Themes

"In modern literature mention of the words incarnation and karma has become common. However, these truths have entered but little into human consciousness; otherwise it would have transformed the whole of life. 553."

"It is karma, the fatiguing after effect of previous incarnations, that can bring not very savory fellow-travelers to us. But when each encounter is over, there comes relief, as when property belonging to others has been returned. No less than half of all earthly encounters take place because of past incarnations... The broad influence of karma brings about many complicated levels and degrees of relationship. To resolve them, it is better to pay than to receive; for each payment terminates a debt from the past, whereas receiving binds one again. 238."

"One of the most difficult requirements of the Teaching is learning to speak appropriately — to speak so as to properly direct the thinking of the listener, but without intruding upon his karma. To tell all is to enchain. But to awaken striving and indicate a direction is the true task of the Teaching. 642."

"Can the roar of a tiger possibly be worse than treacherous thinking? Not only for its actions but also for its thinking does humanity accumulate a grave karma. Thought inflicts tortures on the spirit, for there is no difference between word and thought. A fool is he who will take this warning for a threat. There is no threat—We have only examples, and cares. Each one is free to jump into the abyss, but he must be forewarned... 190."

"There is an ancient proverb, “Karma is an executioner who guards his victim.” In other words, karma will not allow criminals to be destroyed and thus escape their punishment." Indeed, sometimes terrible and obvious evildoers continue to exist, although, humanly speaking, it would seem only just for them to have been destroyed. But is it possible to apply human measures where the Law of Absolute Justice operates? Sometimes the evildoers are punished by prolonged illness or, though in good physical health, become subject to the terrors of psychic unrest. One should not think that crime may be excused because of mental imbalance. We should search more deeply and look for causes rooted in the past. Such a study will clarify the concept of karma. The wise do not fear this law. Generally, humanity can be divided into two groups, those who fear the consequences of karma and those who accept them calmly. Avoid those who fear, for they almost certainly sense the approach of karmic retribution. They may not yet know anything about its effects, but in the depths of the Chalice the long-forgotten viper is rising to the surface. Mark well the way in which people differ according to their attitude toward the doctrine of reincarnation. Some are able to accept the full justice of this Law, but to others it seems monstrous. Perhaps those who are fearful have vague memories of their previous deeds, and have good reason for their present fears. Thus one can note the division of humanity. (378)"

"The law of karma and the law of dates are like the double-faced Janus—one gives birth to the other. Karma bears the fruit of actions and calls forth the date of manifestation. Take note that personal karma, group karma, and cosmic karma must be combined—then will the date be correct. Often the development of a personal karma draws after it the group karma. Some spirits are ruled entirely by karma, which means that the knowledge of the spirit is at a minimum and karma is the sole possibility of evolution. 258."

"Karma brings us ever back to rebirth, binds us to the wheel of births and deaths. Good Karma drags us back as relentlessly as bad, and the chain which is wrought out of our virtues holds as firmly and as closely as that forged from our vices. p. 65"

"Whatever karma a soul has acquired through its own prior needs, it will obtain the good and bad results thereof. If one can obtain results from the deeds of others, then surely his own deeds would be meaningless. Except for karma earned for oneself by oneself, no one gives anything to anyone. Reflecting upon this fact, therefore, let every person unwaveringly, abandon the perverse notion that another being can provide him with anything at all."

"This emphasis on reaping the fruits only of one's own karma was not restricted to the Jainas; both Hindus and Buddhist writers have produced doctrinal materials stressing the same point. Each of the latter traditions, however, developed practices in basic contradiction to such belief. In addition to shraddha (the ritual Hindu offerings by the son of deceased), we find among Hindus widespread adherence to the notion of divine intervention in ones fate, while Buddhists eventually came to propound such theories like boon-granting Bodhisattvas, transfer of merit and like. Only Jainas have been absolutely unwilling to allow such ideas to penetrate their community, despite the fact that there must have been tremendous amount of social pressure on them to do so"

"The Thinker taught His disciples not to fear the Law of Karma. He said, “The hunter enters the forest with much hope. How else can he set out? Without hope his hunt will not be successful.” (378)"

"Who goes to Deva Chan? The personal Ego of course, but beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego [soul] —the combination of the sixth and seventh principles—which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the Deva-Chan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe. The fact of his being reborn at all, shows the preponderance of good over evil in his old personality. And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnation, he brings along with him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this Deva-Chan. Bad is a relative term for us... and the Law of Retribution is the only law that never errs. Hence all those who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality—go to the Deva Chan. They will have to pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary, later on. Meanwhile, they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes produced by them. Of course it is a state, one, so to say, of intense selfishness, during which an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness on earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections, preferences and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious actions. No pain, no grief nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken the bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness: for, it is a state of perpetual "Maya.""

