Love Beyond Barriers

The Advaita logic cannot be consistent if it bifurcate karma and phala (result). Advaita never believes that cause and effect can be bifurcated and kept in water-tight compartments. Karma and phala are inseparable as that of cause and effect. Therefore, the assumption that karma and phala have been separated by the Advaitians is false, illogical and inconsistent to its own epistemological position. Since phala and karma cannot be separated, then it leads to the connection between karma and good results and vice versa. It is through this logic that the Advaita system connects moksha on one hand and artha and kama on the other hand. Advaita specifically says that a person who aims at moksha has to practise dharma and he who practises artha will only be able to get kama. Therefore, Advaita believes that the whole karma should be transformed into dharma to attain moksha. Karma in this sense is only a transformation of every karma to dharma and dharma is the means to attain moksha. Since ends and means are inseparable, an Advaitian cannot approve the idea that end can justify means. He who wants to attain heaven has to practise love on earth as Jesus preached. He specifically describes that such a love never believes in discrimination between friends and foes, but that love goes beyond the barriers of friendship and enmity. Hence, He preached “Love thy enemy.” That act of love itself is the heaven. Therefore, Jesus cannot separate ends and means. He who is unable to separate ends and means in ethical practice specifically believes in ‘Nishkama karma’.