Swami Rajarshi Muni in Yoga" – The Ultimate Attainment, Jaico Publishing House, 2004, describes the blooming and replication of karma into further action and karma.
During each earthly existence, a soul creates innumerable karmas in the form of thoughts, words, and actions. These karmas leave behind corresponding subliminal impressions that are carried forward with the subtle body from one life to the next. When these latent impressions become activated at opportune moments in the present life, or in a future life, they awaken into desires, which then amass volitional energy sufficient to lead the soul to perform new karmas. Thus the karmas of the present life lead to the karmas of future lives. They establish a continuous and unending chain of causes and effects.
Annie Besant, Bhagawan Das and Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami have written about the triple nature of each karmic action as revealed by ancient yogis.
The first is Samcita, the sum total of past karma yet to be resolved. Samcita is the accumulated karma of the past and is partly seen as mans' tendencies: the character, his/her powers, capacities, and weaknesses, that came to be made through his/her many births.
From the midst of the Samcitas is selected a portion, Prarabdha and, at the time of the beginning of the body, time energizes this portion for reaping and which cannot be avoided but must be experienced in the present life. Prarabdha is only exhausted by being experienced. That, which has begun, is actually bearing fruit.
Vartamana or Kriyamana, the third type is karma that which is now being created. That karma is being done. The actual, that which is now being made for the future, or the coming karma.
Although we do not have control of the first two, we definitely can chart the third. But yet the most compassionate father Agathiyar comes to show us the way to manipulate the first two and takes our hand in helping to chart the third. So why does Agathiyar reveal each person's past on the onset of every reading for seekers? Paramahansa Yogananda throws some light. "Knowledge of the law of karma encourages the earnest seeker to find the way of final escape from its bonds." Understanding karma will show us a way not to create further karma. Paramahansa Yogananda in his "Autobiography of a Yogi", Self Realization Fellowship, 1990, writes,
Karma is not a finished thing awaiting us, but a constant becoming, in which the future is not only shaped by the past but is modified by the present.
Who has this knowledge of the past but the Siddhas and some gurus. Ram Das in "Path to God - Living The Bhagavadgita", Harmony Books, 2004, mentions that his guru could see the whole pattern of life evolving.
Maharajji could see the whole pattern evolving. When you’re at that stage, you see in advance the direction the karmic waves are taking, and you know exactly why it’s all happening the way it is.
Association with the Godly men brings us to understand the subtle world that envelopes and surrounds us, although most of us most of the time are not aware of its existence and influence. They through devotion or bhakti are known to modify the effects of karma. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami attests to how devotion does wonder in the devotee and sadhaka. The grace of the divine that is derived through devotion, melts the karmas, in various stages, and in various chakras finally burning it in the fire of tapas or austerities and meditation.
Planetary changes activate new karmas and close off some of the karmas previously activated. The magnetic pulls and the lack of magnetism are what jyotisha (Vedic astrology) is telling us is happening at every point in time. These karmas then wait in abeyance, accumulating new energy from current actions, to be reactivated at some later time. These karmic packets become more refined, life after life, through sadhana. All of this is summed up by one word, evolution.
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.
Paramahansa Yogananda in his "Autobiography of a Yogi", Self Realization Fellowship, 1990, conveys his master Sri Yukteswar's message on the means to nullify the effects of karma.
By a number of means - by prayer, by will power, by yoga meditation, by consultation with saints, by use of astrological bangles - the adverse effects of past wrongs can be minimized or nullified.
Ram Das in "Path to God - Living The Bhagavad Gita", Harmony Books, 2004, shows that dropping the idea and notion and thought that I am the "doer" does not attach oneself to the results and fruits of his action.
If we want to get done with it all, its clear that the first step in the process is to stop creating new waves. We’re never going to be finished if we keep making new waves for ourselves everyday. Once we’re acting purely out of dharma and not out of any desire, we’re no longer making waves. When you've totally surrendered to your dharma, when you’re no longer trying for anything, that’s your way through."
Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama in "Karma and Reincarnation", Piatkus, 1992 suggests the same.
Dissolving karma through learning detachment - non-action within action i.e. acting out the unfolding of one’s day to day life continuously but without attachment to the results of the action.
Eknath Easwaran in "Dialogue with Death - A Journey Through Consciousness", Jaico Publishing House, 2002, says the same too.
