Hare Krishna,
It is said that birth and death are in the hands of God. So if a person kills another person or say an animal, why does he get any negative karma ? Is he not just a pawn in the game of death since God is the one who actually decides when someone dies ? And is not death predestined ? So how can anyone get bad karma for killing another ?
Replies
The soul will leave the body at pre destined time, provided one does enough to keep body and soul together till that time. An act of violence can accelerate death. Why should one be the cause of suffering for someone else. Karma is very much there for killing, if the soul doing the killing is in human body. Karma can accrue only in human form of life. If one kills, then definitely there will be karma.
A person who is in vegetative state of mind is definitely his past karma that he is like this today. But if I am the reason for his being in this state today, then I also get karma.
He was supposed to suffer in the vegetable condition for an X amount of time, after which his bad karma finishes and therefore he dies . Maybe this is also possible ? - Yes its possible. Its also possible that before his karma got finished, his time in that life form got finished and thats why he died.
See prabhu, karma kanda is complicated. What you need to understand is that chanting reduces our karma, gives us bhakti so that we do more and more akarma and gradually become purified enough to go back home, back to godhead.
Haribol,
Your servant,
Radha Rasamayi DD
Body organs stop functioning when the soul leaves the body. The soul will leave the body at its pre destined time, provided one does enough to keep body and soul together till that time. That explains why so many people live like vegetables, brain dead condition for years and others die in a second in accident or even natural death. Suddenly a brain dead person will die - because he is destined to die at that moment. The choices he made in his life made him live like a vegetable till the appointed time for him to leave that body.
Hare Krsna Prabhuji,
PAMHO.
Birth and death are in the hands of God. Our karma is in our hands. The choices we make is in our hands. How do you know that the person who was murdered was destined to die by murder, that his life was not cut short by an act of violence by someone else?
Suppose a person is destined to live till 70 years and he knows it. Does that mean that if he jumps from a highrise or walks in the middle of the road in traffic, he will not die? We cannot defy death like this saying I will die when I am destined to die. Our own karma can accelerate or decelerate our death. Destiny is pre ordained, yes, but it is also a factor of present karma. Our present choices can change destiny, its dynamic as against being static.
Maybe, for the sake of argument, that person was to die by murder only. Why you have to be the instrument to fulfill that destiny? It doesnt absolve the killer of the act of killing, because that is a voluntary act committed by the person at that time, karma will definitely be there.
I hope I have been able to explain.
Pls revert with queries it you have any.
Haribol,
Your servant,
Radha Rasamayi DD
As long as living being think to be doer of material activities, that long karma will work and that long one will be forced to enter into material form. That's why those who think to be killed and those who think to be killers, considered to be in illusion. Anyway, the death and birth refers to material body, not to transcendental soul.