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by Jayaram V
The law of karma is a simple and straightforward concept according to
which
beings, not just men, are rewarded or punished according to their
own actions and intentions. Thus good actions and intentions reap good
rewards and bad actions and intentions result in suffering and pain.
With some minor variations this concept is common to Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism and Sikhism. In Islam we find some echoes of it in such
declarations of Quran as "Whoever does a good deed he shall
be repaid ten fold and whoever does evil, he shall be repaid with
evil." We have every reason to believe that Jesus was aware of the
law of karma. He willingly agreed to take over the karma of all his
followers and free them from sin as long as they acknowledged him as
their savior, repented for their actions and made a true confession of
their actions before God. He suffered on the cross because he took over
the karma of many people during his lifetime upon earth and he continues to
do so even after his departure. In the
Bhagavadgita, Lord Krishna makes a similar promise. He promises
salvation for all those who willingly offer all their actions to Him,
accepting Him as the real doer, with a sense of detachment, and without
desiring the fruit of their actions. The main difference between the
eastern and western religions is that in Islam and Christianity you
commit sin against the law of God, where as in Hinduism and related religions,
you commit sin against yourself by your own actions. The Meaning of Karma
In simple terms, the law of karma suggests that a person's mental and physical actions
are binding. Through our actions or inactions and our intention behind
them we bind ourselves to Prakriti and cycle of births and deaths.
Broadly speaking, karma means not only actions, but also the intentions
and consequences associated with each action. In ancient times, karma
originally meant sacrificial or ritual acts. Karmakanda meant body of
rituals and sacrificial ceremonies we were expected to perform as a part
of our moral and social responsibility. However as the time went by it came
to be associated with all intentions and actions that had consequences
and were binding in nature. The Bhagavadgita went a step ahead and
included the desire for fruit of one's action also as binding. The law
of karma has its echoes in the scientific world also. We find it in Newton's law
motion, according to which every actions has an equal and opposite
reaction. The law of karma is very much verifiable in real life. We all
have seen in our own lives, and in nature too, that we reap what we sow.
Our successes and failures are mostly products of our own thoughts and
actions. If we think positively and act positively, very likely we will succeed. On the contrary if we think and act negatively, very likely we
will bring negativity and suffering upon ourselves. Sometimes inspite of all the good work and sincere intentions,
we may reap negative consequences. A student may prepare well for his exam,
but may fail. A very evil and wicked person may earn the jackpot or
become owner of a successful business venture. The theory of karma has a
convincing explanation such situations. The current events in our lives need not
necessarily be determined by our previous actions in this very life, but also by the actions
we did in our previous lives. This explains why sometimes there is a
disconnect between our actions and consequences, why bad people often
seem to enjoy success and prosperity, while good people seem to suffer
despite their best actions and intentions.
Some Beliefs About Karma
Some of the beliefs associated with karma are well known: that it is
a self-correcting mechanism, that it binds beings to the cycle of
births and deaths, that it is caused by desires and the activities of
the senses, that it is responsible for the evolution of beings
from one stage to another and that it is possible to reverse the
bondage caused by law of karma through various means. It is also
believed that just as each person incurs karma through his or her
actions, actions performed as groups also give rise to collective karma
that would impact their collective future. According to this belief, nations, organizations
and associations also incur karma because of the collective actions and
decisions of the people who are part of them. If a nation is oppressed by
another, people belonging to the nation that is acting as the oppressor incur bad karma and
have to repay for the actions of their country through their own lives.
Same is the case with groups and nations that follow a policy of
religious intolerance or economic exploitation. We should realize
that environmental pollution and degradation is a direct result of our
indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources and the mass annihilation
of millions of innocent animals, whose consequences we suffer in the
form of natural disasters, greenhouse effects, new diseases and scarcity
of raw materials.
