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| What is Karma? |
Karma is one of those topics that many people know a little about, but few understand the intricacies of it. To
start with, the second law of thermodynamics is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
On the universal scale, this is the law of karma. The law of karma basically states that every action has a
reaction and whatever you do to others will later return to you. Furthermore, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
If you don’t understand the law of fire you can still burn yourself. In the same way we are accountable for
everything we do, regardless of whether we understand it or not. Therefore, the best thing is to learn how it
works.
If everyone understood the law of karma, we would all be living a happier life in a brighter world. Why? Because
we could know how to adjust our lives so we would not be suffering the constant reactions of what we have
done due to the false aims of life.
According to the Vedic literature, karma is the law of cause and effect. For every action there is a cause as well
as a reaction. Karma is produced by performing fruitive activities for bodily or mental development. One may
perform pious activities that will produce good reactions or good karma for future enjoyment. Or one may
perform selfish or what some call sinful activities that produce bad karma and future suffering. This follows a
person wherever he or she goes in this life or future lives. Such karma, as well as the type of consciousness a
person develops, establishes reactions that one must experience.
The Svetashvatara Upanishad (5.12) explains that the living being, the jiva soul, acquires many gross physical
and subtle bodies due to the actions he performs, as is motivated by the material qualities to which he obtains.
These bodies that are acquired continue to be a source of illusion as long as he is ignorant of his real identity.
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (4.45) further clarifies that as the atma or soul in the gross and subtle bodies
acts, so thereby he obtains different conditions. By acting saintly he becomes a saint, and by acting immorally he
becomes subject to the karmic consequences. In this way, he accrues piety or the burden of impiety accordingly.
Similarly, it is stated that as a man sows, so shall he reap. Therefore, as people live their present life, they
cultivate a particular type of consciousness by their thoughts and activities, which may be good or bad. This
creates a person’s karma.
This karma will direct us into a body that is most appropriate for the reactions that we need to endure, or the
lessons we need to learn. Thus, the cause of our existence comes from the activities of our previous lives. Since
everything is based on a cause, it is one’s karma that will determine one’s situation, such as race, color, sex, or
area of the world in which one will appear, or whether one is born in a rich or poor family, or be healthy or
unhealthy, etc.
So when the living beings take birth again, they get a certain kind of body that is most suitable for the type of
consciousness they have developed. Therefore, according to the Padma Purana, there are 8,400,000 species of
life, each offering a particular class of body for whatever kind of desires and consciousness the living being may
have in this world. In this way, the living entity is the child of his past and the parent of his future. Thus, he is
presently affected by his previous life’s activities and creates his future existence by the actions he performs in
this life. A person will reincarnate into various forms of bodies that are most suitable for the living entity’s
consciousness, desires, and for what he deserves. So the living being inevitably continues in this cycle of birth
and death and the consequences for his various good or bad activities as long as he is materially motivated.
What creates good or bad karma is also the nature of the intent behind the action. If one uses things selfishly
or out of anger, greed, hate, revenge, etc., then the nature of the act is of darkness. One will incur bad karma
from it that will later manifest as reversals in life, painful events, disease or accidents. While things that are
done for the benefit of others, out of kindness and love, with no thought of return, or for worshiping God, are all
acts of goodness and piety, which will bring upliftment or good fortune to you. However, if you do something
bad that happens because of an accident or a mistake, without the intent to do any harm to others, the karma
is not so heavy. Maybe you were meant to be an instrument in someone else’s karma, which is also yours. It will
take into consideration your motivation. Yet the greater the intent or awareness of doing something wrong, the
greater the degree of negative reaction there will be. So it is all based on the intent behind the action.
However, we should understand that, essentially, karma is for correcting a person, not for mere retribution of
past deeds. The universe is based on compassion. Everyone has certain lessons and ways in which he must
develop, and the law of karma actually directs one in a manner to do that. Nonetheless, one is not condemned
to stay in this cycle of repeated birth and death forever. There is a way out. In the human form one can acquire
the knowledge of spiritual realization and attain release from karma and further rounds of birth and death. This
is considered to be the most important achievement one can accomplish in life. This is why every religious
process in the world encourages people who want freedom from earthly existence not to hanker for material
attachments or sensual enjoyments which bind them to this world, but to work towards what can free them
from further cycles of birth and death.
All karma can be negated when one truly aspires to understand or realize the higher purpose in life and spiritual
truth. When one reaches that point, his life can be truly spiritual which gives eternal freedom from change. By
striving for the Absolute Truth, or for serving God in devotional service, especially in bhakti-yoga, a person can
reach the stage in which he is completely relieved of all karmic obstacles or responsibilities. Lord Krishna says in
Bhagavad-gita (18.66):
start with, the second law of thermodynamics is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
On the universal scale, this is the law of karma. The law of karma basically states that every action has a
reaction and whatever you do to others will later return to you. Furthermore, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
If you don’t understand the law of fire you can still burn yourself. In the same way we are accountable for
everything we do, regardless of whether we understand it or not. Therefore, the best thing is to learn how it
works.
If everyone understood the law of karma, we would all be living a happier life in a brighter world. Why? Because
we could know how to adjust our lives so we would not be suffering the constant reactions of what we have
done due to the false aims of life.
According to the Vedic literature, karma is the law of cause and effect. For every action there is a cause as well
as a reaction. Karma is produced by performing fruitive activities for bodily or mental development. One may
perform pious activities that will produce good reactions or good karma for future enjoyment. Or one may
perform selfish or what some call sinful activities that produce bad karma and future suffering. This follows a
person wherever he or she goes in this life or future lives. Such karma, as well as the type of consciousness a
person develops, establishes reactions that one must experience.
