The Law of Karma

 

 

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Most people think of karma as either receiving good or bad results. However, there is a greater meaning behind this mysterious concept that drives not only our behavior and actions but the empirical world of experience.  Before we dive deep into resolving this premature understanding of Karma, we must first understand the nature of karma and how it operates. Karma means action, and action means to experience. You cannot experience if there is no action. The world of experience requires two things: a subject and an object. If these two things are not present, then action is not possible. If there is no subject nor an object, then there is no distinction between anything and experience would not be possible. So when we say karma, it simply means action that is required in order to experience OR the desire to experience the illusion of duality. 

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Karma is also the law of cause and effect.  For an action to take place, there needs to be a cause for the action and similarly, there needs to be an effect from the cause. Effects come from causes and causes come from prior effects.  Only once there is a an established relationship between the two, can an action be perceived.

 

When every cause produces an effect and every effect produces another cause, karma is reinforced which leads to an endless chain of cause and effects that never seem to end. Karma is therefore an endless chain of cause and effects that allows reality to operate and be sustained. It is what brings beings into life and is beginningless (anadi) in nature, meaning there was never a start to karma. If there was a beginning to karma, then karma would come to an end and life would not be possible. Given life is still here, it never began and was always present.

 

Reality runs on karma. It is a self-governing function that runs on its own without any doer behind this cosmic power. It runs on its own via its own self-governed programming. This self-governing function that keeps karma in autonomous motion is known as Ishwara. This is what we refer to as God who creates, sustains and dissolves reality. Ishwara runs its creation via process of exhausting infinite jivas karmas. There are infinite jivas, each holding one perspective of Ishwara's cosmic mind. This means jivas are not separate from Ishwara, just like a dream character is not separate from the dream.  If infinite jivas have karma that needs to be exhausted, then creation is simply the process of exhausting them. 

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Per law of karma, every action produces a reaction or result. Good actions produce good results. Bad actions produce bad results. What determines whether something is good or bad? The answer ironically is karma. All results are actually value neutral. This means there is no meaning behind any cause or effect.  It is only jivas who give them meaning. The values they assign to these experiences is based on their karma! To understand this more in depth, we must first understand the entire cycle of how karma operates from beginning to end. 

 

There are three different types of karma. The first type of karma is Sanchita Karma. Sanchita means “heaped together”. It is the storehouse of karma that resides in the causal body. The causal body is not an actual body. It is an imaginary dream-like phenomena that houses all information in a state of potentiality. This means there is nothing that has been actualized into physical existence; IT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST.  We only introduce the concept of sanchita to explain why it appears to be there, since there had to have been some potential for things to appear a certain way.  This invisible karma or potential will naturally express into a perceived actions that the jiva expresses when the proper environment becomes conducive enough. You can picture sanchita karma as unknown thoughts that are hidden in the sub-conscious mind that will soon become known thoughts in the conscious mind. This karma exists as a potential phenomena that will eventually come into fruition. When karma does arise (manifest), it is fructified as an action you make.  Sanchita karma is all of the karma you have generated throughout lifetimes that will eventually become manifest at some point in the present or in the future. It is the sum total of all karma that allows you to experience life as a jiva for as long as you remain grounded in samsara or the world of experience. 

 

The second type of karma is Prarabdha Karma. Prarabdha means “commenced”. It is a portion of your sanchita karma that is manifesting and on its way of being reaped in the present moment. This karma cannot be avoided or changed.  It can only be exhausted by experiencing it. This is karma that bubbles up from the causal body and is being experienced by the subtle body (either in the subtle worlds or through the physical body in the physical world). This is equivalent to being in formless deep sleep and transitioning consciousness into a dream with form.

 

The third type of karma is Agami Karma.  This is new karma that is currently being generated in the present moment. It is new karma that is formed as a result from the influences of your past karmas. We generate agami karma when we perform actions in the present moment (wherever realm those actions are taking place). This new karma is created and gets stored back in the causal body in the form of sanchita karma which then comes into fruition as prarabdha karma. When we generate new karma from the influences of the prarabdha karma, we build up new agami karma. This cycle continues and will go on for an eternity until we free ourselves from the law of karma. 

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It is important to note that these three karmas are not expressed linearly, or go from one karma to the next. All of them are happening at once simultaneously, since time and space are illusions.  Sanchita karma would be equivalent to the programming of a video game.  The expression of the game character happens via prarabhda and agami, while it always leverages the data or potential from the programming to be expressed as such.  This means the programming is inherent in the character, just like sanchita is inherent in prarabdha and agami, which forms your expression of consciousness in this very moment.

 

It is the law karma that allows us to experience and it is karma that makes us act and react the way we do. At a high level, there is neither good karma nor bad karma. There is simply karma that propels the jiva on this mechanical and self-running wheel. It is the jiva that gives its own meaning to karma.  

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Karma is like an account that is always being debited and credited.  The more your karma account holds, the more actions you will need to take as a jiva (this is what grounds the jiva in the world of samsara). This means there is an obligation to experience irrespective of the experience identified as good or bad. The less karma, the less actions you need to take. When your karmic account runs low, it is because your mind gets purified through lifetimes of exhausting karma. It comes to a balance that has just the right amount left in order to reduce the entire balance to zero. When karma gets debited to zero, the result is liberation or moksha.  When your karma account runs low, it comes to a point where you have just enough to maintain a life so you can make the conscious decision yourself as to whether or not you choose to remove yourself permanently from samsara.  We are all destined to reduce our karma to 0 and attain moksha since Brahman is our very nature. Only then will we have the clear knowledge that there was never such thing as karma.  We only perceived there to be karma when identified with the expression of it!