According to Hindu scriptures, the law of
karma is universal. Even gods are subject to it. Some Puranas
declare that the trinity of gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, have attained
their current positions of divine responsibilities because of their
meritorious actions in the previous cycles of creation. Lord Krishna himself
said to have died because of the unintentional action of a hunter, who
stuck an arrow in his toe, mistaking it to be a rabbit, as a consequences
of his own act of killing Bali from behind a tree in a deceptive manner
in his previous incarnation as Lord Rama. The Types of Karma
To explain situations like
the one mentioned above, Hinduism recognizes four types of karma
operating in our lives simultaneously. They are:
- Sanchita Karma. It is sum total of the accumulated karma of
previous lives. It is the burden of your past, which is in your
account and which needs to be exhausted at some stage in your
existence.
- Prarabdha Karma. It is that part of your sanchita karma
which is currently activated in your present life and which
influences the course of your present life. Depending upon the
nature of your actions, you are either exhausting it or creating
more karmic burden for yourself.
- Agami Karma. It is the karma that arises out of your
current life activities, whose consequences will be experienced by
you in the coming lives. It is usually added to the account of your
sanchita karma.
- Kriyamana Karma. This is the karma whose consequences are
experienced right now or in the near future or distant future, but
in any case in this very
life.
If something happens unexpectedly against our intentions and despite
our good efforts, Hindus believe it be the Prarabdha or the consequence
of actions performed in their previous lives. There is nothing much we
can do about it, except seeking divine intervention and exhaust it
through our current actions. Such is said to be the power of prarabdha
karma that only the serious minded devotees and servants of God are
freed from it by His grace. The traditional view of Hinduism has been
that karma is a body of obligatory duties, rites and rituals, we are
expected to perform as a part of our social, moral, family and personal
responsibilities. Same is the approach of the Mimansa (ritual) schools
of Hinduism. Hindu scriptures classify such duties into the following
three categories:
- Nitya karma. These are the daily sacrifices, such as the morning,
afternoon and evening prayers and the five kinds of sacrificial
offering of food (ahuta, huta, prahuta, bali, brahmayuta, prasita).
Technically, whatever duties that we are supposed to perform as
human beings, come under this category such as bathing, eating,
praying, sleeping and so on.
- Naimittika karma. These are the duties that are to be performed on
specific occasions, such as festivals, solar and lunar eclipses, the
various samskaras such as upanayana, marriage, funeral rites and so
on.
- Kamyakarma. These are the optional duties that we perform in order
to realize a particular goal or wish, such as going to a pilgrimage,
educating one's children, buying some property, performing a
sacrificial rite wishing to attain heavenly life and so on.
Of these, the first two are obligatory in the sense that if we do not
perform them we will incur sin. The third one is optional, that is there
is no harm in neglecting them, but there can be some merit if we decide
to pursue them in a right manner. We have to remember that in the very
concept of karma is implied the importance of means. Whatever may be the
end, if the means are not good, we will incur sin. By studying the
scriptures, by practicing morality and by the use of buddhi
(intelligence), we develop the sense of right and wrong. However since
our knowledge of right and wrong is never perfect, there is no guarantee
that by performing these duties and actions in a right way we will
always incur merit. Hence the need to neutralize our karma in more
effective ways, through spiritual means, which are discussed below.
The Solutions To the Problem of Karma
Since no human being can escape the law of karma, it leaves us with anxiety,
especially when we know that we cannot live without performing actions
and our actions would result in consequences for ourselves and our
future. When we know that the consequences of our actions may go beyond
this life, we become even more concerned as we are not even sure how they are going to effect our future.
Because we do not have the all round vision of the divinities, we cannot
see into the future and know what is going to happen or how we are going
to live. In these circumstances, how are we supposed to conduct ourselves? Should we stop all action, because every action will have some negative impact at some level?
These questions are answered in our scriptures in great detail. For the
purpose of our essay, we deal with the solutions suggested in Vaishnavism and
Saivism, the two dominant traditions of Hinduism. Both of them
agree on the point that we can reverse the consequences of our actions
through the grace and intervention of God. However they differ with
regard to the means we can employ to achieve it. More or less, we
find similar approaches in other traditions of Hinduism also. Vaishnavism
According to
Vaishnava tradition1, kaivalya or happiness of one's true state comes
only after the experience of true self (atmanubhava). The individual
jiva is truly a servant of God, but because of ignorance and attachment,
he becomes a slave of his senses and mind and forgets his connection
with God and the true nature of himself. At some stage in his existence,
after going through several lives, he experiences despondency (nirveda)
and non-attachment (vairagya) and becomes a seeker of liberation (mumukshu).
