The following article was written during a discussion  the
relevance of karmic theory in context of the advaita philosophy.
It establishes a reconcilation between the two.  Two basic
questions come in the way of the karma theory:  1. If Advaita is
the right theory, then all the world, the matter is unreal, so
are the actions. Hence there is no meaning to a divine principle
guiding these phenomenas.  2. If the karmic theory is right, is
everything pre-decided and there is no free will. Is human being
weak? And can praying to God, challenge the karmic theory,
exhaust the effect of the bad karmas...    The first question: I
feel that though all this is an illusion, there is a law which
governs it all. A very simple analogy can be drawn from maths.
In maths, a unreal system of numbers called Complex numbers is
used. These complex numbers have no significance as far the
reality is concerned, they have no meaning. But, while analysing
problems, we start with real numbers, use complex numbers as a
tool and finally g