What is Karma in Hinduism?
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
tenfold 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
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 in spite
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.
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.
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.
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.
