Categories Of Karma

We are born. Birth is like going on an Innersearch Travel-Study Program. In preparing for our journey, we pack certain belongings. We don't bring everything that we own, which we could liken to our sanchita karmas. We might try to, but we don't. We bring only two suitcases, which we can manage quite easily, one in each hand, with wheels on them. Our other suitcases and things in our closet we leave at home. These are like the karmas that we don't bring with us when we are born. We bring just a certain portion of our karmas to live through in this life, called prarabdha karmas. Karmas left to be worked out in another life are in seed stage, inactive -- hanging in the closet.

So, here we are, with our two suitcases of karma, and the idea is to go through life and come out the other end without the suitcases. Unless we have dharma, which we are committed to and live fully, which has the restraints, we would fill up the suitcases again, buying knick-knacks, as you all have been doing, so that when you get off the boat, your suitcases are full again. That becomes karma, kriyamana karma. We have choices to not make new karma, especially the ones we don't want to face in the future. That is the cycle of life. It works like that until all the suitcases are empty.

The swamis who renounce the world and do tapas are trying to burn the seeds of the karmas that they did not bring with them in this life. They set fire to the whole house. They renounce the world and put restrictions upon themselves that others don't, especially those who are going through their purushartha karmas. You also have to do your karma. Understanding all this, we can see the need for daily discipline.

What do we mean, exactly, by the terms good karma and bad karma? There is good karma as well as bad, though we say there is no good nor bad -- only experience. Still, some karmas are more difficult to bear, experience and reexperience than others. This is where it is extremely important to inhibit the tendencies to let loose the forces that externalize awareness, while at the same time performing the sadhana of realizing the Source through internalizing awareness. It is this constant pull between the inner and the outer, or individual awareness soaring back and forth between the externalities and internalities, that keeps churning the fiery forces of karma into the smoldering coals of dharma. Good karma is denoted by good merit, since every cause has its due effect. Therefore, so-called bad karma brings injury, pain, misunderstanding and anguish, which when suffered through completes the cycle.

Ancient yogis, in psychically studying the timeline of cause and 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.

Right knowledge, right decision and right action imperceptibly straighten out, unkink and unwind ignorantly devised or contrived past actions. The key word is reform. Re-form, re-make, re-cast. To put into a molten state and be reformed is what happens to our karma when we enter dharma. Adharma is creating karma, good, not so good, terrible, mixed and confused. Dharma reforms all of this -- reshapes and molds, allowing the devotee to do good and think good, to be clearly perceptive. Putting all the karma in a molten state is bhakti. Happy karma, sad karma, bad karma, when consciously or unconsciously wanted to be held on to, inhibits bhakti. Bhakti brings grace, and the sustaining grace melts and blends the karmas in the heart. In the heart chakra the karmas are in a molten state. The throat chakra molds the karmas through sadhana, regular religious practices. The third-eye chakra sees the karmas, past, present and future as a singular oneness. And the crown chakra absorbs, burns clean, enough of the karmas to open the gate, the door of Brahman, revealing the straight path to merging with Siva.( Himalayan Academy Home Page )