Dharmaraj Iyer

When your karma comes to you, don’t push it away. It will only come back, and worse.

In the Fall of 1997, I entered the computer science Ph.D. program at MIT. For my first term project, a new friend and I partnered up to write a program that simulated a new solution to the following problem: in a computer network where connections are created and destroyed, given two computers, how quickly can you determine whether or not their messages can reach each other? We were motivated mostly by the hope of publishing our work, that coveted goal of young graduate students.

I quickly became frustrated. The project was complicated, and the explanations of our supervising professor turned my brain into a soggy potato. Worse still, my partner brought out my bad habits. We sank into a pattern of working all night. My meditation went out the window, and I became openly hostile. On the last day of the term we hadn’t yet successfully run our program because of some hidden bug. We made a deal: whoever finds the bug first gets to sleep. The other stays up the rest of the night writing the report.

He won.

Battered and bruised, we handed in the report and retired for Christmas vacation. In January, tired but tempted by the promise of a publication, I continued working. Anguish haunted me day and, mostly, night. By April I was utterly demoralized. I told my professor that I couldn’t continue.

"I quit."

As these words left my mouth, I felt a rumble in my stomach. I wasn’t sure that this was the right decision. When I sought reassurance from an Ananda friend, his response was essentially, "I don’t know if you did the right thing, but you’ll find out!"

I spent the following school year working to complete my master’s degree. One day I met my old project partner in the hall. He told me that, although he had agreed to finish the work, he couldn’t because his master’s thesis was consuming all his time. I knew the right thing to do was to help him, and with a sinking feeling, I realized that my karma had returned. With a heavy sigh, I agreed to resume the work.

Again I stayed up night after night. Again meditation was hurled out the window. Although I felt that this was my karma and my responsibility, I was not at all happy about it. Even-mindedness degenerated into frustration and hostility. When we finally submitted the paper, the professor said that, if it were accepted, we’d have an opportunity to improve the results. Fate smiled upon us: the paper was rejected.

In the fall of 1999 I moved to Ananda Palo Alto. That November I received an email from the professor, "Our paper was accepted to another conference. Would you be interested in improving the results?" My karma had returned again. By now I had learned that avoiding it was impossible and hating it was useless, so I resolved to act with the right attitude.

Unsure what the right attitude was, I spoke to Asha and David. After clucking sympathetically, Asha said, "View this as an opportunity to increase your energy; to prove that you can do more than you think you can. When fear creeps in, say, 'Lord, you have always taken care of things before. You have to somehow take care of this.’"

David said, "I ask myself, 'Does this need to be done?’ If the answer is yes, then what does it matter how I feel about it?"

Thus emboldened, I poured myself into the project. I worked all night, this time with relish. I did most of the programming work and wrote most of the paper. The professor asked me to present at the conference. I smiled, knowing Divine Mother was testing me to see if I would break. I poured myself into preparing the slides.

The conference day arrived. I slept for 45 minutes and then drove to San Francisco where the conference was being held. Adrenaline and God’s grace took over. I danced around the stage, shouting and gesturing wildly. After I returned to my seat, someone pointed out what he thought was a flaw in our work. I practically leapt from my chair, shouting in my defense. He quickly conceded the point, whether because he believed me or for fear of what I might do next, I’m not sure. I drove home, relieved that the karma had passed. The passing months brought an ominous email: "Congratulations! It is our pleasure to feature your paper in the upcoming issue of our journal." I sighed, looked heavenward, and the work began anew.

I wondered what the lesson was this time. The first time I had worked angrily. The second time I worked enthusiastically. This time, I felt the test was to maintain my sadhana and sleep schedule. So I worked a bit, day by day, and pulled only one all-nighter.

Today, three years after the project began, I sent off the journal version of the paper. When the reviewers return it with their comments, it should be a simple matter of editing and then finishing it forever. As I write these words, I have just received an email from an old friend, "Remember that work we did way back when? I submitted it to a conference, and it got in...."