Kirpal Singh

The Law of Karma

Everything in the universe is the fruit of a just law, the law of causality, the law of cause and effect, the law of karma.

Buddha

Every act of a living being done knowingly or unknowingly, irrespective of whether it is yet in the stage of latency or thought form, a mental vibration, or is uttered by words of mouth or is actually done by a physical act, constitutes Karma.

Lest the reader gets confused by the term Karma, it is better to understand this word in its proper context. Originally, the word Karma stood for and represented sacrificial rites and rituals and yajnas performed by individuals as prescribed by the sacred texts. Later on, however, it came to include all kinds of virtues, social and self-purifying, like truthfulness, purity, abstinence, continence, ahimsa, Universal Love, selfless service and all deeds of a charitable and philanthropic nature. In short, great stress was laid on the cultivation of Atam gunas which tended to discipline the mind and divert the mental powers in the right direction, so as to serve the higher purpose of liberating atman or the spirit in bondage.

Karmas are generally classified as prohibited, permitted and prescribed. All karmas that are degrading and derogatory in nature – Nashedh – are classed as prohibited because indulgence in vices is sinful and the wages of sin are death. These are termed Kukarmas or Vikarmas. Next come karmas that are upgrading and help a person in attaining higher planes like Swarag, Baikunth, Bahisht or paradise. These are Sukama Karmas or Sukarmas, that is Karmas performed for fulfilment of one’s benevolent desires and aspirations and as such are permissible. Finally, we have karmas the performance of which is considered obligatory as enjoined by the scriptures for persons belonging to different varnas or social orders and at different stages in one’s life called Ashrams – Brahmcharya, Grehastha, Vanprastha and Sanyasa. These corresponding roughly to the formative period of one’s education, the stage of married family life as a house-holder, the ascetic stage of a recluse or a hermit engaged in deep meditation in the solitude of a forest and lastly the stage of a Spiritual Pilgrim giving to the people the fruit of his life-long experience, each portion being of 25 years computing the life-span to be of 100 years duration. These are called Netya Karmas or karmas the performance of which is a ‘must’ for each from day to day in his vocation and period of life.

As a code of moral conduct, the Law of Karma makes valuable contributions to man’s material and moral well-being on earth and paves the way to a better life in the future. In all the four spheres of human life – secular, material or economic, religious, and spiritual, as denoted by the terms Kama, fulfilment of one’s desires; Artha, economic and material well-being; Dharma, moral and religious basis upholding and supporting the Universe; and Moksha, salvation – deeds or karmas play a vital part. It is, of course, the moral purity that figures as a motivating force for attaining success in one’s endeavours. In order that the karmas bear the desired fruit, it is necessary that they be performed with single-minded and purposeful attention and loving devotion.

Besides these, there is yet another form of karma – to wit, Nish-Kama Karma, that is, Karma performed without any attachment to, or desire for, the fruit thereof. This is superior to all the other forms of karmas which more or less are the source of bondage. Yet this type helps a little to liberate one from karmic bondage but not from karmic effect. It may be noted that karma per se has no binding effect whatsoever. It is only karma born of desire or Kama that leads to bondage.

Karma thus is at once the means and the end of all human endeavours. It is through karmas that one conquers and transcends karmas. Any attempt to overstep the Law of Karma is as futile as to step over one’s shadow. The highest of all is to be Neh-Karma or Karma-rehat, that is to say, doing karma in accordance with the Divine Plan, as a Conscious Co-Worker with the Power of God. This is being actionless in action like a still point in the ever-revolving wheel of life.

Nature of karma: According to Jain philosophy, karma is of the nature of matter, both physical and psychical, one related to the other as cause and effect. Matter in a subtle and psychical form pervades the entire cosmos. It penetrates the soul because of its interplay with the matter without. In this way, a Jiva builds for himself a nest as does a bird, and gets fettered by what is called Karman-Srira or the subtle body and remains bound therein till the empirical self is depersonalised and becomes a pure soul irradiated with its native luminosity.

The Karman-Srira or the karmic shell, enclosing the soul, consists of eight prakritis corresponding to the eight types of karmic atoms producing different types of effects. These are of two types:

(1) Karmas that obscure the correct vision, as for instance

(i) Darsan-avarna, hindering right perception or apprehension in general;

(ii) Janan-avarna, those which obscure right understanding or comprehension;

(iii) Vedaniya, those which obscure the inherent blissful nature of the soul and thus bring about pleasurable or painful feelings, and

(iv) Mohaniya, karmas which obscure right belief, right faith and right conduct.

