Karma
1. Law of action and reaction
Term "karma" is inseparably connected with reincarnation. While trying to understand the reincarnation process one cannot avoid this term.
Sanskrit word "karma" literally means "action, activity, work", and because other languages again lack any synonym exactly explaining its meaning, it is not recommended to translate it.
In West this term was first used by Russian theosophist Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891). Her definition:
"Karma is the basic cosmic law, ...which in physical, mental and soul world connects cause with its effect. Because any cause, be it the greatest like the movement of cosmos, or the smallest like the movement of hand, necessarily has a corresponding effect, and because the same acts in a same way, karma is invisible and unknown law which wisely, righteously and and providentially connects every effects with corresponding cause and its originator."
In his work "Manifestations of Karma" (1910) anthroposofist Rudolf Steiner defines karma in this way:
"...without limiting free will of man, the law of karma acts back on an entity, from which the cause came, like the law of action and reaction."
These definitions intelligibly explain the core of Vedic term karma. Steiner's comparing law of karma to the physical law of action and reaction (actio = reactio, third Newton's law of classical mechanics, 1687) is very pertinent although this law represents only a little aspect of much higher and subtler law of karma. Pertinent is also the maxim that karmic law of cause and effect acts especially on an individual level and leaves a space for the free will of a doer. This is what usually forget different critics of Eastern philosophies who understand karma as a mechanical predestination forcing a man to passively await what the future will bring.
Already before Steiner and Newton's discovery people knew sayings showing a certain understanding of regularity of action and reaction. Also a biblical quote "A man reaps what he sows" (Galatským 6:7) became a folk saying.
2. Free will and fate
According to Vedic philosophy every living being transmigrating in material world from one body to another, is given a free will to act according to its desires, ideas and thoughts.
When Shri Krishna narrated Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna, in one of the last verses (18.63) He said:
"Thus I have explained to you knowledge still more confidential. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do."
Vedic scriptures say that desire is a father of thought and thought is a father of action. Desire originally comes from the soul, thought from the mind (subtle body) and actions from working sense organs of gross body.
Living being has due to free will a certain, although limited field of activity. Vedic philosophy teaches that free will and predestination or fate are parallel to each other. By our present actions, performed out of our free will, we create our future karmic reactions. At the same time we reap reaction of our previous actions. Fate is not, therefore, any punishment from above striking on innocent ones (and which God does not want to or cannot stop).
Law of karma is very strict because it must assure fulfillment of desires of all living beings in the whole material world in such a way that they do not contradict but complement themselves and that even one injustice does not go unpunished. American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) describes it in this way (Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 1868):
"If you love people and serve them, you will be rewarded. Hidden rewards continue to reinstate balance of divine justice. This law cannot be changed. All tyrants, owners and monopolists of this world try in vain to disrupt this balance. Equator still keeps its place and people as well as insects, sun and planets must obey it or be destroyed by backlash reaction."
Universe is ruled by strict and generally operative laws - like rules of a great game of life - which coordinate desires and mutual relationships among individual living beings. Thus each of them gets exactly as much as it deserves - neither more, nor less.
According to Bhagavad-gita (2.70) the continuous stream of desires coming from the mind of each living being is like innumerable rivers which all enter one vast ocean. In this way originates endlessly complex, multidimensional web of actions and reaction which a man cannot understand. Here is apparent the influence of invisible hand of God who in His aspect of omnipresent Supersoul (paramatma) is accompanying all individual soul during their transmigration through various bodily forms. Bhagavad-gita (13.23) describes this aspect of God:
"Yet in this body there is another, a transcendental enjoyer, who is the Lord, the supreme proprietor, who exists as the overseer and permitter, and who is known as the Supersoul."
Function of Supersoul is therefore to record innumerable desires of each living being and arrange for their fulfillment as well as observe activities of living beings and grant them corresponding reactions. This directing hand of God is called a law of karma.
3. Karma from the action point of view
Vedic scriptures contain exact information which actions we have to perform if we wish to achieve certain results (reactions). For example it is said: if you want to be rich, you have to act in this way, if you want to be famous, do this, if you want to live a satisfactory family life, do that etc.
If someone is in this life very successful, wealthy, educated, influential or beautiful, we can conclude from it that he must have been in his previous life magnanimous, diligent, and pious and now only reaps results of his previous deeds.