He realizes the futility of performing meritorious acts to attain the
pleasures of heaven or success upon earth, because he finds them to
be displeasing, uninteresting and impermanent. He therefore yearns for permanent liberation from the travails of his earthly existence, through
various means (upayas), which are especially meant to neutralize his
ongoing karma and also exhaust his previous or prarabdha karma. These means are discussed below. 1. Jnana yoga. The first step in the path of
self-realization is to become aware that there is something more than
what we see and what we know about ourselves and our existence. Such a
realization begins to dawn upon us, as we begin to suffer from the
limitations of our existence and our own mental and physical activities.
From the study of scriptures or through a guru, we come to the
realization that we are not
mere body or the mind or the senses, but the inner self, which is permanent,
eternal and infinite and shares the same consciousness as that of the
Divine. We learn how our actions have consequences, how
our desires and senses bind us to our actions, how we are subjected to
the pairs of opposites and how all this results in the delusion of our
minds. From this awareness
springs forth a genuine determination (samkalpa) to find release or freedom
from the impermanence and the limitations and
the curiosity to search for effective solutions. The purpose of jnana
yoga is to develop wisdom, so that we know who
we are and what we can do to achieve freedom from the cycle of births
and deaths.
This is the first stage in our quest for God realization.
2. Karma yoga. If karma means performing our obligatory
religious, social, moral, personal and professional duties, karma yoga
means performing them with a certain attitude, in which the desire for
the fruit of action or the result and the
feelings of egoism are absent.
A karma yogi performs desireless actions (nishkama karma), with
detachment, as sacrificial offerings to God, without an eye for their
results. He realizes that it is not possible for any one to live without
performing actions and since actions create karmic consequences, he
should save himself from their impact by developing detachment from the
consequences of his actions. A karmayogi is duty bound, not desire
bound. He renounces the fruit of his actions (karmaphala sanyas), not
the action itself (karma-sanyas). Since he has no interest in the consequences
(results) of his actions, they do not bind him. He also sacrifices his
egoistic feelings in performing his duties by acknowledging God, as his
real self, doing the works through him as His instrument. Karma yoga is
considered to be easier to practice and especially meant for people who
are teachers, scientists, artists, writers, kings, scholars and men of
knowledge, who can help others and spread the knowledge of God with detachment.
King Janaka was one notable example of a karmayogi we find in our
scriptures.
3. Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga. If action is the main focus in
karma yoga, it is knowledge in jnana yoga. Jnana yoga is living with an
attitude and knowledge that the inner self (atman) is the real self. It
is considered to be more difficult to practice than karma yoga. In this
yoga, one's life and actions are illuminated by the knowledge of self. A
jnana yogi also, like a karma yogi, does not renounce actions. He performs his actions just
like a karmayogi, without seeking the fruit of his actions. But he goes
one step further and performs them with the awareness that he is indeed
neither the body nor the mind nor the senses, but the illuminated self
itself. This is called Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga or renunciation of the
fruit of action through knowledge of self. It is said that a person
becomes a true jnana yogi on this path only after years of practice as a
karma yogi. By withdrawing his senses, contemplating upon his self,
controlling his thoughts, he develops equanimity towards the pairs of opposites,
such as pain and pleasure, happiness and sorrow, cold and heat, comforts
and discomforts and so on. When a person practices jnana yoga by
renouncing the fruit of his actions, he goes through several stages of
development which culminate in his self-realization, in which he
experiences the taste of his self or the state of his self. This is
called kaivalya or the joy of the realization of the self.
4. Bhakti yoga. This is the practice of intense devotion to
God. It is considered to be the most difficult of all yogas, because
only those who had a taste of their real selves (atmanubhava) are
qualified to practice it. It is believed that a person is fit for the
yoga of devotion, though not necessarily but usually, when one has
achieved stability in karmayoga and jnanayoga after years of practice.
