The law of karma

An individual named HT was a colleague of mine from 1971 to 1974 when I was the export manager of a Japanese-Indonesian joint venture company dealing in goatskin. After 20 years I met him again. He was continuously out of work, two of his children had died, one from an illness and the other when he fell from the roof of his house.

Misfortune seemed to follow him everywhere. His job in a garment factory was lost when the factory burned down, and last but not least, his wife was frequently ill. He regularly came to me for financial help, but being a salary man myself there was not much I could do.

At present, he allegedly lives off the income of his only son, who is a driver. One day I asked him whether or not he had ever sinned in the past to see if it would account for why he had all this misfortune. He frankly told me that he had committed adultery with his neighbor's wife.

Now I put two and two together and I concluded that this is God's way of punishing a sinner. He told me in confidence his story with the neighbor's wife, whose husband was a sailor.

The affair went on for six months and HT's story was filled with amorous recollections which would make Casanova or Don Juan blush.

During the whole narration I had great difficulty in refraining from laughter but in the end I sternly reprimanded him that adultery is a serious violation of God's commandments. I also advised him that the only way to get rid of the misfortune was to ask for forgiveness from the Almighty. Although he escaped man's law, he could not escape God's wrath.

A.DJUANA

Jakarta