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your hand on a hot plate unknowingly? Demerit karma carried
out knowingly or unknowingly, carries the same weight. The
only difference between the two is that the consequences of the
deed carried out in ignorance will have to be experienced in an
unknowing state and the consequence of a deed carried out
deliberately will have to be experienced in a knowing state. For
example, there are two brothers; one is sixteen and the other is
two years old. Their mother dies. Both have to suffer the
consequence of their past demerit karma. The older one has to
suffer consciously and the younger in a state of unawareness.
Merit karma can also be carried out unknowingly. For
example, you stand in a line for four hours to buy sugar, on your
way home the sugar slowly leaks out through a tiny hole in the
bag. The ants reap the benefit from this and you created merit
karma without being aware of it, the consequence of which you
will enjoy without being aware of it.
Every human being is trapped in a labyrinth of merit karma-
demerit karma, demerit karma-merit karma and is subject to
endless wandering; there is no liberation from it. The most a
person gets from earning a lot of merit karma is a life as a
celestial being, but he never acquires liberation. Liberation is
only acquired upon meeting a Gnani Purush who will destroy
your demerit karma of endless lifetimes (through the fire of
spiritual knowledge) and gives you the Self (your Soul). Until
then you have to keep on wandering within the four life forms.
Every living being, starting from the single sensory life
form to the five-sensory life form experiences endless suffering,
just like a man confined to total darkness with only two meals
a day. Such are the dense layers, which cover the Soul. If
human beings with their five senses have to suffer so much, can
you imagine what suffering the living beings with lesser senses
have to endure? There is no living entity with six senses. The