If we can learn not to act on a samskara by severing the connection between stimulus and response, that particular chain of karma will no longer have a hold on us.
Just as Lao Tze asked that we go with the flow, harnessing the power of nature, and not to oppose but neutralize those that oppose him, Agathiyar teaches us to neutralize karma. Annie Besant and Bhagawan Das in "Sanatana Dharma" by the Theosophical Publishing House, 2000, write the same.
A man who knows the law of nature utilizes those whose forces are going his way and neutralize those which oppose. The laws of nature state conditions under which certain results follow. According to the results desired conditions may be arranged, and, given the conditions, the results will invariably follow. Hence the law of nature does not compel any special action, but only renders all actions possible.
This gives us hope. To substantiate this fact, an excerpt from Sogyal Rinpoche's "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", HarperSanFrancisco, 1993,
Karma, then, is not fatalistic or predetermined. Karma means our ability to create and to change. It is creative because we can determine how and why we act. We can change. The future is in our hands, and in the hands of our heart. As everything is impermanent, fluid, and interdependent, how we act and think inevitably change the future. We must realize that every moment in our life, every joy and every sorrow, can be traced to some source within us. There is no one “out there” making it all happen. We make it happen or not happen according to the actions we perform, the attitudes we hold and the thoughts we think. Therefore, by gaining conscious control of our thoughts and attitudes by right action, we can control the flow of karma.
Lama Surya Das in "Awakening the Buddha Within - Tibetan Wisdom For The Western World", Bantam Books, 1997, says,
Every moment we are presented with the possibility of changing the future. By thorough understanding of karmic causation and skillful means we can become free. We change, and our future changes too. This is the truth. This is karma. We are responsible; the lever of our destiny remains in our hands.
Again we are told that the lever is in our hands. Annie Besant and Bhagawan Das in "Sanatana Dharma" by the Theosophical Publishing House, 2000 simplifies the theory.
The main thing to see in karma is not a destiny imposed from without, but a self-made destiny, imposed from within, and therefore a destiny that is continually being remade by its maker.
Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama in "Karma and Reincarnation", Piatkus, 1992 examines karma further.
Karma is basically a result of the spiritual ignorance of the self that mistakenly believes it is an independent entity. As long as the self functions in this state of ignorance it is imprisoned in a continuous process of death and reincarnation within the dimensions of reality that are governed by the law of cause and effect.
Paramahansa Yogananda in the "Bhagavad Gita", Yogada Satsanga Society of India, 2002 says.
Man has the divine gift of free choice, which he can use properly or improperly, to his benefit or harm. Animals, not subject to individual karma, are under the sway of group or mass karma. An animal’s life is predestined; man’s is not.
Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami in "Merging with Siva - Hinduism’s Contemporary Metaphysics", Himalayan Academy, 2005 enlightens us on our purpose in coming.
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. 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.
How is this done? How do we shed this karma and walk away leaving the suitcases behind, completely emptied of the baggage we brought along? We look towards Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami to enlighten us further. We go back to what the Swami told us earlier.
When we cause a traumatic disruption within ourselves or within others, the action is imprinted in the memory patterns of the muladhara chakra. The seed has been planted and will remain vibrating in the depths of the mind even though consciously forgotten. We carry it over from life to life, from birth to birth until one day it blossoms into the fruit of our action-reaction.
There are thousands of things vibrating in the muladhara chakra, and from those memory patterns they are going to bounce up into view one after another, especially if we gain more Prana by breathing and eating correctly. When meditation begins, more karma is released from the first chakra (muladhara chakra). Our individual karma is intensified as the ingrained memory patterns that were established long ago accumulate and are faced, one after another, after another, after another.
In our first four or five years of striving on the path we face the karmic patterns that we would never have faced in this life had we not consciously sought enlightenment. Experiences come faster, closer together. So much happens in the short span of a few months or even a few days, catalyzed by the new energies released in meditation and by our efforts to purify mind and body, it might have taken us two or three lifetimes to face them all. They would not have come up before then, because nothing would have stimulated them."
The Swami metes out three ways that one can handle karma. The first approach would require us to "begin the tedious task of unwinding these multitudinous patterns through performing daily sadhana."
Each next step will become quite obvious to you as you begin to find that you are the writer of your own destiny, the master of your ship through life, and the freedom of your soul is but yours to claim through your accomplishments of your yoga.
The second approach is done "in deep sleep and meditation."
