Question: In your last mailing, you mentioned that bad thoughts and actions were the results of seeds of sinful activities committed in past lives. Could you please explain how to overcome them?
Answer by Romapada Swami: Sinful activities implicate one with various types of gross and subtle effects. The gross effects are the distresses one is suffering from or due to suffer in the near future. But there are subtle effects of committing sin, which leave sinful impressions that are stored in the heart like seeds, and manifest as bad thoughts or sinful desires that impel one in further sinful actions. These subtle reactions or impressions in the heart can only be overcome by achieving Krishna consciousness.
Many methods recommended in the scriptures, such as performance of sacrifice or charity to counteract resultant suffering of sin, or austerities and penance to curb one’s acting in sinful ways, give but a temporary relief. Technically, one’s prarabdha karma, or ‘effects of our past sins for which we are presently suffering’, are mitigated by these religious and scripturally prescribed high-grade activities. After some time, however, one is sure to again be pushed by the seed-like dormant sinful tendencies lying in the heart. This effect of this subtle seed of dormant tendancy leads to an endless cycle of sinning and atonement.
But devotional service to Lord Krishna is so powerful that it can completely uproot even traces of tendencies for sin and all the other reactions of previous sinful life. Krishna Himself helps His devotee in this regard by taking away all of one’s past karma and by cleansing the heart of the devotee (Cf. Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 1, Relief from Material Distress; S.Bhagavatam 6.1.13-15; 1.2.17