"The path of virtue is not a singing of psalms, but labor and service. If Karma is violated, it will react against you. 232."

"At the beginning of time I declared two paths for the pure heart: jnana yoga, the contemplative path of spiritual wisdom, and karma yoga, the active path of selfless service. One who shirks action does not attain freedom; no one can gain perfection by abstaining from work. Indeed, there is no one who rests for even an instant; all creatures are driven to action by their own nature... Those who abstain from action while allowing the mind to dwell on sensual pleasure cannot be called sincere spiritual aspirants. But they excel who control their senses through the mind, using them for selfless service. Fulfill all your duties; action is better than inaction. Even to maintain your body, Arjuna, you are obliged to act. Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without thought of personal profit."

"The present mankind is at its fourth round (mankind as a genus or a kind not a race nota bene) of the post-pralayan cycle of evolution; and as its various races, so the individual entities in them are unconsciously to themselves performing their local earthly seven-fold cycles—hence the vast difference in the degree of their intelligence, energy and so on. Now every individuality will be followed on the ascending arc by the law of retribution—Karma and Death accordingly. The perfect man or the entity which reached full perfection (each of his seven principles being matured), will not be re-born here."

"On earth it is still the physiological and mental defects, the sins of the progenitors which are visited upon the issue: in that land of shadows, the new and yet unconscious Ego—foetus becomes the just victim of the transgressions of its old Self, whose karma—merit and demerit—will alone weave out its future destiny."

"At the beginning, mankind and the obligation of selfless service were created together. Through selfless service, you will always be fruitful and find the fulfillment of your desires: this is the promise of the Creator... Every selfless act, Arjuna, is born from Brahman, the eternal, infinite Godhead. Brahman is present in every act of service. All life turns on this law O Arjuna. Those who violate it, indulging the senses for their own pleasure and ignoring the needs of others, have wasted their life. But those who realize the Self are always satisfied. Having found the source of joy and fulfillment, they no longer seek happiness from the external world. They have nothing to gain or lose by any action; neither people nor things can affect their security. Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life."

"How then shall the weaving of the chain be put an end to, since man must think and feel as long as he lives, and thoughts and feelings are ever generating Karma? The answer to this is the great lesson of the Bhagavad Gita, the lesson taught to the warrior prince. Neither to hermit nor to student was that lesson given, but to the warrior striving for victory, the prince immersed in the duties of his state. p. 67"

"Urusvati grows indignant when she hears about war... and We are all saddened by the barbarism of humanity. The most negative manifestation of free will is seen in outbursts of war. People refuse to think about the terrible currents they evoke by mass murder and the consequences it will bring. The ancient Scriptures correctly warned that he who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. There is a difference between the karma of aggression and that of defense. It can be shown how aggressors suffer the most grievous consequences and how terrible their condition is in the Subtle World. People delude themselves by thinking that great conquerors do not reap bad karma during their earthly lives. But karma has its own timely approach, and does not show itself immediately. Life is continuous, and the wise ones understand their lives as a single necklace. Aggressors burden their karma not only by killing but also by polluting the atmosphere, which occurs during war. The poisoning of Earth and of the other spheres is long-lasting. You who intrude into the lands of your neighbors, has no one told you the consequences of your fratricide? Our Abode has witnessed many wars, and We can testify how this evil is increasing in the most unexpected ways. People know that explosions can cause rain, but what about poison gas and its possible effects? How sad We are to see free will, which was bestowed as the Highest Gift, manifested in this horrible, uncontrolled way. 88."

"Brahman/Achheram word is the immutable self on which all that lives, moves and has its being rests. Self is the spirit in man and nature. Karma is the creative impulse out of which life’s forms issue. The whole cosmic evolution is called karma."

"... innumerable ages ago and now because of faults and sins in that lifetime I was being degraded to a more grievous domain of existence and my karma was to be born in America where nobody has any fun or believes in anything, especially freedom."

