Hi ,
It is said that we should have accumulated a lot of good karma in our past births and present to be able to see God.
But will we be able to see him through continued meditation, even if our karma might not have been that good in the past or present? Does meditation and true love in God actually nullify our bad karma and enable us to reach him faster ?
—R.Nandini, India
Dear R. Nandini,
Your concern that your karma might not be good enough to see Him is known to many devotees. Yogananda replied very emphatically to a disciple who had that same concern: “Remember this: it takes very, very, VERY good karma for a person even to want to know God!”
Meditate on that! You have extremely good karma, absolutely good enough to see Him.
If you are deeply sincere you can find Him in this life, Yogananda taught. Take that as your unshakable encouragement.
Finding God is a question of how deep our desire is, how deep our love for Him is. If you truly want to see Him with 100% of your heart, He will come; you will see Him. Otherwise He won’t.
He is “jealous,” meaning that He wants our heart 100%, not 90%. Our real obstacle lies in the tepid heart — in our lingering worldly desires and attachments, which make the heart weak and impure, spiritually speaking.
Yogananda explained (from a book you might find useful, The Essence of Self-Realization, by Swami Kriyananda):
“When will you find God? When all your desires for other things are finished. When you realize that the only thing worth having is Him. When every thought, every feeling is drenched with the love of God.”
So think of how you can intensify your love and desire for Him. Love is a higher law than karma. Love wins over karma, as the scriptures say:
“For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much.” (Bible, Luke 7:47)
And:
“To those who meditate on Me as their very own, ever united to Me by incessant (inner) worship, I supply their deficiencies and make permanent their gains.” (Bhagavad Gita, 9:22)
Each meditation dissolves our lingering worldly karma. Again from the book, Essence of Self-Realization: “An important factor in overcoming karma is meditation. Every time you meditate, your karma decreases, for at that time your energy is focused in the brain and burns up the old brain cells.”
So keep meditating! And keep calling Him.
To sum up: all of us must break that doubting thought, “I don’t think I can find Him and experience samadhi.” That false thought is our enemy, a trick of maya, binding us hand and foot. Again from the same book: “The simple thought that we are not free is what keeps us from being free. If we could break even that one idea, we would go into samadhi.”
Always affirm, “I can find Him, I will find Him!” And then pray, “O Lord, help me! I need You in this. I love You.”
From my heart I wish you full God-speed.
In divine friendship,
jayadev