The Svetashvatara Upanishad (5.12) explains that the living being, the jiva soul, acquires many gross physical
and subtle bodies due to the actions he performs, as is motivated by the material qualities to which he obtains.
These bodies that are acquired continue to be a source of illusion as long as he is ignorant of his real identity.
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (4.45) further clarifies that as the atma or soul in the gross and subtle bodies
acts, so thereby he obtains different conditions. By acting saintly he becomes a saint, and by acting immorally he
becomes subject to the karmic consequences. In this way, he accrues piety or the burden of impiety accordingly.
Similarly, it is stated that as a man sows, so shall he reap. Therefore, as people live their present life, they
cultivate a particular type of consciousness by their thoughts and activities, which may be good or bad. This
creates a person’s karma.
This karma will direct us into a body that is most appropriate for the reactions that we need to endure, or the
lessons we need to learn. Thus, the cause of our existence comes from the activities of our previous lives. Since
everything is based on a cause, it is one’s karma that will determine one’s situation, such as race, color, sex, or
area of the world in which one will appear, or whether one is born in a rich or poor family, or be healthy or
unhealthy, etc.
So when the living beings take birth again, they get a certain kind of body that is most suitable for the type of
consciousness they have developed. Therefore, according to the Padma Purana, there are 8,400,000 species of
life, each offering a particular class of body for whatever kind of desires and consciousness the living being may
have in this world. In this way, the living entity is the child of his past and the parent of his future. Thus, he is
presently affected by his previous life’s activities and creates his future existence by the actions he performs in
this life. A person will reincarnate into various forms of bodies that are most suitable for the living entity’s
consciousness, desires, and for what he deserves. So the living being inevitably continues in this cycle of birth
and death and the consequences for his various good or bad activities as long as he is materially motivated.
What creates good or bad karma is also the nature of the intent behind the action. If one uses things selfishly
or out of anger, greed, hate, revenge, etc., then the nature of the act is of darkness. One will incur bad karma
from it that will later manifest as reversals in life, painful events, disease or accidents. While things that are
done for the benefit of others, out of kindness and love, with no thought of return, or for worshiping God, are all
acts of goodness and piety, which will bring upliftment or good fortune to you. However, if you do something
bad that happens because of an accident or a mistake, without the intent to do any harm to others, the karma
is not so heavy. Maybe you were meant to be an instrument in someone else’s karma, which is also yours. It will
take into consideration your motivation. Yet the greater the intent or awareness of doing something wrong, the
greater the degree of negative reaction there will be. So it is all based on the intent behind the action.
However, we should understand that, essentially, karma is for correcting a person, not for mere retribution of
past deeds. The universe is based on compassion. Everyone has certain lessons and ways in which he must
develop, and the law of karma actually directs one in a manner to do that. Nonetheless, one is not condemned
to stay in this cycle of repeated birth and death forever. There is a way out. In the human form one can acquire
the knowledge of spiritual realization and attain release from karma and further rounds of birth and death. This
is considered to be the most important achievement one can accomplish in life. This is why every religious
process in the world encourages people who want freedom from earthly existence not to hanker for material
attachments or sensual enjoyments which bind them to this world, but to work towards what can free them
from further cycles of birth and death.
All karma can be negated when one truly aspires to understand or realize the higher purpose in life and spiritual
truth. When one reaches that point, his life can be truly spiritual which gives eternal freedom from change. By
striving for the Absolute Truth, or for serving God in devotional service, especially in bhakti-yoga, a person can
reach the stage in which he is completely relieved of all karmic obstacles or responsibilities. Lord Krishna says in
Bhagavad-gita (18.66):
“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not
fear.”
Without being trained in this spiritual science, it is very difficult to understand how the living being leaves his
body or what kind of body he will get in the future, or why there are various species of life which accommodate
all the living entities’ innumerable levels of consciousness. As related in the Bhagavad-gita, those who are
spiritually ignorant cannot understand how a living entity can depart the body at the time of death, nor can they
understand what kind of body he or she will enjoy while under the influence of the modes of nature. However,
one who has been trained in knowledge can perceive this.
Thus, we encourage everyone to understand the law of karma more completely and how one can engage in the
devotional service of the Lord in order to become free of all good or bad karma and develop a purely
spiritualized consciousness. This is real freedom and liberation from all material limitations by which one can
reach the spiritual strata. You can start by browsing this website a little further to gain deeper understanding
about this wonderful gift of spiritual life.
TOP
fear.”
Without being trained in this spiritual science, it is very difficult to understand how the living being leaves his
body or what kind of body he will get in the future, or why there are various species of life which accommodate
all the living entities’ innumerable levels of consciousness. As related in the Bhagavad-gita, those who are
spiritually ignorant cannot understand how a living entity can depart the body at the time of death, nor can they
understand what kind of body he or she will enjoy while under the influence of the modes of nature. However,
one who has been trained in knowledge can perceive this.
Thus, we encourage everyone to understand the law of karma more completely and how one can engage in the
devotional service of the Lord in order to become free of all good or bad karma and develop a purely
spiritualized consciousness. This is real freedom and liberation from all material limitations by which one can
reach the spiritual strata. You can start by browsing this website a little further to gain deeper understanding
about this wonderful gift of spiritual life.
TOP
| sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksayisyami ma sucah |