But what he will do with these assets in present life is another question - it depends on his free will. Therefore we see that not every wealthy and powerful person behaves properly.
Same principle is valid for unwanted things. Vedic scriptures can advise us: if you do not want to be sick or bankrupt, you must not do this or that. If we act according to these instructions, we will surely reach desired result in this or some of our future lives. Miscellaneous reactions may come either sooner or later - some immediately and others only after several lives.
4. Karma from the reaction point of view
While looking from the other side we have to admit that whatever happens to us in this life is nothing else than reaction to to our activity in this or some of previous lives. It is not therefore, a matter of blind chance but only a result of our deeds we decided to perform out of our free will.
Therefore it sometimes happens that people who live very pious and proper life are still exposed to all kinds of sufferings. From this one can conclude that in past they had to act improperly. Usually they learn from this and decide to live properly in their present life. Also one whose life is full of success reaps the fruit of his deeds.
Materialistic life and a chain of actions and reactions are inseparable. It is like a long movie of actions and reactions and the length of one life is like its several fields. When a child is born, his present body can be understood as a beginning of another series of actions and the death of an old man as its end. From this it is clear why someone, due to different reactions, is born in rich family and someone else in poor family although they were born at the same time in the same place and under same circumstances. Who carries along with him pious reactions (good karma) will get a chance to be born in rich or pious family and who is burdened by impious reactions (bad karma) will be born in low class and poor family.
5. Four phases of karma
"Plant a thought and you will reap a deed, plant a deed and you will reap a habit, plant a habit and you will reap a character, plant a character and you will reap a fate." (Indian proverb)
Vedic philosophy (Padma Purana) explains that karmic reaction are manifested in four different phases compared to the phases of a plants' growth:
1. bija (seed) Our wishes and intentions already exist in subtle form and only later they will manifest in activities. Thus to avoid unpleasant karmic reactions (suffering) we must pay attention to our unspoken material desires before the seeds of actions did not begin to sprout.
2. kuta-stha (sprouting) Reactions manifesting after a decision to perform a deed. They are material desires which already began to sprout.
3. phalonmukha (fructifying) Reactions already bearing fruits (phala). As soon as we perform a material actions - good or bad - it is only a question of time before they manifest reactions (fruit) in the form of happiness or distress.
4. prarabdha (harvest) Reactions already fulfilled at our birth: family (defining our socio-economic situation, nationality, race), physical and psychic dispositions etc.
Previous three phases are also in Sanskrit given a summary term aprarabdha or reactions not yet fully manifested, potential happiness and suffering. Fourth phase, prarabdha-karma, is what is generally called "karma".
Upanisads describe these categories of karma:
1. sancita (stored)
1.1. anarabdha (not yet manifested) = aprarabdha
1.2. prarabdha (already manifested)
2. kriyamana (newly created)
6. Three kinds of karma
Bhagavad-gita (4.17-18) says: "The intricacies of action are very hard to understand. Therefore one should know properly what action is, what forbidden action is, and what inaction is. One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position, although engaged in all sorts of activities."
These verses describe three kinds of karma. Here 'karma' does not denote reaction but action, activity.
1. karma Activities in harmony with higher laws of nature (dharma), which are also described in Vedic scriptures. This positive action brings positive reactions in the form of happiness and enjoyment.
2. vikarma Activities forbidden by scriptures písma because they are in conflict with dharma. These negative actions bring corresponding reactions - distress and suffering.
3. akarma Activities of higher nature which are not subjected to material laws of nature and therefore are called "inactions". They do not bring any reactions, neither positive nor negative, and thus they bring reincarnation to an end. This end will occur when our "karmic account" at the end of life is zero. This cannot be achieved, however, by parallel performing of karma and vikarma, as someone may think, because they are counted independently of each other.
The cause of problems is vikarma which is at present performed by huge number of people all over the world in great amounts, and which is a threat for the whole humankind because it affects it in the form of collective karma (summary of individual karmas). This is manifested as wars, epidemics, natural disasters etc.
Reality proves that we are missing knowledge of law of karma because despite all our good intentions and efforts to alleviate suffering there is more and more unhappiness, individual and collective, in this world. This knowledge is ultimately the only solution of current problems. One who realizes this will understand that the change must start with himself.
