FREE ESSAY ON KARMA

KARMA

KARMA and REINCARNATION 
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The twin beliefs of karma and reincarnation are among Hinduism's many jewels of
knowledge. Others include dharma or our pattern of religious conduct, worshipful
communion with God and Gods, the necessary guidance of the Sat Guru, and finally
enlightenment through personal realization of our identity in and with God. So the
strong-shouldered and keen-minded rishis knew and stated in the Vedas. 
And these are not mere assumptions of probing, brilliant minds. They are laws of the
cosmos. As God's force of gravity shapes cosmic order, karma shapes experiential order.
Our long sequence of lives is a tapestry of creating and resolving karmas-positive,
negative and an amalgam of the two. During the succession of a soul's lives-through the
mysteries of our higher chakras and God's and Guru's Grace-no karmic situation will arise
that exceeds an individual's ability to resolve it in love and understanding. 
Many people are very curious about their past lives and expend great time, effort and
money to explore them. Actually, this curious probing into past lives is unnecessary.
Indeed it is a natural protection from reliving past trauma or becoming infatuated more
with our past lives that our present life that the inner recesses of the muladhara memory
chakra are not easily accessed. For, as we exist now is a sum total of all our past
lives. In our present moment, our mind and body state is the cumulative result of the
entire spectrum of our past lives. So, no matter how great the intellectual knowing of
these two key principles, it is how we currently live that positively shapes karma and
unfolds us spiritually. Knowing the laws, we are responsible to resolve blossoming karmas
from past lives and create karma that, projected into the future, will advance, not
hinder, us. 
Karma literally means deed or act, but more broadly describes the principle of cause and
effect. Simply stated, karma is the law of action and reaction which governs
consciousness. In physics-the study of energy and matter-Sir Isaac Newton postulated that
for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Push against a wall. Its
material is molecularly pushing back with a force exactly equal to yours. In metaphysics,
karma is the law that states that every mental, emotional and physical act, no matter how
insignificant, is projected out into the psychic mind substance and eventually returns to
the individual with equal impact. 
The akashic memory in our higher chakras faithfully records the soul's impressions during
its series of earthly lives, and in the astral/mental worlds in-between earth existences.
Ancient yogis, in psychically studying the time line of cause/effect, assigned three
categories to karma. The first is sanchita, the sum total of past karma yet to be
resolved. The second category is prarabdha, that portion of sanchita karma being
experienced in the present life. Kriyamana, the third type, is karma you are presently
creating. However, it must be understood that your past negative karma can be altered
into a smoother, easier state through the loving, heart-chakra nature, through dharma and
sadhana. That is the key of karmic wisdom. Live religiously well and you will create
positive karma for the future and soften negative karma of the past. Truths and Myths
About Karma 
Karma operates not only individually, but also in ever-enlarging circles of group karma
where we participate in the sum karma of multiple souls. This includes family, community,
nation, race and religion, even planetary group karma. So if we, individually or
collectively, unconditionally love and give, we will be loved and given to. The
individuals or groups who act soulfully or maliciously toward us are the vehicle of our
own karmic creation. The people who manifest your karma are also living through past
karma and simultaneously creating future karma. For example, if their karmic pattern did
not include miserliness, they would not be involved in your karma of selfishness. Another
person may express some generosity toward you, fulfilling the gifting karma of your past
experience. Imagine how intricately interconnected all the cycles of karma are for our
planet's life forms. 
Many people believe in the principle of karma, but don't apply its laws to their daily
life or even to life's peak experiences. There is a tendency to cry during times of
personal crisis, Why has God done this to me? or What did I do to deserve this? While God
is the creator and sustainer of the cosmic law of karma, He does not dispense individual
karma. He does not produce cancer in one person's body and develop Olympic athletic
prowess in another's. We create our own experiences. It is really an exercising of our
soul's powers of creation. Karma, then, is our best spiritual teacher. We spiritually
learn and grow as our actions return to us to be resolved and dissolved. In this highest
sense, there is no good and bad karma; there is self-created experience that presents
opportunities for spiritual advancement. If we can't draw lessons from the karma, then we
resist and/or resent it, lashing out with mental, emotional or physical force. The
original substance of that karmic event is spent and no longer exists, but the current
reaction creates a new condition of harsh karma. 
Responsibility resolving karma is among the most important reasons that a Sat Guru is
necessary in a sincere seeker's life. The Guru helps the devotee to hold his mind in
focus, to become pointedly conscious of thought, word and deed. Without the guidance and
grace of the Guru, the devotee's mind will be splintered between instinctive and
intellectual forces, making it very difficult to resolve karma. Only when karma is wisely
harnessed can the mind become still enough to experience its own superconscious depths. 
