Karma

[Guest guest]

Here is a Q that has been on my mind for long..,hope i find some convincing answers here.

 

we all talk of karma..how ones past actions decide his present. and how the present will decide the future. Is there an element of destiny here? How are karma and destiny related?

 

If my present, my actions, my behaviour mode is decided by my past karma, that means I really have no choice. Why should I think of god, or chant a mantra? If it is not in my karma, i shouldnt worry about it at all.

 

If I chanting the god's name, it is my past good karma. If I am not, it is again my past karma. Do i really have a choice?

 

Lets say a person who is the worst kind you can think of. He commits all the sins he can. Then his next life will be a continuation of that(or even MORE wretched), right? Where is the salvation for him. If his past karma is so bad, how will he ever find the path?

 

My question is if Karma is a wheel, then good keeps getting better and bad will keep getting worse. Where is the break?

 

I am not sure how coherent the Question is..hopefully some of you got the drift. Maybe I can explain when some of you reply.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

my understanding is this:

 

* a person is reborn and placed into certain wombs based on their state of consciousness at death, as well as collectively the life they've lived (that is saatvic, rajasic or tamasic behaviour exhibited during the lifetime).

 

* saatvic behaviour grants a person rebirth in holy or 'rich' households. rajaasic behaviour grants a person rebirth in the normal material world. tamasic persons are thrown into the wombs of lesser men or creatures. a person who has transcended these 3 modes of nature (gunas), obtains moksha.

 

* karma is not lost, it is only gained. krishna said suffering makes one turn to god. so as a tamasic person suffers, will they not finally come to wisdom and learn the error of their ways? this will grant them better rebirths.

 

how is it that certain people display such strong inclinations to either of the 3 classes even from the time they were born? only one of the classes of saatvic, rajasic or tamasic is dominant in the person, overtaking the other two.

 

if a person is born as a creature, perhaps eventually they have gained enough karma through purity and innocence of being a creature to be granted a human birth. even if they are then a lowly person, they will gradually build upon it.

 

* the caste system is being misused today. it is not meant to classify those people who are richer than others, but it was meant to classify those people who are of higher births then others - in the sense of SPIRITUAL births. a person born as a sudra therefore collectively has less karma then a kshatriya.

 

* one has to perform the duty corresponding to their caste. if a kshatriya performs the duty of the sudra, he is not gaining, and it will be detrimental to his progression spiritually. (he will not gain, because his actions will be of a lesser man).

 

your present and your past actions and your karma do not have an effect on your current actions. it is your past karma that places you in the life you are in now. it is up to you to build. if you abuse this life, and stoop low, your karma will not grow and you will be reborn as a rajasic class of man.

 

the goal of us all is to return to Godhead. all of us will, eventually return. it is up to you to delay or speed up as you would, this process. but why delay the inevitable? you are losing nothing in performing satvic activities in this life to return to God.

 

one last thing. in the ancient times, i have read, a man who committed a vile sin was killed straight away. this was not just as punishment, but it was to preserve his karma. if you look at the system now, of placing such men in prisons, it is slowly decaying them and forcing them into lower tamasic births. how are they to achieve an equivalent (rajasic) birth if they are put in jail for 30 years? such a cycle is detrimental to the soul.

 

the above is my understanding of karma. i have a book on this, but it is a buddhist book and from what im told, the buddhist idea of karma is a fair bit more complicated to what ive described.

[Guest guest]

"your present and your past actions and your karma do not have an effect on your current actions."

 

sorry i meant your past life and your past actions do not have an effect on the way you act now, but simply the past was your opportunity to have collected karma.

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.Now I can go deeper.

 

The way people behave depends on their behavior, which we all know can be satvic, rajasic or tamasic. That nature is decided before our birth, due to our karma.

 

So lets say in this life I have the oppurtunity to say the god's name or to kill someone..just 2 examples of good and bad karma. But I will choose depending on my behaviour mode, which depends on my past karma.

 

Seems like an unending cycle here...bad karma begets bad actions, good karma begets good. and Bad actions again lead to bad karma, good to good.

 

Can someone clear this for me.

 

The only way this makes sense is if as humans we have the choice of actions, but do we really have that choice.

I see different people reacting differently to the same situation, depending on their behaviour mode. Where is the choice?

[Guest guest]

but karma is integral in our consciousness. It is there in our subconscious minds, guiding our actions. There is always the free will however to turn to the superconscious, to God for salvation. God can wipe away your karma if you approach him with sincerity.

 

Vivekananda himself said a person who relies totally on karma is a coward. A strong man makes his own fate and defies his karma. Karma is only TENDENCIES, not merely your fate. For instance, you might have the karma to be a great man someday. But if you KNOW that you have that destiny, and as a result you become lackadaisical about it thinking that you'll become a great man without any effort, you'll get bad karma and end up not becoming a great man at all. You become simply a weak coward, turning to your karma, blaming it for your misfortunes.

 

If you are a sinner, if your karma is to BE a sinner, and yet you KNOW your fate and try to keep from being a sinner and choose to do good, you'll avert your karma more often than not. If you pray to God with sincerity and devotion, God can keep you from realizing that karma, he can wipe away those sinful karmas.

 

But that's a conscious choice you have to make.

 

Karma is nothing more than tendencies, and we all were gifted with the intellect to avert our karma or succumb to it. Depends on how we use our intellect. This is also why I believe the stars tell our potential destiny when we are born: it acts as a guide to how to bring us up spiritually.

 

God ultimately decides when enough is enough and gives you the intellect to be able to make the choice and spiritually progress, and break the cycle.

 

At least that's what I believe.

 

 

[Guest guest]

i guess one has to read into the literature to answer your question. the best thing for you is to speak to a spiritual person who is learned in the gita to answer it.

 

once again, my understanding is this:

we are born into certain bodies based on our previous life's actions. we are placed in good situations if we have displayed a good past life, or bad situations if we have displayed a bad past life.

 

but that doesnt mean we will always act accordingly to our good or bad situation. dont confuse the gunas (saatvic, rajasic, tamasic) with ACTION. while a man may be born with saatvic qualities, his life's actions may be tamasic in nature.

 

the challenge lies in renouncing the gunas, being free from them, and renouncing your action when you realise that God is the controller and not you. to reach this stage of enlightenment probably requires subsequent rebirths to teach the soul this lesson.

 

i dont believe we are predisposed to act in certain ways without freedom. but realise, once one renounces action in the name of God, and is free from the bonds of what the action brings, the gunas will not have an effect on that person. as long as the soul is bound to the body, most people are going to be under the influence of the gunas, but our ACTION in that life is what causes one to be classified as a sudra, kshatriya, etc. action has 5 constituent elements. the body, the organs, the personality, the manifold activity, and your destiny. only if they all concur, you will act accordingly. your act may be saatvic, or it may be tamasic. note that destiny requires the other 4 elements to agree with it. so we are not predisposed to fate alone.