Karma:
What Is It? - By Stephen Knapp
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. We are still 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 false
aims of life. According to 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 selfish 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.
These reactions follow 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. The 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 enjoy
or 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., 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 held dear
in this world. In this way, the living entity is the
son of his past and the father 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 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.
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