Thursday, February 9, 2012

Vedanta - Karma: Reap what you Sow


Karma:
refers to action. Actions are chosen by exercising our will, either deliberately or by default. Habitual actions are repeated and reinforced actions that become part of our sub conscious choices.

Many sub conscious choices are based on past circumstances that are no longer relevant to the present moment. Hence habitual behaviours may be incongruous to present circumstances.

... Our actions invite a response from others with whom we interact. Actions may also involve happiness or sorrow while interacting with the world of objects.
The scriptures speak of the law of Karma wherein our actions based on right or wrong intentions attract results that are respectively pleasant or unpleasant results.

Physical activity attracts immediate physical response from the world. Our Intentions too can be expressed as subtle actions in terms of motives and visualizations. These too can have physical and emotional response from others, if expressed verbally or non verbally. Hidden intentions on the other hand, being subtle, may not have immediate visible results. These intentions are however, subject to the law of Karma, which states that the corresponding results occur over the long term that may take weeks and months to years and lifetimes to experience.

These long term results are connected to present actions through unseen (adrishta) connections in terms of punya (merit) and papa (demerit). If these unseen connections are overlooked, it becomes impossible to answer questions like why good people suffer and the bad prosper. What we refer to as luck - good and bad - are nothing but the play of adrishta in our lives.

Adrishta accounts for the backlog of experiences accruing in our account that either helps us in our present efforts or frustrates us in our endeavours. The scriptures state that living a life that is meritorious leads to fortunate circumstances in the long term. No efforts are wasted... they are fully compensated for in the long term. On the other hand, living a life of abandon leads to long term unfortunate circumstances. No wrong doing is unpunished.... they too are fully paid for in the long term




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