Term "karma" is inseparably connected with reincarnation. While trying to understand the reincarnation process one cannot avoid this term.
Sanskrit word "karma" literally means "action, activity, work", and because other languages again lack any synonym exactly explaining its meaning, it is not recommended to translate it.
In West this term was first used by Russian theosophist Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891). Her definition:
"Karma is the basic cosmic law, ...which in physical, mental and soul world connects cause with its effect. Because any cause, be it the greatest like the movement of cosmos, or the smallest like the movement of hand, necessarily has a corresponding effect, and because the same acts in a same way, karma is invisible and unknown law which wisely, righteously and and providentially connects every effects with corresponding cause and its originator."
In his work "Manifestations of Karma" (1910) anthroposofist Rudolf Steiner defines karma in this way:
"...without limiting free will of man, the law of karma acts back on an entity, from which the cause came, like the law of action and reaction."
These definitions intelligibly explain the core of Vedic term karma. Steiner's comparing law of karma to the physical law of action and reaction (actio = reactio, third Newton's law of classical mechanics, 1687) is very pertinent although this law represents only a little aspect of much higher and subtler law of karma. Pertinent is also the maxim that karmic law of cause and effect acts especially on an individual level and leaves a space for the free will of a doer. This is what usually forget different critics of Eastern philosophies who understand karma as a mechanical predestination forcing a man to passively await what the future will bring.
Already before Steiner and Newton's discovery people knew sayings showing a certain understanding of regularity of action and reaction. Also a biblical quote "A man reaps what he sows" (Galatským 6:7) became a folk saying.
2. Free will and fate
According to Vedic philosophy every living being transmigrating in material world from one body to another, is given a free will to act according to its desires, ideas and thoughts.
When Shri Krishna narrated Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna, in one of the last verses (18.63) He said:
"Thus I have explained to you knowledge still more confidential. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do."
Vedic scriptures say that desire is a father of thought and thought is a father of action. Desire originally comes from the soul, thought from the mind (subtle body) and actions from working sense organs of gross body.
Living being has due to free will a certain, although limited field of activity. Vedic philosophy teaches that free will and predestination or fate are parallel to each other. By our present actions, performed out of our free will, we create our future karmic reactions. At the same time we reap reaction of our previous actions. Fate is not, therefore, any punishment from above striking on innocent ones (and which God does not want to or cannot stop).
Law of karma is very strict because it must assure fulfillment of desires of all living beings in the whole material world in such a way that they do not contradict but complement themselves and that even one injustice does not go unpunished. American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) describes it in this way (Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 1868):
"If you love people and serve them, you will be rewarded. Hidden rewards continue to reinstate balance of divine justice. This law cannot be changed. All tyrants, owners and monopolists of this world try in vain to disrupt this balance. Equator still keeps its place and people as well as insects, sun and planets must obey it or be destroyed by backlash reaction."
Universe is ruled by strict and generally operative laws - like rules of a great game of life - which coordinate desires and mutual relationships among individual living beings. Thus each of them gets exactly as much as it deserves - neither more, nor less.
According to Bhagavad-gita (2.70) the continuous stream of desires coming from the mind of each living being is like innumerable rivers which all enter one vast ocean. In this way originates endlessly complex, multidimensional web of actions and reaction which a man cannot understand. Here is apparent the influence of invisible hand of God who in His aspect of omnipresent Supersoul (paramatma) is accompanying all individual soul during their transmigration through various bodily forms. Bhagavad-gita (13.23) describes this aspect of God:
"Yet in this body there is another, a transcendental enjoyer, who is the Lord, the supreme proprietor, who exists as the overseer and permitter, and who is known as the Supersoul."
Function of Supersoul is therefore to record innumerable desires of each living being and arrange for their fulfillment as well as observe activities of living beings and grant them corresponding reactions. This directing hand of God is called a law of karma.
3. Karma from the action point of view
Vedic scriptures contain exact information which actions we have to perform if we wish to achieve certain results (reactions). For example it is said: if you want to be rich, you have to act in this way, if you want to be famous, do this, if you want to live a satisfactory family life, do that etc.
If someone is in this life very successful, wealthy, educated, influential or beautiful, we can conclude from it that he must have been in his previous life magnanimous, diligent, and pious and now only reaps results of his previous deeds.