According to the Sri Bhasya of Ramanuja, a person who wants to practice
bhakti yoga should have the following seven qualities: discrimination
of purity and impurity (viveka), freedom from desires (vimoka), repeated worship
of God (abhyasa), performing daily duties (kriya), practice of godly
virtues (kalyana), living in the present without brooding about the past
(anavasada) and not feeling too elated (anuddharsa). If the practice of
jnana yoga results in self-realization, the practice of bhakti yoga
results in God realization.2 God can be realized only through devotion,
not by any other means. When a person becomes a true devotee, he
experiences intense devotion and longing for God, in which God becomes
everything for him. He see God in himself, everywhere, and himself in
God. He cannot stand any notion of separation from God and becomes the
very soul of God.
5. Sarangathi. Sarangathi is Complete and unconditional Self Surrender to God.
It is also known as nikshepa, nyasa, sanyasa, tyaga and prapatti. It is prescribed
for those who find the path of devotion difficult to practice. However
only those persons are qualified to practice it, who do not have any
desire other than the desire for liberation (moksha) and who are not
able to find any means for salvation except this only. It can be
practiced in six ways, known as sadangayoga3. They are: doing whatever
that is pleasing to God, not doing whatever this displeasing to God,
having abiding faith (mahavisvasa) in God that He would do whatever that
is appropriate, intense and desperate yearning for God's protection,
surrender of the self (atmanikshepa) and feeling helplessness (karpanya).
It also consists of
surrendering the thought that "I am the doer", surrendering
the thought that "this is mine", surrendering the fruit of one's
actions and surrendering the very notion that "I can enjoy the
fruit of my action by doing works." These four forms of surrender
would make a mumukshu feel that he is completely dependent upon God and
that God is the cause of all his actions, where by he becomes immune to
the working of karma.
In the Bhagavadgita, Lord Krishna describes these paths more or less
in the same sequence and explains the importance of each. He teaches
bhakti yoga to Arjuna only after the latter is filled with devotion,
after showing him His cosmic from. The first chapter is about
suffering. The second one is about jnana yoga, the third one is about
karma yoga and the
fourth one is about the practice of jnana yoga with renunciation of action.
It is only in the twelfth chapter, after more discussion and a
chapter on divine manifestation, that we find the discourse on bhakti
yoga.
Many people now a days believe that bhakti yoga is easy to practice. They
confuse ordinary devotion or superficial display of bhakti as
bhakti yoga. They go to temples, perform pooja at home or participate in
some devotional bhajans and believe it to be bhakti yoga. This is
like trying to get admission into a university,
without even learning the alphabet! Bhakti yoga is not for people, who
have not conquered their attachments, desires and ambition, who have not
learned enough about themselves or learned to live their lives
selflessly with a sense of duty. In bhakti yoga you do not pray to God to
seek material favors for yourself or your family members only. You seek
God Himself out of your intense yearning for God, without interest
in anything else. You genuine feel that your life is futile without God
and you will not rest till you find. This is the hallmark of a true
bhakti yogi. We have seen that even in the practice
of sarangathi, which is a lesser kind of bhaktiyoga, the quality of
mumukshu is a prerequisite. The ordinary bhakti that most people
practice is part of karma yoga and should be treated as such.
Saivism
Saivism, like Vaishnavism, is more like a religion rather than a
sect, with a mass
following of itself. It is perhaps the oldest of the Hindu sects. In
Saivism, there are many sub sects like Siddha Saivism, Kashmiri Saivism,
Veera Saivism, Pasupatha Saivism and so on, besides some tantric sects.
It is difficult to detail the variations and the different approaches
followed by each of the sects in this essay. So we limit our discussion
to the broader aspects of Saivism in dealing with the subject of karma.
In Saivism, the absolute highest lord of the universe is identified
as Siva or Pati (Lord), who is eternal and unbound, in contrast to jivas
(beings) or pasus (animals), who are bound to Prakriti, or the
dynamic energy of Siva, through the three pasas (bonds) or malas
(impurities), namley, anava
or egoism, karma or actions with consequences and maya or delusion. Because
of these three bonds, a jiva undergoes repeated births and deaths, till
it is liberated. Pati, pasu and pasas are thus the three most
important concepts of Saivism.
