If brahma writes our fate, then why does Yamraja punish us?

[Samraat Bhismadeva Maurya]

Hare Krishna!
All glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga!

Dandavats all,

If Brahma writes our fate and everything happiness as he wrote then why should Yamaraja punish us? Why is there Karma?

Jai Sri Radhe-Syam!

[saswathy]

Dear friend , Brahma is superior to yamadharmaraja in the hyrarchy. They are posts belonging to two different departments and each one has to do his duty .

[markandeya 108 dasa]

Pranams,

I am not sure if Dharmaraja is below or above Lord Brahma Ji, they are both members of the 12 Mahajans. As far as I know from Gaudiya tradition they are on the same level. I was told once that each universe has a Lord Brahma Ji, but fortunately in this universe Lord Brahma is a devotee, while in other universes he may not be. Dharmaraja is sometimes elevated to be almost equal with paramatma as He is omnipotent and can see the past, present and future of a living being from within.


Lord Brahma ji is the creator deva and his body is said to be made of pure intelligence, Budhi. He creates the phenomenal universe under the direction of Sri Vishnu, but within the universe we have free will, we can choose to go left and right so to speak and from that there will be an equal causation to the effect of movement in dualistic nature.

I think these questions pop up a lot in our journey, why we have to suffer, why is there Karma and why is evil present. In fact there is no easy answer, and sometimes to give an answer can cause a problem because we see things purely on the intellectual level without deeper conscious awareness.

Everything though falls into place at the right time.

Ys

Md

[Viraja]

This question totally wipes out the presence of 'free will' of any sort at all.. when it reality most of life, if not all, is closely connected with 'free will' or the choices one makes.

It is said, when Yama ji evaluates a soul, he tries to find out if atleast once in his lifetime he uttered the name of 'Hari', even accidentally. Only if no, and if the soul of that of a bad sinner, does Yama ji send the soul to hell. If he had only uttered the name of 'Hari' even once, then Yama ji does not send the soul to hell because in reality, he dislikes sending anyone to hell. What does this 'utterance atleast once of Sri Hari's name' test indicate? -- That one has plenty of free-will left to make sound choices all through his lifetime, to the point some of his karmas written by Brahma ji can be changed/altered tremendously.

Some people say the amount of free-will a person has changes from one person to another, but still, we are all not mere animals, we do have free-will to change our lives, no matter what has been written by Shri Brahmadev.

Thanks.

[saswathy]

Dear friends ,
in that case , so called hell should be literally empty .

[devotee]

Namaste,

BrahmA writes your fate depending upon your Karma. You are solely responsible for whatever is written in your fate.

OM

[saswathy]

Dear friends ,
Brahma writes according to the deeds done and yamadharma raja implements.

[renuka]

Namaste ji,

Brahma and Yama are symbolic of Action and Reaction.

Brahma is our own Karmic action and Yama is our own Karmic reaction.

[brahma jijnasa]

Namaste

If Brahma writes our fate and everything happiness as he wrote then why should Yamaraja punish us? Why is there Karma?

I do not know where this comes from that Brahma does so (by the way, what it means "everything happiness"?), but that does not mean that we are not doing the deeds according to our will. See what Lord Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad gita 18.63:

"Thus I have explained to you knowledge still more confidential. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do."

Here the Lord says "do what you wish to do". Would the Lord said so if it would be impossible for Arjuna to act according to his will? If the living entity has no discretion or the ability to decide for themselves what to do, then the statement "do what you wish to do" does not make sense.
Some people this jiva's ability called "free will" and Srila Prabhupada called it "little independence of the living entity". See at his purport on this verse:

"Here the words yathecchasi tathā kuru -- "As you like, you may act" -- indicate that God does not interfere with the little independence of the living entity."

So, we are dependent on God's will, the laws of nature, karma, etc., but we have that what is called "little independence" to freely decide what to do, and then we become responsible for our actions. Right?


regards

[wundermonk]

Why is there Karma?

Greetings,

Karma is anything that differentiates one self from another prior to birth.

Allow me to elucidate further using a syllogism.

P1. God's knowledge is eternally unchanging. (i.e. God always knew what was going to happen - this is part of God's omniscience.)

P2. God's knowledge is all encompassing and intentional. i.e. God's knowledge is always directed towards a real-existent object and every real-existent object is an object of God's knowledge. For e.g. even God cannot know the name of a a barren woman's son or the area of a square circle or the sharpness of a hare's horn.

P3. We, our birth, the association of a particular self with a particular body, our actions are real-existents.

C1. We, our birth, the association of a particular self with a particular body, our actions are objects of God's knowledge.

C2. We, our birth, the association of a particular self with a particular body, our actions are eternally unchanging.

It is this eternally unchanging aspect of our present existence that is called karma.

Karma never began to exist. It always was.