1969

Question: Upon bringing a man born blind to be cured by Jesus Christ, his apostles asked him, "Who sinned, that this man was born blind? Did he sin or did his parents sin?" Christ answered, "No, it is so the works of God may be shown through him."

Sri Chinmoy: Christ was absolutely right. Nobody had done anything wrong, but it was God who was acting through him. God has experiences in and through every individual. It is true that as you sow, so you reap. If we do something wrong, we meet with punishment. This we see in the outer world. But at the same time, when we go deep within, we see that it is God who is the Doer and God is also the Action. In such cases, if one is very spiritual, one transcends the law of karma.

Now I wish to tell you something. The law of karma is limited but the Grace of God is unlimited. Again, inside the Grace, what do we see? It is God’s experience. Within His Infinite Grace and in His cosmic law, God is having the experience. When He is in His cosmic law, He follows the principle, “As you sow, so you reap.” But when He goes beyond His cosmic law, beyond the universal phenomena, there He is boundless, He is infinite, He is limitless. There He does not follow any law or orderly principle. He is above, far above. He is owner of all His laws.

In connection with your question, I wish to say that the Christ was absolutely right. It was not the karma of that particular person; it is God who wanted to have a particular experience, a significant experience in and through that particular human being.

The thing is that one can go beyond the cosmic law. Even here on earth, when there is Grace, this Divine Grace can easily nullify the cosmic law. I think I have told you here a few times that there is an analogy. Suppose right in front of you there are two children, five years old. One is standing with his father and the other is all alone. The one who is standing with his father suddenly comes running and strikes the other one. Now the poor little fellow, the one who was struck, comes back to strike the first one, but the father is standing there and does not allow his child to be beaten. Similarly, although the cosmic law says that if you strike, you will be stricken, as you sow, so you reap, why is it that the one who committed the crime was not beaten? Just because he had the father. Who was the father? Someone who had more power. He was only a human being, but the father had more power than the little child. Similarly in our life, when you do something wrong, if we know how to aspire, how to pray, how to cry, immediately we approach the Highest Power, the Strongest Power, the Mightiest Power. That Mightiest Power comes to our rescue. It is inside us and at the same time, it is Beyond. It operates in this world: at the same time, it transcends this world if you know how to cry, if you know how to pray, that Infinite Power, that Highest Power is bound to come to your aid, even though you made a mistake. You have made a mistake and the results are due to come in the form of painful punishment. But this punishment can be easily nullified by the intervention of a third power, the Highest Power. So here you can see, even in this world, that the cosmic law, “As you sow, so you reap,” cannot be applied all the time.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Earth’s Cry Meets Heaven’s Smile, part 3, Aum Press, Puerto Rico, 1978
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