Is this great law a curse or a blessing? It is mixed. Ultimately, it is a great blessedness. People have a tendency to look at it from only one particular angle, and that angle is, that as long as a human being is bound to the wheel of this law, there is no happiness for him and he is miserable and he weeps. In this view, Karma will always plague man and the Law of Karma, like the hammer of God, will descend upon his head and inflict perennial suffering upon him. But, is it not clear that this Law of Karma is not actually just a law of retribution or punishment? There is another view, a glorious view, to be taken of it. Just as man cannot escape the results of his activity which are bad (for this, he has to reap tears and suffering), in the same way, he cannot escape his reward. The whole world cannot rob him of his deserved reward. The good actions of a person will follow him anywhere and will overcome for him the greatest difficulty and the greatest sorrow and give him the harvest of joy.

If properly understood, the Law of Karma is a law which gives infinite hope. It says that man’s destiny is in his own hands. It says that what he shall be depends upon himself. He is the one to decide on the pattern of the experiences to come. No force has any power over him to coerce him into wrong action. He has to take care of how he behaves, how he acts and what thoughts he thinks. He is the master of his destiny. He is the architect of his fate. He has nothing to fear in this universe, nothing except his own wrong actions and thoughts. He has to say: “Who has the power to give me any experience that I do not choose to select for myself? No one on earth has the power to injure me, to bring sorrow upon me, to inflict destruction or evil upon me”. Thus man takes infinite courage. He is determined to guide his own life into a future containing bliss and radiance. The Law of Karma gives him an inducement to sow the right type of seeds, to fashion all his activity along ideal lines.

It is this law which upholds the moral standard of this universe. Had it not been for this law, there would have been no inducement either to avoid evil or to embrace good. Both these lines of action spring out of this glorious law. Man knows that if he does not avoid evil, he will sow weeds and thorns. He knows that he should do good, because he will be the blessed enjoyer of the fruits of those good deeds. According to this view, the Law of Karma is not a doctrine of fatalism. On the contrary, it is a doctrine of high orderliness, serving as the basis of the moral order in the whole universe, and the attitude instilled into man by this law is fearlessness. It fills man with fearlessness and infinite courage and a great urge to be ideal and good and lofty in all his thoughts and activities. Man is thus revealed as the builder—having in his own hands the materials out of which he can build whatever he chooses.