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Overcoming Suffering and Changing the Future of Our Karma · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Many people believe that there is some kind of inexorable law
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  of reward and punishment being doled out by God or some other
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  all powerful, all observant being.
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  In the West, children are taught this lesson through the myth of
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  Santa Claus when they are encouraged to be good because
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  Santa Claus is always watching and will only deliver desired
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  gifts or rewards to good children.
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  They grow up believing that some divine being is watching over
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  every action of every individual all the time, and thus they are
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  encouraged to follow the rules of the society and the moral
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  code in order to be rewarded or else suffer the consequences of
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  being subject to various types of suffering.
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  The normal operation of cause and effect explains much of what
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  we experience in our lives. The Buddhist concept of
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  dependent origination describes this cause and effect, also
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  called in the Sanatna Dharma, the law of karma.
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  Everything that happens today was caused by some past
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  concatenation of causes that came together to create the
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  current situation. Choices we made in the past are
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  part of that causal function, and we thus experienced the joy
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  or sorrow based on how our ego personality reacts to what has
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  come to us. Some of the events that create
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  current actions are personal. Some are related to our own past
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  lives of development, the individual stream of
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  consciousness that progressively manifests over time and across
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  births. And some is related to the
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  situation of the physical, vital, mental world into which
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  we are born and live, the civilization, the goals and
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  aspirations, the training and habits of humanity and of our
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  social lives. Since we cannot go back and
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  alter those past actions, we are faced with the decision as to
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  how to respond to the current situation and make the best of
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  it and thereby alter the trajectory of that karmic energy
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  going forward. As long as we remain immersed in
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  the ego personality, we experience the suffering and the
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  joy that alternates with the suffering as we awaken to the
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  independence of our conscious awareness from the external ego
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  personality that we have assumed in this lifetime.
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  As we identify ourselves with the Self, the Atman or the
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  psychic being, which is the divine spark that resides
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  within, we recognize that we can overcome the psychological
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  weight of the suffering through non attachment and observation.
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  And we can even modify the trajectory of the karmic
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  consequences going forward by simply not accepting and
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  changing what appeared to be an inevitable step by step
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  progression. This is where the concepts of
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  determinism and free will find their coexistence in harmony
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  with each other. Free will is the exercise of the
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  conscious soul to transform the causal chain and redirect it.
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  Until we have separated from the attachment to the external
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  being. We are subject to the
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  determination of past events and the habitual patterns we have
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  developed in dealing with events and circumstances, Sriorobindo
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  notes quote. Suffering is not inflicted as a
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  punishment for sin or for hostility.
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  That is a wrong idea. Suffering comes like pleasure
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  and good fortune, as an inevitable part of life.
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  In the ignorance, the dualities of pleasure and pain, joy and
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  grief, good fortune and I'll fortune, are the inevitable
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  results of the ignorance which separates us from our true
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  consciousness and from the Divine.
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  Only by coming back to it can we get rid of suffering.
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  Karma from the past lives exists.
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  Much of what happens is due to it, but not all.
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  For we can mend our karma by our own consciousness and efforts,
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  but the suffering is simply a natural consequence of past
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  errors, not a punishment, just as a burn is the natural
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  consequence of playing with fire.
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  It is part of the experience by which the soul, through its
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  instruments, learns and grows until it is ready to turn to the
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  Divine. The attitude you express in your
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  letter is quite the right one. Whatever sufferings come on the
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  path are not too high a price for the victory that has to be
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  won, and if they are taken in the right spirit, they become
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  even a means towards the victory.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo and the
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  Mother Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and
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  Difficulties, pages one O 9 to 110.