Karma is also misunderstand as fate, an unchangeable destiny decreed long ago by agencies
or forces external to us such as the planet and stars, or Gods. Karma is neither fate nor
predetermination. Each soul has absolute free will Its only boundary is karma. God and
Gods do not dictate the experiential events of our lives, nor do they test us. And there
is no cosmic force that molds our life. Indeed, when beseeched through deep prayer and
worship, the Supreme Being and His great Gods may intercede within our karma, lightening
its impact or shifting its location in time to a period when we are better prepared to
resolve it. Hindu astrology, or Jyotisha, details a real relation between ourselves and
the geography of the solar system and certain star clusters, but it is not a cause-effect
relation. Planets and stars don't cause or dictate karma. Their orbital relationships
establish proper conditions for karmas to activate and a particular type of personality
nature to develop. Jyotisha describes a relation of revealment: it reveals prarabdha
karmic patterns for a given birth and how we will generally react to them (kriyamana
karma). This is like a pattern of different colored windows allowing sunlight in to
reveal and color a house's arrangement of furniture. With astrological knowledge we are
aware of our life's karmic pattern and can thereby anticipate it wisely. Reincarnation: A
Soul's Path to Godness 
The soul dwells as the inmost body of light and superconscious, universal mind of a
series of nested bodies, each more refined than the next: physical, pranic, astral,
mental. In our conscious mind we think and feel ourselves to be a physical body with some
intangible spirit within it. Yet, right now our real identity is the soul that is sensing
through its multiple bodies physical, emotional and mental experience. Recognizing this
as reality, we powerfully know that life doesn't end with the death of the biological
body. The soul continues to occupy the astral body, a subtle, luminous duplicate of the
physical body. This subtle body is made of higher-energy astral matter and dwells in a
dimension called the astral plane. If the soul body itself is highly evolved, it will
occupy the astral/mental bodies on a very refined plane of the astral known as the
Devaloka, the world of light-shining beings. At death, the soul slowly becomes totally
aware in its astral/mental bodies and it predominantly lives through those bodies in the
astral dimension. 
The soul functions with complete continuity in its astral/mental bodies. It is with these
sensitive vehicles that we experience dream or astral worlds during sleep every night.
The astral world is equally as solid and beautiful, as varied and comprehensive as the
earth dimension-if not much more so. Spiritual growth, psychic development, guidance in
matters of governance and commerce, artistic cultivation, inventions and discoveries of
medicine, science and technology all continue by astral people who are in-between earthly
lives. Many of the Veda hymns entreat the assistance of devas: advanced astral or mental
people. Yet, also in the grey, lower regions of this vast, invisible dimension exist
astral people whose present pursuits are base, selfish, even sadistic. Where the person
goes in the astral plane at sleep or death is dependent upon his earthly pursuits and the
quality of his mind. 
Because certain seed karmas can only be resolved in earth consciousness and because the
soul's initial realizations of Absolute Reality are only achieved in a physical body, our
soul joyously enters another biological body. At the right time, it is reborn into a
flesh body that will best fulfill its karmic pattern. In this process, the current astral
body-which is a duplicate of the last physical form-is sluffed off as a lifeless shell
that in due course disintegrates, and a new astral body develops as the new physical body
grows. This entering into another body is called reincarnation: re-occupying the flesh. 
During our thousands of earth lives, a remarkable variety of life patterns are
experienced. We exist as male and female, often switching back and forth from life to
life as the nature becomes more harmonized into a person exhibiting both feminine
nurturing and masculine intrepidness. We come to earth as princesses and presidents, as
paupers and pirates, as tribals and scientists, as murderers and healers, as atheists
and, ultimately, God-Realized sages. We take bodies of every race and live the many
religions, faiths and philosophies as the soul gains more knowledge and evolutionary
experience. 
Therefore, the Hindu knows that the belief in a single life on earth, followed by eternal
joy or pain is utterly wrong and causes great anxiety, confusion and fear. Hindus know
that all souls reincarnate, take one body and then another, evolving through experience
over long periods of time. Like the caterpillar's metamorphosis into the butterfly, death
doesn't end our existence but frees us to pursue an even greater development. 
Understanding the laws of the death process, the Hindu is vigilant of his thoughts and
mental loyalties. He knows that the contents of his mind at the point of death in large
part dictate where he will function in the astral plane and the quality of his next
birth. Secret questionings and doubt of Hindu belief, and associations with other belief
systems will automatically place him among like-minded people whose beliefs are alien to
Hinduism. A nominal Hindu on earth could be a selfish materialist in the astral world.
The Hindu also knows that death must come naturally, in its own course, and that suicide
only accelerates the intensity of one's karma, bringing a series of immediate lesser
births and requiring several lives for the soul to return to the exact evolutionary point
that existed at the moment of suicide, at which time the still-existing karmic
entanglements must again be faced and resolved. 
