Following is an extract from a bigger article on the subject of
Karma. The extract is very profound in terms of its conveying the message of
doing good deeds.
We
are required to do all the good possible so that at the end of each day we find
ourselves on the credit side, that our good deeds outweigh our shortcomings. We
question ourselves each night and answer honestly. “Was I completely sincere
today? Was I humble, patient, kind and generous? Was I frank and courageous,
obedient and faithful? Or was I dishonest, proud, impatient and quarrelsome,
unkind and miserly, deceitful and cowardly, disobedient and disloyal?” The
personal audit takes five minutes. You are alone and forthright with yourself.
Nobody shames or embarrasses you. You confess to yourself only, and the exercise
comes to be a gradual self-purification and spiritually rewarding process. And
eventually leads to salvation.
A
young boy who had come to take away old newspapers weighed the pile and
calculated the value at Rs.76/-. From his purse he took out Rs.75/- and fished
around in his pockets for the remaining rupee. The Rs.75/- were accepted and he
was told to forget about the rupee. He left. Fifteen minutes later he was back.
He had cycled to the nearest market, changed money, and was back to pay his one
rupee! “Better to pay debts in this world than to be answerable in the next!” he
said by way of explanation.
Another kind of personal audit was suggested by a wise man to a
conscientious seeker. “For every sin you commit, drive a nail into the wall of
your room. And for every good deed, draw out a nail. At the end of the month you
will know by the number of nails in the wall whether your sins were greater or
your good deeds outdid the bad deeds.” This the man did faithfully. At month
end he happily found he had no nails in the wall, but was left with a scarred
wall, where the nails had been wrenched out. He went back to the wise man and
reported: “I have no nails left but my wall is damaged”. “That” the wise man
said “is the scar left on your soul even though your sins and good deeds may
seem balanced”.