All these karmas work as smoke-coloured glasses through which we see the world and all that is of the world. Life has poetically been described as a dome of many-coloured glass that stains the white radiance of Eternity.

(2) Then there are karmas which go to make a person what he is, for they determine

(i) bodily physique,

(ii) age and longevity,

(iii) social status, and

(iv) Spiritual Make-up.

Each of these types is known as Naman, Ayus, Gotra and Antraya respectively.

In addition there are divisions and sub-divisions under these, running into hundreds of ramifications.

The karmic particles spreading in space, are willy-nilly attracted by each soul according to the pressure of the activity indulged in. This constant influx of karma can be checked by freeing the self of all types of activity of the body, mind and senses and stabilising it at its own centre; while the accumulated Karmas may be curtailed by fasting, tapas, saudhyaya, vairagya, prashchit, dhyan and the like: that is to say, austerities, reading of scriptural texts, detachment, repentance and meditation etc.

Buddha too laid a great stress on constant endeavour and struggle with a view to securing ultimate victory over the law of karma. The present may be determined by the past; the future is our own, depending on the directive will of each individual. Time is one endless continuity – past irresistibly leading to the present and the present to the future as one may like it to be. Karma ceases to affect only with the attainment of the highest condition of mind which is beyond both good and evil. With the realisation of this ideal all struggle comes to an end, for then whatever the liberated one does, he does without attachment. The ever-rotating wheel of life gets momentum from the karmic energy and when that energy itself is exhausted, the giant wheel of life comes to a standstill, for then one reaches to the intersection of time and the timeless, a point which is always in action and yet still at the core. Karma provides a key to the life processes; and one’s consciousness travels from stage to stage until one becomes a really awakened being or Buddha – the Enlightened One or the Seer of the Holy Light. To Buddha, the universe, far from a mere mechanism, was a Dharma-Kaya or body pulsating with Dharma or life-principle, serving at once as its main support.

In brief, the Law of Karma is nature’s stubborn and inexorable law from which there is no escape and to which there is no exception. As you sow, so shall you reap, is an ancient axiomatic truth.

It is the general rule for earth-life. It also extends to some of the upper physio-spiritual regions, according to the order of density and peculiarity of each. Karma is a supreme principle superior both to gods and men for the former too, sooner or later, come also under its sway. The various gods and goddesses in different realms of Nature take a much longer time to serve in their respective heavenly spheres than human beings, but all the same they have ultimately to reincarnate in flesh before they can aspire to, and win, final emancipation from the karmic round of births.

All works, acts or deeds form a vital device in the Divine Plan to keep the entire universe in perfect running order. No one can remain without some kind of work – mental or physical activity – even for a single moment. One is always thinking or doing one thing or another. One cannot by nature be mentally vacant or idle, nor can one stop the senses from their automatic functioning: eyes cannot but see and the ears but hear; and the worst is that one cannot, like Penelope, undo what is once done. Repentance though good in itself, cannot cure the past. Whatever one thinks, speaks or acts, good or bad, leaves a deep impression upon the mind and these accumulated impressions go to make or mar an individual. As a man thinks, so he becomes. It is from the abundance of the mind that the tongue speaketh. Every action has a reaction, for that is Nature’s law of cause and effect. One has, therefore, to bear the fruit of his actions: sweet or bitter, as the case may be, whether one may like it or not.

Is there no remedy then? Is man a mere plaything of fate or destiny who works his way in a purely pre-determined order? There are two sides of the matter. One has, to a certain extent, a free will, wherewith one, if he so chooses, can direct his course and make or mar his future and to a great extent even mould the living present to his own advantage. Armed with the living soul in him of the same essence as his Creator, he is mightier than karma. The infinite in him can help him to transcend the limitations of the finite. The freedom to act and the karmic bondage are but two aspects of the real in him. It is only the mechanical and the material part in him that is subject to karmic restraint, while the real and vital spirit in him transcends all and is hardly affected by the karmic load, if established in his native God-head. How to get established in one’s own real swaroop, the Atman? This is what we have perforce to learn if we aspire for a way out of the endless karmic web.

(Extract from "The Wheel of Life.")

– To be continued.

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Source: Extract from ‘The Wheel of Life – I. Idea and Background,’ by Kirpal Singh, 1894–1974; Editor’s Note, 2011.

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