13  Karma TC  "13  Karma" \l 1

The law of cause and effect, or karmic law, is the principle that as you sow, so shall you reap.

Karma forms an integral part of the subtle body and exists in the subtle body in an impression form. So karma, which is action, transforms itself into impressions which we call samskaras. Thus by thought, we produce action, and by action we revert back to thought.

There is no short-cut to get out of karma.

It is only the integrated person that could develop strength. When we have to repay our karma, it becomes much easier when we have this strength.

Karma is controlled by man himself. If your tendencies are to move in a certain direction, you can by your own thinking or by your own right action and devotion, change the tendency.

It is not only bad karma that has brought you into an awkward circumstance, but it could also be good karma that puts you into an awkward circumstance. Why are you in that awkward circumstance? To evolve you more, to bring you to a greater state of happiness in the long run.

Even the most awkward or difficult situations have a message for you. Meditate, and become more integrated so that you can discover and understand this message. If we can just stop being involved in our “little selves” all the time, then a vast panorama will open up.

Many acts can be performed which leave no impression on the mind whatsoever, and when an act leaves no impression on the mind, then that karma is nonbinding. That is what we are after. We want to unbind ourselves from all karmic debts, and it is by unbinding ourselves that we become boundless.

When you reach the stage of mankind (as your first incarnation), you are not karma-free, yet that karma contained within you is non-binding. It is non-binding because you have not yet developed the power of thinking. It is only when the mind starts developing that the activity of karma begins.

All those impressions of millions of years do not need to be re-experienced. And this is the greatest gift that has been given by Divinity to us—the gift of forgetfulness.

We don’t choose our children, but our children choose us. We each choose our parents. When we find the right genetic combination, the right level of evolution most compatible to the lessons that we have to learn, those are the parents we choose to be born through. This is why one person is born in happiness and another in unhappiness, or in different circumstances. This is governed by karma.

Karma is a law which operates individually; and as any collective whole is composed of units, there would naturally be collective karma as well.

The way to improve collective karma and to improve society is to improve oneself.

Actions cannot be judged on face value.

Karma Yoga is where you work for the sake of work and the rewards come by themselves. Whenever these rewards come they are accepted for one’s needs, for one’s necessities of daily life. But when the work is done, it is done in a sense of offering—that everything I do is an offering to Divinity.

There is a very simple way of self-analysis. If a person goes through five seconds of negativity, let the next six seconds be of positivity and you have one second in the credit balance. After that, if ten seconds go in negativity, left eleven seconds go in positivity, the credit balance: two seconds. If we live our lives consciously, with the practice of yama and niyama, then at night we’ll have the finest sleep with no insomnia. We will sleep contentedly because in tallying up the day’s activities we have so many minutes in the credit balance. Now, if you total it all up, the year has gone well, multiply by another sixty or seventy, or as long as you want to live—then you have evolved. You are then leaving this world a much better place than when you came into it because you are leaving this world a better person. That is the result of self-evaluation and self-study.

Living as householders, we try to do our best. There is nothing wrong in making mistakes. To try and live to the best of our ability is the great thing.

There is no way to short cut or do away with your karma, but meditation helps you to gain the strength to face the fruits of what you have sown, and suffering becomes less.

With the law of karma, we also have the law of Grace operating, but to invoke the law of Grace we have to improve our karma.

If you have done ten wrong deeds, it does not necessarily mean that you will have to pay directly for them, but if you do eleven good deeds you will have one in the credit balance. Karma does not mean that for every action you perform you have to pay. In one sense you have to pay if you do nothing about it, and in another sense, you can overcome the effects of a particular wrong karma by performing a good karma. As long as you are on the credit side of life, you invoke the law of Grace.

When meditation and proper living are combined, the law of Grace is forever there, and it will come to you through various channels and through various ways, for you will definitely get what you deserve.

In every adversity there is opportunity. Man fails because he only sees the adversity. Because of his fragmented mind he does not recognize the opportunity.

Karma is not only action of the physical body, but also action of the mind, and the mind’s action is on a more subtle level, but it is still action. If the mind is regulated and put into a proper channel with the help of meditation, then we automatically draw on Grace. It works in a cycle. The more we draw Grace, the better our actions become, and the more Grace comes. That is how man evolves and finds greater and greater happiness until he achieves totality, self-realization.

When self-realized, a man becomes law unto himself, because he is not touched by any form of karma. When events occur he is unaffected by them because he has developed integration which brings nonattachment. It is attachment that brings suffering. Attachment produces expectations, and when expectations are not fulfilled it produces suffering and that is what we term karma to be.

Karma does not only mean pain, it also means pleasure. Good karma within its range will bring you good results. Bad karma within its same range will bring you bad results. When man has become non-attached, then he has risen above both. He has risen to the level where there is no polarity left and all is oneness, and that is the stage where everything is just accepted. That is the stage when he sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil, because he is apart from it and yet a part of it. This may sound very paradoxical, but the greatest truths are paradoxical, because a truth is a wholeness.

Truth is that area which lies beyond good and evil. This momentary, transitory, forever-changing way of life loses its importance. It loses its importance, not because it in itself is unimportant, but because of the effect it has on you. That is what is important.

While one is an embodied, unrealized being, karma will always have its ups and down. But we can, with effort, have more ups than downs. When this is true, know that there was a force pushing you and that force is Grace.

If you make up your mind and do not have a selfish motive in any circumstance, the whole circumstance will be altered for you. You are drawing on Grace.

Whenever there is action, be it physical or mental, there would be reaction. That means that where there is a cause, there is an effect. This must be remembered in the context of relative life only. When it comes to the absolute aspect of man, there is no karma. The spirit itself is karma free.

Harmony leads you to nonattachment, where karma becomes non-binding to you. You can be karmaless.

One can free themselves of karmic ties. First use objectification, which leads to nonattachment. Nonattachment leads to happiness, because you are not affected, and when you are not affected, you are not creating a cause. When no cause is created, it could not produce another effect, and, if another effect is not produced, another cause cannot be created again. That is the purpose of life. From stillness we came, and to stillness we return.

We must go beyond the mud of our karmas, for good and bad karmas are both binding.

Use this universal force so that you can go beyond this very small relative law that says whatever you have sown, you shall reap. It is true, but in a very limited form. The human being has the ability to go beyond it, and this is the message for this century and the next centuries to come: Do not feel guilty about the things that you have done, or the things that you have caused to be done, for you can go beyond them all. It can be discarded like a dirty garment.