forced the person to born in that family.

Just for an understanding, some ones grand parents live in India, their son leaves in WEST where he is non vegetarian but not the parents. Thus, the grand child is non vegetarian. The grand parents love the grand child very much but thier health does not allow to attend the marriage of grand child who is living in WEST abroad. They have too much attachment towards the son and grand child and in the process they die with a desire to go abroad to see the grand child. In my opinion, the grand parents are more likely to born abroad in WEST as a child to their grand son, where they will be NON VEGETARIAN. This is know as MOHNIYA KARMA. Now it will require lot of efforts and good Karma to break this cycle and it continues.

Q: Another thing I would like to discuss with you is that I come from Himachal’s Shimla district, where there are a lot of deities (devtas) – gram devta, kul devta, sthaan devta and their head (chief devta). They have their local names and these devtas have a human mouthpiece, locally known as maali. The maali can be invoked any time to seek the guidance of the devta. You have to see it to believe it. So every family has a maali designated by the kul devta. When the person dies, a next mouthpiece is selected by the devtaa himself. So why am I saying all this? These devtas demand sacrifice of a goat from time to time either to ward off evil or as an appeasement of blessing. My question is that does the law of karma apply to devtaas as well?

Horo Veda: Law of Karma applies to all living beings and in my opinion it applies to non living beings. For there is some mountain, For most of people, it is non living thing, but who knows that some soul is living there as a part of Karma. Why we say that this mountain is so many million years old??? Consider an example of AHILYA, the wife of Gautum rishi from Ramayan who was cursed by her husband to become a stone and then Sri Ram’s grace becomes free.

Another example, Bhagwan Shankar and Shani Dev story is well known in our literature. Also, many we call DEVTAS may not be necessary living in Heavens. For our stand point of view they are “DEVTAS”. If they are living in heavens, there is no reason for them to come to the earth unless their work is related to the earth. For example, there are two families who do not like each other. One person from each dies. naturally for both families each person is worshiped by them respectively. Both are DEVTAS for their own family as they can come and help but do you think they will help to other family? So for one family the person is DEVTA but for the other it is “GHOST” or some other entity. But for who living in heavens, they are free from such notion and actions. Many think they will go to heaven after they die and with some good work. In my opinion, it is not so, the numbers in the whole year may not be even more than 10 ro 20 to enter. it is all the game of Karma.

Animal Sacrifice and Karma
Q: I understand while it’s the humans that perform the sacrifice but at the same time the life was offered to the deity. Another thing is that I have a small anecdote. These devtaas from time to time go to Badrinath and Kedarnath on a pilgrimage. About 10-15 years ago, our Graam devta, Banaad went to Badrinath. There were many devtas too who had come there from Himachal and Uttaranchal. Supposedly there is a Vishnu ka jhoola inside. The kardaars at Badrinath asked vegetarian devtas and non-vegetarian devtaas to come in separate lines. The vegetarian devtas get a chance to ride the Vishnu ka jhoola. So the people accompanying the Banaad devta lied that the devta was a vegetarian, i.e., he didn’t take a sacrifice. Once the devtaa came back from Badrinath back to the village, a huge fair was organised and the usual ritual was started. A goat was to be sacrificed. Now there is a ritual here too. While offering the goat to the deity, a prayer is conducted “Please accept the goat as a sacrifice.” If the goat shivers, it is assumed that the deity has accepted the sacrifice and there after it is slaughtered. Now, while the goat was being sacrificed, it refused to shiver for hours and hours together. The deity was finally invoked through the human mouthpiece. The deity asked, “Why did you tell a lie in Badrinath that I don’t take a sacrifice?” Thereafter, only sacrifice the deity accepts is a “sookhi bali”, i.e. a sacrifice of a coconut. Also, how does the bali (sacrifice) effect the deity, whether be it a an animal life or a coconut, or even a pumpkin? Does that life add up to the deity’s own life?

Horo Veda: How does it affect, I do not know. But I guess it is source of their supply energy to sustain life wherever they are and whatever form they have. What is the end result I have no idea.

Q: So where does this all lead to? Another incident I remember is that my cousin great grandfather once wanted to sacrifice a goat to the kul devta Naarsingh, which refused to shiver. Anyways, he said, “Deity you are not accepting the sacrifice, but I want to eat its meat, so I’m going to slaughter it.” He picked up his weapon with both the hands, but he couldn’t move his hands and they got stuck. In fact the weapon had to be removed from his hands by other people. His hands became stuck for lifetime and were immobile. The deity when invoked, said, “You cannot just take a life like that. This is your punishment.” But then does that not apply to the deities who take the life, while we humans just relish the meat and the left over?

Horo Veda: Answers may be above to understand. That’s why Mahaveer left his kingdom and went in to jungle to search for MOKSHA or where one may be free so that it does not have to come again and again.

Contd… to Part II.

In fact my meeting with you the other day was an eye-opener for me. Where I took folklore to be just folk-tales, you gave me a better understanding of it – the customs, culture, ballads, idioms, plays etc. And moreover your insistence that folklore be interpreted than just be documented.

