“”A Perfect Master forms a circle of twelve men and two women who have the necessary minimum amount of spiritual sanskaras to their credit. And at the same time their respective positions are also allotted in conformity with their spiritual sanskaras, with one of them [the chargeman] becoming a Master himself at the appointed time. Once the circle is formed, the real striving of the individual souls is put to a stop. No new material sanskaras are contracted thereafter.
For a few centuries, through a few lives, the balance of material sanskaras is spent while the spiritual sanskaras remain intact. This is called prarabdha [divine destiny]. During these three or four lives, the progress in spending away the prarabdha is gone through as a group by the whole circle. However, it is without their knowledge of having been collected in a joint and common bond, since their very formation is made without their being aware of it. Their unconsciousness of their great spiritual progress remains until the end. Even the circle's formation and working are carried on automatically until the chargeman's Realization.
In spite of colossal preparation, Gautama the Buddha was perfectly unaware of his condition during the spending of the last prarabdha in his early years when he led the life of a royal prince [in Nepal]. But when the moment arrived, Gautama discarded all the regal tinsel and worldly grandeur about him and soon attained his Realization and became Buddha.1 When, after God-realization, the Master returns to the gross plane, he finds his companions still entangled in their respective prarabdha spending. It is then that his great work begins. In a secret manner, the Master arranges affairs and undergoes various sufferings and strivings so that the different prarabdhas are spent. Once their sanskaras are spent, all the members of his circle attain God-realization at one and the same moment, though their prarabdhas widely differ in quantity and quality. This phase of a Master's working is the greatest and the most difficult, in comparison to which even the giving of a huge push to the whole universe toward Truth is effortless.
Besides his spiritual work, the physical hardships he has to undergo in connection with finishing the prarabdha of the circle are no less strenuous. He personally undergoes such physical actions necessary in bringing about a joint and clear balance sheet of material sanskaras of the circle. Hence, although he is a Perfect Being [free] and requires no binding or actions, he seemingly has karma and does karmic acts, but they are deeds without binding.
