The period between birth and death is usually known as Life. The books tell us that birth and death are decided by one’s own karma. How then is it explainable that many people die at one and the same time. For example the Tsunami of December 26, 2004 has ended thousands of lives in one stroke. In a little different way, the Repalle Secunderabad train accident on October 29, 2005 has killed 114 persons while they were all asleep in the early hours of that day. Can there be a group karma like these warranting a mass killing is what baffles the human mind.
The matter had recently come up for discussion in the presence of Mata Amritanandamayi of Kerala. She had explained the phenomenon by borrowing the example of a large bird alighting the branch of a tree which is full of dry leaves. The force with which the bird flaps its wings results in the movement of air. The suddenness with which it lands shakes the branch. And all the dry leaves fall at once. She is of the opinion that all those leaves would have fallen if not for the bird. Only, the bird happened to be an instrument.
This reason is plausible. When we consider the example of the bird and the dry leaves, it can be deduced that all those who are destined to die owing to their karmic burden had to die en masse. Just as the bird is an instrument, so the Tsunami and the train accident are instruments on point. This proposition has to be accepted painfully. Though the surviving members of the victimized families find it difficult to swallow the conclusion it is clear there is no other way of explaining the deaths on the basis of karma.
Nevertheless She consoles us with the words that if we get out of the circle of birth and death we become one with the Absolute. Hats off to Amrutaji. This is exactly what our AMMA OF JILLELLAMUDI had pronounced very long ago. In her Idiomatic Telugu She said “ANDARIKI SUGATHE”. This saying is not as if death is the end all of life or that birth is the beginning of it. It is an emphatical assertion that all life is ONE. Ultimately it has to occur to us that whatever walk of life we are all in, even now we are not apart from that Absolute. Without that Absolute, we do not exist. Lo, if this conviction deepens in us, by an infinite series of experiences, either karma or no karma, has to fade away into oblivion.
AMMA who is imperceptible and ever enforcing is always ready to help us in bestowing bliss and peace to us. Only we should need her by becoming a willing instrument. We don’t have to make great sacrifices either. And when peace is passed on to us, it is a Peace that passeth all understanding.
‘JAYAHO MAATHA SRI ANASUYA’