I gave a thought to it and found myself dumb. How do interpret them was the big question lurking?. Incidentally, I had some books on Krishna, which I found disinterested. However, I had a book long time back – Once a Blue God by Ramesh Menon, which had given me an insight into the Hindu mysticism – about the different ages – Krita, Treta, Dwapara and Kali and the Karma Chakras. Somewhere, I lost the book. But your debate had fuelled the hunger in me, to go back to know more, to understand these folklores better. Incidentally, I’d picked up this second hand back long time back from the pavements – Aghora – II (Kundalaini) by Robert E Svaboda. I took that up. It has first hand accounts preachings of Aghori Vimalananda. A wonderful book that talked about the chakras, Kundaliani, the Mother and the Shiva, karma and nadis. After reading it, I could relate more to the fables I had heard in the childhood. The rishis, rakshas, and all. The difference between sattva and tamas and how rishis could talk telepathically, and how genetic order imbibes what the castes do. Why rakhshas could achieve what they wanted and why they misused it. The ultimate goal of person is to meet with its Shiva. And how you one can pray his deity – as a friend, wife, sister, daughter, but the best way to love your deity is to see him as a mother. In fact, women are asked not to worship Hanuman (Anjeneya – the son of Anjana) as he’s a bachelor. But if a woman worships and loves Anjeneya has her son, and be the mother herself to him (the Bal Hanuman), she can achieve the blessings soon.

This book made me understand many of the fables and interpret them correctly and find many hidden meanings into them. In fact, I ordered the first and the third volume of Aghora as well.

Thanks to you, for showing me this path.

I’m used to writing long long mails and everyone complains about it. So don’t just want to bore you to death, and let me end here.

Regards

I’ve taken a decision, and am probably at peace with myself after that. It depends how one takes it. Though it’s not vindictive as some might presume it to be. I’ve decided not to divorce her even if she demands it.

I know some would be shocked by that decision of mine, but I’ve given a lot of thought to it. I had taken the vows with her to stand by her for seven births. I don’t know about the other six births but I was pretty much sure about this birth. While she dwindled and forgot those saat pheras and the dharma and karma of those pheras. They were not mere rituals for me or an excuse to deck up in the best. I remember the day of my marriage. Friends didn’t let me do anything. They said – Aaaj ke din tum Narayan ho. The groom is equated to Narayan. So just behave accordingly.

What is a divorce? A legal approval to live separately and then get remarried or … but why should I leave my dharma? My fault was – I believed in myself and trusted myself and as a result I trusted her. That was my fault. But she cannot be me and I cannot be her. So let her live her own life. I’ll stick to my dharma and karma. She forgot them. I haven’t. So for this birth she is my wife and will be till my death. She may do “wifey talk” with others, but I cannot do “husbandy talk” with anybody else.

She may live with me or with her parents, it hardly matters. She wants to come back. She is apologetic to an extent that she didn’t confide in me that her email id was hacked. But given a chance to reconcile, I am sure it will be a new beginning altogether. The trust has to be started from scratch. And if there is any possibility of a reconciliation that has to be based on truth. Any foundation of a new relationship has to be based on truth. So she has to accept her follies and feel sorry for them, which I doubt she’ll do soon.

If we look closely, she didn’t start lying from the day things came out in the open. Instead she had been lying, rather living a life of a liar for months before that. She had lived that hypocritical life and she had lived that lie and a dual life for long. So I cannot expect her to change heart soon. Even if she feels guilty today, she has the compulsion of not accepting her mistake. Because that will brand her. That will just make her fall in the eyes of her parents and everybody. So she has to live that lie today as well. And I’m not ready and will never be ready to lay a foundation of a new relationship on the basis of a lie. It has to be based on truth.

I will do my karma and follow my dharma. Let her take a lifetime to realise, what she did and was it worth it? I don’t think that was practicality what she did. It was an escapism. And today too, she is cheating nobody, but herself. As she had been cheating for long, it will take her some time to realise what she did and where she strayed.

Presently, if she was emotionally involved with that man, she might feel in her heart that she did nothing wrong and was true to her feelings. But I believe, anything that I have to hide or feel ashamed of or have to lie later on, cannot be right. And two wrongs cannot make one wrong right. And that’s what she is trying to do. She’s trying to right the wrong with other wrongs – lies and bunch of lies. Ek jhooth ko chuppaane ke liye sau jhooth bolne padte hain. And she is in that trap. I just wish that there is somebody sensible enough around her to show her the truth or guide her on to the right path.

I’ll remain righteous to myself and I don’t think that should perturb me. Why should I cry and crib when I stuck to my dharma and I think I’ll stick to my dharma still. She strayed, not me. I took a vow at the marriage altar that I’ll be a 50 per cent partner to her crimes, while she would be a zero per cent partner to my crimes. And may be I’m already paying the price. And I want to pay that price in this world itself. I haven’t seen the other world. So I’ll leave nothing for that.

You can call it my weakness. But I think, given the circumstances, many people around me want me to get rid of her at the earliest possible so that I can get remarried. But I think that’s not weakness. It takes guts and courage not to get into the trap of senses. Yes, there are needs – both emotional and physical – which one shares or gets from/with his/her partner. But I think I have enough courage to control those senses.

And remarriage is not certainly in question for me. There is no guarantee that the other person too won’t stray. As is said, that we life one life and I believe that we get married only once. Though it’s a different matter that within this one life we life a thousand lives.

What is a vow? I think these rituals should be banned if we cannot commit to them. Are they a mere formality for the world to accept that now the couple can stay, live and sleep together. No. I don’t think so. We take those vows in front of agni. Agni is one of the tatvas we are of. So we vow not only in front of Agni Dev but to ourselves as well. We have to be true to ourselves. I’d not strayed even before marriage. I’d preserved myself for my wife all along. That’s what I believed in. So shall I be true today too to myself. If I’m true to myself, I’ll be true to my partner as well.

Somebody told me the other day that for a marriage there has to be compatibility. I agree. The compatibility has to be to live together. But not to consider one as his wife. So she is my wife and I took those vows and I won’t betray myself. The vows I took to myself. I don’t know what she believes, what she is going through what she feels dharma or karma is. But I know mine and shall stick to it.