Nullifying Karma

QUESTION: Good evening Dhananjay,

From your previous answers I have learned that Karma is cancelled out through the austerities and disconnection from senses.  My issue is that ever since I have began Brahmacharya my personal relationships have taken a turn for the worse.

Friends have become enemies.  People are harshly critical of me.  I am ignored more often and it seems like the world is simply treating me differently now.  Is this because I am going through a spiritual detoxification process and my karmic impurities are surfacing?  I am trying to focus on God contemplation but it is difficult when I can hear everyone else being critical or simply ignoring me now.

Thank you for any answer you can apply..

ANSWER: Karma once accrued cannot be cancelled. It has to be worked out. Karma is not cancelled by Brahmacharya but is worked out faster and more effectively, thereby delivering the Jivâtma (embodied soul) out of the entanglement of slavery to the senses faster. Brahmacharya with God-devotion and contemplation gives man the strength, energy and ability to face this cleansing process head-on and with lesser trouble. He will be in a position to take this karmic cleansing and its after effects with greater poise, awareness and stability.

The karmic cleansing which occurs through Brahmacharya should have no bearing on one's relationship with friends if they are 'TRUE FRIENDS'.

Who is a true friend? He is one who accepts the other for what he or she is. He is one who respects the other inspite of his defects or shortcomings as a human being. He is one who has a well wishing and well meaning attitude towards the other, immaterial of whether there is gain or pain from such an attitude. Such a person can alone be called a true friend. The true friend is not bothered about weather you are good looking, smart, popular, moneyed, have a fast car or hundred other external factors. He accepts you for what you are and this acceptance does not change with the external or internal factors that change in your life. He is a person who connects to you as an individual at a humane and personal level and not at the superficial level. One could consider himself lucky if he were to come by even a single such true friend in one's entire lifetime. The rest are all a pass!

1. Brahmacharya is a personal decision and lifestyle-choice one makes as regards himself. It is a mode of life that is not to be advertised or spoken of with people out in the public, for the simple reason that the majority of people cannot understand its true purpose and are not yet ready to come to terms with such a concept, independent of a life of senses. To the majority, enjoyment of sense pleasures is the aim of life and the purpose behind life. One should not try to profess or influence others directly as regards Brahmacharya as it is not everyone's cup of tea. Only those Jivâtmas (embodied souls) who are evolved and fit for a life of Brahmacharya will find it appealing and will be allowed by God to hear of it and pursue it successfully. It is not by any means a general tablet for the masses. Hence a successful Brahmachari always carries out his practice in secret and makes no sound about his practice at the outset.

2. This inner practice and resolution will not however affect one's friendship with others if the friendship is of a true and genuine kind from both sides. If the practice of Brahmacharya is making your friends distance themselves from you, it is anybody's guess as to how true they are in accepting you for what you are or what you want to be. Isn't it better that such 'false friends' in the 'guise' of true friends get rid of themselves? This will always happen as one progresses in Brahmacharya. All those things that are false and comprise of the Asath (untruth) both from within and outside slowly vacate and move away. One even loses his ego and desires as these themselves are false and unreal and the Âtman (self) alone remains, leading to intrinsic bliss. This is what leads to self-realization. Let people who claim friendship prove it by accepting us for what we are or what we want to be, rather than what they want us to be!

ॐ तत् सत्
(That Supreme being is the absolute truth)

[an error occurred while processing this directive]---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I just wanted to post a follow up and say thanks.  It is indeed a lonely path to self realization however I see how solitude provides the only true path to the Atman and supreme bliss.

I will be studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali more in the coming days.

नमस्ते

ANSWER: Since distancing oneself from everything Asath (unreal) is very necessary to know that which is the Sath (real) namely the Âtman, the true Brahmachari will eventually have to withdraw from the world of objects, senses, people and external perception, for all these are unreal. Indulgence in any of these causes the 'Chitta Vritthis' (modifications of the mind) to rise, thereby drawing man away from his true nature of the Âtman. The means of Yoga is 'Chitta Vritthi Nirodhaha' or cessation of the modifications of the mind, as laid down by the great Sage Pathanjali. Hence the yogi needs to limit his interactions with people to the basic minimum and out of necessity, not more.

ॐ तत् सत्
(That Supreme being is the absolute truth)

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Yes this all correlates with everything I'm reading and realizing on the path which I like to phrase as "Returning to Zero" which is sort of my own way of viewing the process.

One last question before I continue my introspection, would you say or agree that Self Realization comes much faster for the Brahmacharin with the speeding up of past Karma reaching the shores of the aspirant?  

From what you described it seems to make sense from the 12 years perspective of Brahmacharya that as one becomes stronger and more capable of absorbing the waves of discordant Karma, this in turn removes the necessity for returning to future incarnations to achieve liberation.

Am I on the right track with that perspective?