Seeds of karma that have not even expressed themselves can be traced in deep meditation by one who has many years of experience in the within. Having pinpointed the un-manifested karmic seed, the jnani can either dissolve it in intense light or inwardly live through the reaction of his past action. If his meditation is successful, he will be able to throw out the vibrating experiences or desires which are consuming the mind. In doing this, in traveling past the world of desire, he breaks the wheel of karma which binds him to the specific reaction which must follow every action. That experience will never have to happen on the physical plane, for its vibrating power has already been absorbed in his nerve system.
Agathiyar has told me several times to ignore the pain and discomfort that comes along with the numerous practice he and my gurus gave, brushing it off lightly. In fact, at one instant he told me this was bliss.
In the third approach "past actions are re-enacted through the actual intense reactionary experience and working within, conquering inner desires and emotions."
When something happens to you that you put into motion in a past life or earlier in this life, sit down and think it over. Do not strike out. Do not react. Work it out inside yourself. Take the experience within, into the pure energies of the spine and transmute that energy back into its primal source. In doing so, what happens? You change its consistency. It no longer has magnetic power, and awareness flows away from that memory pattern forever. You could remember the experience, but your perspective would be totally detached and objective. This is the most common way karma is resolved, in day-to-day experiences. The full force of the karmic experience comes, but because of his present goodness and previous blessings earned through control of his intellect, he receives the experience as a minor wound. This seed karma is worked through within himself in this way.
This is what saints have been doing. When the Siddha Pattinathar was accused of stealing jewels belonging to a temple, the local king had him tied to a post and whipped, the Siddha took it on him without protest. He accepted it as God's will. When Yogi Ramsuratkumar was set upon by mischief makers and beaten up, he accepted it as God’s will. His constant advice was to remain satisfied with whatever situation one found oneself in, realizing that it was part of the Divine will. He used to say, "In truth, there is only one will at work and that is Father’s will. It is therefore perfect, good for the individual, humanity, and the cosmos." Similarly, when thieves broke into Bhagawan Ramana Maharishi’s ashram and beat him up he received the blows without defending himself. Tavayogi has reminded me not to oppose happenings but to submit to it. Annie Besant and Bhagawan Das describe this quietude on one’s part as merely choices to let past choices have their way, and to go in accordance with them. He simply chooses to do nothing. Again we are reminded of Lao Tzu too to go with the flow.
From Henry Wei in the "Guiding Light of Lao Tzu", Synergy Books International,
So much emphasis does Lao Tzu lay on the most important doctrine in regard to spiritual cultivation known as Wu Wei or non-action which is in the sense of non-interference, that is to say, non-interference with the trend of nature or the flow of Tao.
The Tibetans accept karma as a natural and just process. Karma inspires them to be responsible in whatever they do says Sogyal Rinpoche, hence not accumulating further new and fresh karma. Sogyal Rinpoche beautifully concludes that, "Karma, then, is our best spiritual teacher. We spiritually learn and grow as our actions return to us to be resolved and dissolved." Karma like experience teaches us lessons.
For us the cycle shall never end or so it seems, for karma lies in the ever-changing field of relative existence. To the men who have given themselves to the divine, it seems eternal only if seen in the perspective of the ever-continuing cycle of action experience and impression as explained by Mahesh Yogi. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami sheds some light on them.
After the realization of the Self, Parasiva, the forces of dharma and previous karma still exist, but through the force of the realization of God, much of the impending impact of karma has dwindled, and it is faced differently, treated differently. Prior to the experience of realization, karmas were dealt with in individual increments. After the realization, the sum total is seen. Spiritual destiny is realized.
Karma that once stood in their way of God-realization is removed. Fresh karma is then dissolved immediately. Karma waiting to germinate is roasted in the fire of their tapas.
One does not have the experience of realizing the Self until all of his karma is in a state of resolve. When this begins to occur in him, he actually sees that man is not man, man is the Self, God, for his karma and the forces of his dharma have begun to become transparent to him. Through the power of his realization, the karma is created and simultaneously dissolved. This occurs for the one who lives in the timeless state of consciousness. If one were to realize the Self each day, he would live his life like writing his karma on the surface of water. 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.
Paramahansa Yogananda says,
In Nirbikalpa Samadhi the yogi dissolves the last vestiges of his material or earthly karma. Nevertheless, he may still have certain astral and causal karma to work out and therefore takes astral and then causal embodiment on high vibration spheres.