But what he will do with these assets in present life is another question - it depends on his free will. Therefore we see that not every wealthy and powerful person behaves properly.
Same principle is valid for unwanted things. Vedic scriptures can advise us: if you do not want to be sick or bankrupt, you must not do this or that. If we act according to these instructions, we will surely reach desired result in this or some of our future lives. Miscellaneous reactions may come either sooner or later - some immediately and others only after several lives.
4. Karma from the reaction point of view
While looking from the other side we have to admit that whatever happens to us in this life is nothing else than reaction to to our activity in this or some of previous lives. It is not therefore, a matter of blind chance but only a result of our deeds we decided to perform out of our free will.
Therefore it sometimes happens that people who live very pious and proper life are still exposed to all kinds of sufferings. From this one can conclude that in past they had to act improperly. Usually they learn from this and decide to live properly in their present life. Also one whose life is full of success reaps the fruit of his deeds.
Materialistic life and a chain of actions and reactions are inseparable. It is like a long movie of actions and reactions and the length of one life is like its several fields. When a child is born, his present body can be understood as a beginning of another series of actions and the death of an old man as its end. From this it is clear why someone, due to different reactions, is born in rich family and someone else in poor family although they were born at the same time in the same place and under same circumstances. Who carries along with him pious reactions (good karma) will get a chance to be born in rich or pious family and who is burdened by impious reactions (bad karma) will be born in low class and poor family.
5. Four phases of karma
"Plant a thought and you will reap a deed, plant a deed and you will reap a habit, plant a habit and you will reap a character, plant a character and you will reap a fate." (Indian proverb)
Vedic philosophy (Padma Purana) explains that karmic reaction are manifested in four different phases compared to the phases of a plants' growth:
1. bija (seed) Our wishes and intentions already exist in subtle form and only later they will manifest in activities. Thus to avoid unpleasant karmic reactions (suffering) we must pay attention to our unspoken material desires before the seeds of actions did not begin to sprout.
2. kuta-stha (sprouting) Reactions manifesting after a decision to perform a deed. They are material desires which already began to sprout.
3. phalonmukha (fructifying) Reactions already bearing fruits (phala). As soon as we perform a material actions - good or bad - it is only a question of time before they manifest reactions (fruit) in the form of happiness or distress.
4. prarabdha (harvest) Reactions already fulfilled at our birth: family (defining our socio-economic situation, nationality, race), physical and psychic dispositions etc.
Previous three phases are also in Sanskrit given a summary term aprarabdha or reactions not yet fully manifested, potential happiness and suffering. Fourth phase, prarabdha-karma, is what is generally called "karma".
Upanisads describe these categories of karma:
1. sancita (stored)
1.1. anarabdha (not yet manifested) = aprarabdha
1.2. prarabdha (already manifested)
2. kriyamana (newly created)
6. Three kinds of karma
Bhagavad-gita (4.17-18) says: "The intricacies of action are very hard to understand. Therefore one should know properly what action is, what forbidden action is, and what inaction is. One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position, although engaged in all sorts of activities."
These verses describe three kinds of karma. Here 'karma' does not denote reaction but action, activity.
1. karma Activities in harmony with higher laws of nature (dharma), which are also described in Vedic scriptures. This positive action brings positive reactions in the form of happiness and enjoyment.
2. vikarma Activities forbidden by scriptures písma because they are in conflict with dharma. These negative actions bring corresponding reactions - distress and suffering.
3. akarma Activities of higher nature which are not subjected to material laws of nature and therefore are called "inactions". They do not bring any reactions, neither positive nor negative, and thus they bring reincarnation to an end. This end will occur when our "karmic account" at the end of life is zero. This cannot be achieved, however, by parallel performing of karma and vikarma, as someone may think, because they are counted independently of each other.
The cause of problems is vikarma which is at present performed by huge number of people all over the world in great amounts, and which is a threat for the whole humankind because it affects it in the form of collective karma (summary of individual karmas). This is manifested as wars, epidemics, natural disasters etc.
Reality proves that we are missing knowledge of law of karma because despite all our good intentions and efforts to alleviate suffering there is more and more unhappiness, individual and collective, in this world. This knowledge is ultimately the only solution of current problems. One who realizes this will understand that the change must start with himself.
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