One gets what one deserves

A beautiful parable in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna where through a simple story the master teaches us a profound truth. The parable is based on the everyday life in a village, a household where matriarchy rules in the form of a domineering mother in law, who has several daughters in law. It is the mother in law who is the decision maker in every affair. She dispenses what every daughter in law gets to eat as food, esp. during the lunch. She has an earthen pot which measures the quantity of rice that each daughter in law should get. Goes without saying that the measure of the earthen pot is not adequate to fill the stomach of the daughters in law and they are not quite happy about it. However the daughter in law in a typical rural household of eighteenth or nineteenth century had no voice of her own to protest. So she had to forebear the ignominy of the autocracy that would deprive her of every possible enjoyments. Here in the story our daughters in law are helpless but then deliverance comes in an unexpected way. The earthen pot is broken. The daughters in law become exceedingly glad. They think that now they will get their fair share as the mother in law will not be able to ascertain the quantity. Their boisterous attitude is however noted by the shrewd mom in law and she at once understands the cause of their mirth and jubilation. So she says, in colloquial Bengali - "Jatoi Nacho Kondo Bouma, Amar Hater Atkel Achhe", which translates into, "Be merry while it lasts, I know exactly the quantity that has to be given to each of you - with or without the pot." Chilling! but the daughters in law soon find out to their utter dismay that how true the assertion is. The mom in law who is only a shed better than Hitler, has her measures figured out so well that she gives exactly the same quantity as was being given with the earthen pot, no more and no less.

Sri Ramakrishna explains it in the context of his assertion that the God, the ever present all knowing all pervading cosmic spirit knows exactly when to give, what to give and how much to give to an individual soul in terms of spiritual capacity. If we extend it to our daily lives we find possibly a parallel. The shakti or capability in each of us is according to our strength or capacity to hold it. There is no point in whining. A Tom cannot become a Shakespeare, while a Dick cannot become a Mozart.  Swami Vivekananda puts in a more lucid way in his Karma Yoga - Everybody gets what he or she deserves, no more and no less. While it may seem at the first glance that the world is full of inequities and injustice, it is actually not so if we believe in karma. We see in many cases that a person who is less endowed with faculties and less deserving in many ways is getting so much worldly success - wealth, fame, opportunities and so forth and a more deserving one, perhaps brilliant, sharp, hard working, sincere, honest person falling behind or not getting his or her dues or being thwarted at every attempt. Dishonest people amass huge amount of wealth and do not get caught. Powerful people with many wrong doings torment better ones and so on. Many people despite their best attempt are not able to get success. But then again we see how people fight all odds to succeed, some of them fail but there are others who make it through perseverance and determination. This is because they are endowed with that strength - of persevering, of being able to fight it out despite all odds and make it in the end, while others do not have that capacity - the shakti, the determination. This is simply because they are not meant for it. Even the dishonest folks, the so called undeserving lot who attains fame or success through evil means, must have done something to deserve that. Only in their cases their good karma bears fruits rapidly and once its over they are gone - the accumulated bad karma simply crushes them. In Mahabharata swargarohan parva this is depicted and explained clearly. When Yudhisthira is unhappy about Duryadhana enjoying heavenly pleasures while his brothers and sons and Karna are all suffering in hell - Narada says that more good karma and less bad one would lead you to suffer the effects of bad, atleast for a short period before you get overwhelmed with the fruits of the good, but more bad and almost evil and less good would compel you to enjoy the fruits of the good work earlier and once it is consumed rapidly, possibly in one life time, possibly even less, you go down and down and down without any hope. But in the end the wheels of justice are unforgiving, we get what we deserve, no more and no less. The hands of the divine mother (or should it be mother in law?) knows exactly the quantity of shakti to be imparted to an individual soul, based on the past karma of that soul to get spiritual as well as material progress. Our desires drive us crazy and we think we are able to pursue our dreams on our own - but the capacity or capability to pursue our dreams is inherent within us - that is the shakti. Therefore when opportunity knocks we are able to make use of it based on the endowed shakti and hence get varying results for different person. Our determination to achieve success is derived from that same inner strength, our ability to meet our desires is also derived from that same shakti. But then the fundamental question that arises is, if we get what we deserve based on our inner strength, if it is predetermined based on our karma, then should we stop all endeavors? Should we just sit quietly and let our karma unfold and bring us the success or failure? NO! Endeavors are needed as long as we have desires. If we do not work when we do have multitude of desires, nothing will work out for us - we'll have to wait for another birth, another lifetime to fructify that karma which was supposed to bring us result if only we had tried in this life. The moment we are free of all desires, we have no further desire left to drive us, we are free from the bondage of the wheel of karma. The past karma will still work out but we can sit quietly and see it fructify in this life, without us even attempting to do anything. Our desires drive us to work, to succeed - when we do not desire what should we work for? In Bhagavat Gita Sri Krishna tells Arjuna - " Prakritistvam niyakshati"- "Your Prakrti or the Mother Nature will force you to work, no escape from there." However there is no need to work for one who is contented with one's own Self, i.e. have no desire, not driven by Nature but is firmly established in Purusha, the Atman, the pure consciousness. But such state of non desire again will not come to everybody. The spiritual capacity is also determined by our karma and this state of no desire is a very high spiritual state, almost unimaginable for ordinary aspirants. Here again the divine mother has her measures beautifully chalked out and we have no way to go beyond it, however hard we try. But the irony is that we'll have to try hard to achieve that state, and then only it will come eventually - the desire of having a state of non desire will drive us to achieve that state and we'll have to strive for it to get to that state and through the process of struggle our strength, our capacity, our shakti will increase, possibly over several life times, possibly in one life time and its again entirely possible that such an increase is also predetermined based on our past karma - as Bhagavat Gita Chapter 6 says that the Yogi starts from where he had left and strives to attain perfection - none of his or her past efforts are lost.