Two other karmically sensitive processes are: 1.) artificially sustaining life in a
wholly incapacitated physical body through mechanical devices, drugs or intravenous
feeding; and 2.) euthanasia, mercy killing. There is a critical timing in the death
transition. The dying process can involve long suffering or be peaceful or painfully
sudden: all dependent on the karma involved. To keep a person on life support with the
sole intent of continuing the body's biological functions nullifies the natural timing of
death. It also keeps the person's astral body earthbound, tethered to a lower astral
region rather than being released into higher astral levels. 
An important lesson to learn here is that karma is conditioned by intent. When the
medical staff receives a dangerously ill or injured person and they place him on life
support as part of an immediate life-saving procedure, their intent is pure healing. If
their attempts are unsuccessful, then the life-support devices are turned off, the person
dies naturally and there is no karma involved and it does not constitute euthanasia.
However, if the doctors, family or patient decide to continue life support indefinitely
to prolong biological processes, (usually motivated by a Western belief of a single life)
then the intent carries full karmic consequences. When a person is put on long-term life
support, he must be left on it until some natural biological or environmental event
brings death. If he is killed through euthanasia, this again further disturbs the timing
of the death. As a result, the timing of future births would be drastically altered. 
Euthanasia, the willful destruction of a physical body, is a very serious karma. This
applies to all cases including someone experiencing long-term, intolerable pain. Even
such difficult life experiences must be allowed to resolve themselves naturally. Dying
may be painful, but death itself is not. All those involved (directly or indirectly) in
euthanasia will proportionately take on the remaining prarabdha karma of the dying
person. And the euthanasia participants will, to the degree contributed, face a similar
karmic situation in this or a future life. 
Finally, there is exercising wisdom-which is knowing and using divine law-in the overall
context of any situation For example, a vegetative person in a coma is on long-term life
support in a hospital when a patient is brought in for emergency treatment requiring that
same life support equipment. Weighing the two karmas, a doctor could dharmically unplug
the comatose patient in order to save the other's life. Moksha: Freedom From Rebirth 
Life's real attainment is not money, not material luxury, not sexual or eating pleasure,
not intellectual, business or political power, or any other of the instinctive or
intellectual needs. These are natural pursuits, to be sure, but our divine purpose on
this earth is to personally realize our identity in and with God. This is now called by
many names: enlightenment, Self-Realization, God-Realization and Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
After many lifetimes of wisely controlling the creation of karma and resolving past
karmas when they return, the soul is fully matured in the knowledge of these divine laws
and the highest use of them. Through the practice of yoga, the Hindu bursts into God's
superconscious Mind, the experience of bliss, all-knowingness, perfect silence. His
intellect is transmuted, and he soars into the Absolute Reality of God. He is a jnani, a
knower of the Known. When the jnani is stable in repeating his realization of the
Absolute, there is no longer a need for physical birth, for all lessons have been
learned, all karmas fulfilled and Godness is his natural mind state. That individual soul
is then naturally liberated, freed from the cycle of birth, death & rebirth on this
planet. After Moksha, our soul continues its evolution in the inner worlds, eventually to
merge back into its origin: God, the Primal Soul. 
Every Hindu expects to seek for and attain moksha. But he or she does not expect that it
will necessarily come in this present life. Hindus know this and do not delude themselves
that this life is the last. Seeking and attaining profound spiritual relizations, they
nevertheless know that there is much to be accomplished on earth and that only mature,
God-Realized souls attain Moksha. 
God may seem distant and remote as the experience of our self-created karmas cloud our
mind. Yet, in reality, the Supreme Being is always closer to you than the beat of your
heart. His Mind pervades the totality of your karmic experience and lifetimes. As karma
is God's cosmic law of cause and effect, dharma is God's law of Being, including the
pattern of Hindu religiousness. Through following dharma and controlling thought, word
and deed, karma is harnessed and wisely created. You become the master, the knowing
creator, not a helpless victim. Through being consistent in our religiousness, following
the yamas and niyamas (Hindu restraints and observances), performing the pancha nitya
karmas (five constant duties), seeing God everywhere and in everyone, our past karma will
soften. We may experience the karma indirectly through seeing someone else going through
a situation that we intuitively know was a karma we also were to face. But because of
devout religiousness, we may experience it vicariously or in lesser intensity. For
example, a physical karma may manifest as a mental experience or a realistic dream; an
emotional karmic storm may just barely touch our mind before dying out. 
The belief in karma and reincarnation brings to each Hindu inner peace and
self-assurance. The Hindu knows that the maturing of the soul takes many lives, and that
if the soul is immature in the present birth, then there is hope, for there will be many
opportunities for learning and growing in future lives. Yes, these beliefs and the
attitudes they produce eliminate anxiety, giving the serene perception that everything is
all right as it is. And, there is also a keen insight into the human condition and
appreciation for people in all stages of spiritual unfoldment.
Mandala on Karma and Rebirth in Dancing With Siva
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