नतु सद्यो ऽविनीतस्य दृश्यते कर्मणः फलम्।
कालोऽप्यङ्गीभवत्यत्र सस्यानामिव पक्तये॥
na tu sadyo ’vinītasya dṛśyate karmaṇaḥ phalam
kālo ’py aṅgī bhavaty atra sasyānām iva paktaye
na = not; tu = but; sadyaḥ = immediately; avinītasya = of an insolent evil man’s; dṛśyate = is seen; karmaṇaḥ = sinful activity; phalam = the result; kālaḥ = because time; api = also; aṅgī = an accessory; bhavati = becomes; atra = in this regard; sasyānām = of crops; iva = like; paktaye = the ripening.
But the result of an insolent evil man’s sinful activity is not seen immediately because time also becomes an accessory in this regard, like the ripening of crops.
1 These three verses are quoted by Śrī Madhvācārya in his Kṛṣṇāmṛta-mahārṇava as texts 209-211. He also quotes the first of these two verses in his Gītā-bhāṣya 3.4, and identifies the two verses as coming from the Brahma Purāṇa. The translation of the first verse is based on BNK Sharma’s English rendition of the Gītā-bhāṣya. Sometimes an idea is presented, even in Vaiṣṇava circles, that one can “burn up” his or her sinful reactions by “just going through the miseries” without attempting to counteract them in any manner. This is a misconception because one cannot not engage in an activity. Even if one passively goes through the miserable results of one’s former sinful activities without attempting to counteract them, he or she cannot refrain from engaging in all activities—every embodied soul has to engage in some activity or another, as noted by Lord Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā (18.11): na hi dehabhṛtā śakyaṁ tyaktuṁ karmāṇy aśeṣataḥ. And if those activities happen to be pious or impious material activities, at least ten more human births are guaranteed. Therefore, the solution to this quandary is to engage in pure devotional service to Kṛṣṇa.
2 Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.23: padma-purāne ca—aprārabdha-phalaṁ pāpaṁ kūṭaṁ bījaṁ phalonmukham / krameṇaiva pralīyeta viṣṇu-bhakti-ratātmanām.
3]. The quotations from of The Nectar of Devotion are from its first chapter.
NOTE. As a [general] rule, human males and females from the age of fourteen in any lifetime generate not less than ten future lifetimes to experience the results of their material activities in that lifetime:
jīvaṁś caturdaśād ūrdhvaṁ puruṣo niyamena tu
strī vāpy anūna-daśakaṁ dehaṁ mānuṣam ārjate
caturdaśordhva-jīvīni saṁsāraś cādi-varjitaḥ
ato ’viditvā paraṁ devaṁ mokṣāśā kā mahā-mune
“A man or a woman living beyond his or her fourteenth year is liable as a rule to lay in store not less than ten future lives. And material existence has no beginning. Therefore, without realizing the Supreme Godhead, where is the hope of liberation, O great sage?”
ācaturdaśamād varṣāt karmāṇi niyamena tu
daśāvarāṇāṁ dehānāṁ kāraṇāni karoty ayam
ataḥ karma-kṣayān muktiḥ kuta eva bhaviṣyati
“As a rule, from the age of fourteen a living entity engages in material activities that generate at least ten births. Therefore, how can one attain liberation by exhausting his karmic reactions?”1
Therefore the question, “Why does it take time for sinful activities to fructify into distresses?” can be answered thus: Because there are karmic reactions from the past that are already being processed and they need to fructify into happy or unhappy experiences in this life (and future lives). Therefore, the pious or impious activities that one currently engages in generate pious or impious karmic reactions that just join in the queue. So it does take a while before one sees the results of specific material activities. Sītā-devī compares it to the ripening of crops. Certainly crops do take time to ripen.
In The Nectar of Devotion, Prabhupāda nicely explains this principle in the following words:
Generally, one commits sinful activities due to ignorance. But ignorance is no excuse for evading the reaction – sinful activities.
Sinful activities are of two kinds: those that are mature and those that are not mature. The sinful activities for which we are suffering at the present moment are called mature. The many sinful activities stored within us for which we have not yet suffered are considered immature. For example, a man may have committed criminal acts but not yet been arrested for them. Now, as soon as he is detected, arrest is awaiting him. Similarly, for some of our sinful activities we are awaiting distresses in the future, and for others, which are mature, we are suffering at the present moment.
In this way there is a chain of sinful activities and their concomitant distresses, and the conditioned soul is suffering life after life due to these sins. He is suffering in the present life the results of sinful activities from his past life, and he is meanwhile creating further sufferings for his future life. Mature sinful activities are exhibited if one is suffering from some chronic disease, if one is suffering from some legal implication, if one is born in a low and degraded family or if one is uneducated or very ugly. There are many results of past sinful activities for which we are suffering at the present moment, and we may be suffering in the future due to our present sinful activities.
In the same book, Prabhupāda also refers to the Padma Purāṇa about the different kinds of effects due to sinful activities:
It is stated in the Padma Purāṇa that there are four kinds of effects due to sinful activities, which are listed as follows: (1) the effect that is not yet fructified, (2) the effect that is lying as seed, (3) the effect that is already mature and (4) the effect that is almost mature. It is also stated that all these four effects become immediately vanquished for those who surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Viṣṇu, and become engaged in His devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness.2
Those effects described as “almost mature” refer to the distress from which one is suffering at present, and the effects “lying as seed” are in the core of the heart, where there is a certain stock of sinful desires which are like seeds. The Sanskrit word kūṭam means that they are almost ready to produce the seed, or the effect of the seed. “An immature effect” refers to the case where the seedling has not begun.
From this statement of Padma Purāṇa it is understood that material contamination is very subtle. Its beginning, its fruition and results, and how one suffers such results in the form of distress, are part of a great chain. When one catches some disease, it is often very difficult to ascertain the cause of the disease, where it originated and how it is maturing. The suffering of a disease, however, does not appear all of a sudden. It actually takes time. And as in the medical field, for precaution’s sake, the doctor injects a vaccination to prevent the growing of contamination, the practical injection to stop all the fructifications of the seeds of our sinful activities is simply engagement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.3
That all of one’s “immature” sinful reactions can be eradicated by pure devotional service unto the Supreme Lord is clear from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.14.19:
yathāgniḥ su-samṛddhārciḥ karoty edhāṁsi bhasmasāt
tathā mad-viṣayā bhaktir uddhavaināṁsi kṛtsnaśaḥ
My dear Uddhava, just as a blazing fire turns firewood into ashes, similarly, devotion unto Me completely burns to ashes sins committed by My devotees.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.33.6 also points out that all of one’s “mature” sinful reactions can be eradicated by pure devotional service unto the Supreme Godhead:
yan-nāmadheya-śravaṇānukīrtanād
yat-prahvaṇād yat-smaraṇād api kvacit
śvādo ’pi sadyaḥ savanāya kalpate
kutaḥ punas te bhagavan nu darśanāt
To say nothing of the spiritual advancement of persons who see the Supreme Person face to face, even a person born in a family of dog-eaters immediately becomes eligible to perform Vedic sacrifices if he once utters the holy name of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or chants about Him, hears about His pastimes, offers Him obeisances or even remembers Him.