Different seeds
fructify after different time durations. Grains harvest after two or three
months, some fruit seeds produce fruits after twenty years and some seeds may
even take hundred years to fructify. Every action that we do is like a seed
sown. The seed will fructify and we cannot escape the result. One may say, “I
don’t like this fruit, I don’t want it.” But one will be forced to eat the
fruit, even if it is thorny. The reactions will come, but different types of
karma seeds (actions) have different time durations after which they fructify.
Why do different
actions give reactions after different time durations? To understand this,
let’s recall this incident from Mahabharata!
After the bloody
Kurukshetra war, Dhritrarashtra asked Krishna, “I had hundred sons
and all of them were killed in the war. Why? Krishna replied, “Fifty lifetimes
ago, you were a hunter. While hunting, you tried to shoot a male bird, but it
flew away. In anger, you ruthlessly slaughtered the hundred baby birds that
were there in the nest. The father-bird had to watch in helpless agony. Because
you caused that father-bird the pain of seeing the death of his hundreds sons,
you too had to bear the pain of your hundred sons dying.
Dhritarastra said, “Ok, but why did I have to wait for
fifty lifetimes?” Krishna answered, “You were accumulating punya (pious
credits) during the last fifty lifetimes to get a hundred sons because that
requires a lot of punya. Then you got the reaction for the papa (sin) that you
have done fifty lifetimes ago.”