Since Saivism recognizes all the three malas as responsible for the
bondage of the beings, the emphasis is not on just karma but on how to
achieve salvation by severing all the three bonds. Different solutions
are suggested for this purpose. The Tantric texts of Saivism
prescribe four methods, or padas, namely scriptural knowledge (vidya
pada or jnana pada), practice of rituals and pooja (kriya pada or
mantra pada or karma pada), practice of yoga and meditation such as
kundalini yoga (yoga pada) and right conduct (charya pada).
The Pasupatha sect suggests four means for liberation: moral conduct
(vasacharya), prayers (japa), meditation (dhyana) and remembering Siva (rudra
smriti). Followers of Pasupatha Saivism are usually initiated into the
path by a guru. It is believed that when a seeker is initiated into the
path by a guru, the latter frees the former from all his previous karmas.
At some stage in their development, they engage in anti social behavior
in public, as a part of their spiritual practice, in order to attract
public criticism with the belief that when they are criticized, there
will be an exchange of karmas, so that all the good karma of those who criticize
them would be transferred to the ascetics and whatever bad
karma that is left in the ascetics would be passed on to their critics.
Followers or Saiva Siddhanta school of Saivism recognize three types
of souls: those who are bound by only one fetter only, namely anava or
egoism, those who are bound by two fetter only, namely egoism and karma,
and those who are bound by all the fetters namely, egoism, karma and
maya. This school accepts all the four padas, jnana, kriya, yoga and charya, as
the means of liberation. Diksha or initiation into the path by a guru is
considered the first and most important step. Depending upon the caliber
of his followers, a guru prescribes one of the our margas or methods:
dasa marga (path of servant), which consists of the practice of charya
(right conduct) , satpura marga (path of son), which consists of the
practice of kriya (rituals), saha marga (path of friend), which consists
of the practice of yoga (meditation) and san marga (true path), which
consists of the practice of jnana (knowledge). As can be seen, jnana or
knowledge is considered more important than bhakti as the means of
salvation.
Whatever may be the path, the main emphasis in Saivism is on the
liberation of the soul, by making the jiva realize their Siva tattva (
or nature of Siva) through initiation into the path by a guru,
performance of certain rituals in a dispassionate way and acquiring the
right knowledge by serving the guru and earning the grace of Siva
through him. The rituals are usually either simple such as temple
rituals or body rituals or mental rituals or rituals of service to God, or complex
rituals such as the ones practiced by the followers of tantricism.
Conclusion
Awareness of the law of karma is an important step in the religious
life of any individual. Karma is responsible for our becoming and being.
Our problems of existence and the law of karma becomes active only when
we enter into the state of beingness. Through karma we perpetuate this
state of beingness and create our own future existence. Karma is
supposed to be a corrective mechanism, meant to refine us gradually
through our own actions, but since we are not perfect
masters, we do it rather clumsily, like blind people trying to carve a
statue out of a stone. When we realize that our thoughts, intentions and
actions lead to our bondage and suffering, we become more
responsible in what we do and how we live. We aim to lead
divine centered lives, in which our main objective would be to free
ourselves from the consequences of our own actions, without escaping
from our duties and responsibilities. The murma (secret) of karma
(action) is to consecrate both our actions and their fruit to our
personal God and cultivate purity (sattva), devotion (bhakti),
equanimity and other divine qualities enumerated in the Bhagavadgita to
become qualified for our liberation. The law of karma makes it
abundantly clear that the solution to our liberation lies in our hands
and how we go about it is left to ourselves.
Suggested Further Reading
Footnotes
1. For the purpose of this discussion these concepts are taken mostly
from the Vishishtadvaita school of Sri Ramanuja, also known as Sri Vaishnavism and the terminology and
the concept may slightly differ from what is taught or practiced in
other schools such as Dvaita and Advaita.
2. Schools that follow monism or advaita do not see any distinction
between self-realization and God realization. For them the practice of
jnanayoga and bhaktiyoga lead to the same experience.
3. These six angas of sarangathi are described in the Ahirabudhanya
Samhita.
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