Atma namaste dear divine soul, sharing with all of you deep article of karma from Yog sutra. A vast topic to discuss and understand will share more on it on he next few days.
Karma is not a thing which can be visualised with the eyes; it is not a sense object. It is not anything that is material, and yet it is something that exists. It is the manner of the operation of certain existent forces. Therefore, we need not assume an independent existence for something called karma. It is only a way of working of certain things that is known as karma.
Does thought create karma?
Any thought which is connected with an object other than yourself, with a motive behind it, or an intention behind it, will produce a reaction. I am looking at the wall. I am thinking of the wall. It won't produce any reaction, because I'm not looking at it with any motive or intention. It is just there, visible.
There are two ways of seeing things. One is the general perception of things, like when you walk, you see a tree, or a building; you are not concerned with it. Another is a thought which is connected with objects with a purpose, intention, or motive, with a like or dislike – to get something from it, or to avoid it. Such thoughts will produce a reaction. That reaction is called karma. It does not mean that every thought will produce a reaction. General perceptions do not produce karma. Only emotional perceptions will produce it.
Every perception produces an impression, and we cannot count how many perceptions are there in a particular day. How many things do we see with our eyes? Anything that we see will produce an impression in the mind. It will not leave us like that. These countless perceptions throughout a particular life create corresponding samskaras, or impressions, in the mind, which are going to be dangerous friends one day or the other. We should not think that our looking at an object is a very harmless action that we are performing. It is a danger to us, if we actually know what is happening inside.
The looking at an object with the mind attached to this perception is really the process of receiving impressions from that object, and we are going to be bound by that very act of perception because this impression that has been formed in the mind by this particular perception will be a cause for repeating that sort of experience at a future date. But, on account of unfavourable conditions, that repetition may not take place immediately. Yet the possibility is kept inside and our name is registered, as it were, to be taken up one day or the other. It may be after many lives – not necessarily the next life itself.
This kind of registering of a future possibility takes place with every kind of perception, so we can imagine how many times this registration is being done. And every registration is a permanent record which will not be wiped out in the akashic records. Then what happens? When the forces which have caused the birth of this particular body lose their momentum and become exhausted, they lose control over this vehicle called the body and separate from it. This is called death.
These forces, which are able to hold the limbs of the physical body together as an organism, lose their hold over it on account of the fact that they have nothing to do with that instrument afterwards – just as a carpenter when he finishes his work throws the tools down because his work is finished. Likewise, this carpenter inside has used this body as a tool for executing a particular purpose. When that purpose is fulfilled, the tool has no purpose to serve and it is cast away. That is what we call decease, or the death of the body. But, these forces which have brought about the birth of this body have many purposes to fulfil. Though a particular set of purposes has already been fulfilled through this particular instrument of this body, what about the other sets? They have also to be fulfilled.
There is a pressure exerted by these unfulfilled forces to materialise themselves into form once again. This formation of a material body freshly, once again, on account of the pressure exerted by these potencies inside, is rebirth. Therefore birth, death and rebirth are all caused by forces which are behind, or at the back of, this conscious level of our life which we mistakenly take to be the entire life. The controllers of our deeds and of our experiences here lie behind us, and we seem to be running about like puppets, like marionettes pulled by strings of forces which are invisible to the eyes and inconceivable to the mind. What sort of birth a person will take at a particular time, no individual can know, because every individual is only a showpiece that is projected by these forces at a particular time, keeping aside every other possibility of such formations out of the view of this particular individual.
Karma is a cosmic force; it is not an individual force. It is a necessity of nature as a whole which obliges each individual to act in a particular way, to conform to a particular principle, and to undergo certain sets of experiences.
Vivek
Infiite love
Infinite wisdom