"Karma means work/activity/deed. It refers thought, action, and devotion. It is believed that a s/he’s Karma accumulates past and present years, with wrong deeds increasing the negative side, and good deeds such as help, kindness, soberness, and ascentism, increasing the positive."

"The soul continuously undergoes modifications as per the Karma/work it attracts and hence reincarnates in the [following] four states of existence: As a Demi God in Heaven, or as Tormented (tortured soul in hell, or as Human Beings on Continents, or as an Animal, or Plant or as a microorganism."

"Unlike the Hindu concept of karma, however, karma in Buddhism is not deterministic since there is in Buddhism no idea of a God who is the controller of karma; rather Buddhism takes karma as moral power, emphasizing the possibility of final release from the round of transmigration through a free decision of the will. Accordingly, on the one hand, we are bound by our own karma which shares in and inseparably linked to karma operating in the universe."

"Those who accept the truth of Reincarnation do not blame their parents for their poor talents, or for not possessing extraordinary powers, but they remain content with their own lot, knowing that they have made themselves as they are today by their own thoughts and deeds in their previous incarnations. They understand the meaning of the saying, "What thou sowest, thou must reap," and always endeavor to mould their future by better thoughts and better deeds. They explain all the inequalities and diversities of life and character by the law of "Karma," which governs the process of Reincarnation as well as the gradual evolution of the germs of life from lower to higher stages of existence."

"The Gita uses the word ‘karma’ (action) in the sense of swadharma. We eat, drink, sleep; these are all actions. But these are not the actions that the Gita refers to when it talks of karma. Karma refers to the performance of swadharma. But in order to attain desirelessness through such karma, an important aid is necessary. One must overcome desire, attachment and anger. One cannot have desirelessness unless and until the mind has become pure and calm like the waters of the Ganga. The actions necessary for the purification of mind are called vikarma by the Gita. Karma, vikarma and akarma—these three terms are important... Karma means the outward actions done in the pursuit of swadharma. Vikarma means total involvement of the mind therein."

"Though the names karma yoga and sannyasa are different, the truth at the heart of both is the same."

"Understanding the law of karma is known as the light of the world because through this understanding we can take responsibility for our destinies and be truly more guided to greater fulfillment in our lives."

"Karma will overtake one, but its quality may be altered by a voluntary sacrifice to unknown people. 21."

"The essence of Karma is to know the truth of oneself by inquiring ‘Who am I, the doer, who begins to do Karmas?’ Unless the doer of Karmas, the ego, is annihilated through inquiry, the perfect peace of supreme bliss, which is the result of Karma Yoga, cannot be achieved."

"Every false accusation, suspicion, or statement immediately burdens the sender. It is foolish to hope that the consequences of a lie can be averted or hidden. Precisely these consequences root themselves, just as promises do, in a karma that must inevitably be outlived. 146."

"Certain broad facts are always put before men in some form or other. They are explained even to savage tribes by their medicine-men, and to the rest of mankind by various religious teachers and in all kinds of scriptures. It is very true that scriptures and religions differ, but the points in which they all agree have to be accepted by a man before he can understand life sufficiently to live happily. One of these facts is the eternal Law of Cause and Effect. If a man lives under the delusion that he can do anything that he likes, and that the effect of his actions will never recoil upon himself, he will most certainly find that some of these actions eventually involve him in unhappiness and suffering. If, again, he does not understand that the object of his life is progress, that God’s Will for him is that he shall grow to be something better and nobler than he is now, then also he will bring unhappiness and suffering upon himself, because he will be likely to live for the lower side of life only, and that lower side of life never finally satisfies the inner man."

"Karma is a most complex process. From the most casual, superficial action to the deepest level of motives, everything is varied in form and color. 417."

"A man's birth in a particular nation is influenced by certain general principles of evolution as well as by his immediate characteristics... Within the limits of the sub-race, the individual characteristics of the man will draw him towards one nation or another, and we may notice dominant national characteristics re-emerging on the stage of history en bloc after the normal interval of fifteen hundred years; thus crowds of Romans reincarnate as Englishmen, the enterprising, colonizing, conquering, imperial instincts reappearing as national attributes... A man in whom such national characteristics were strongly marked, and whose time for rebirth had come, would be drafted into the English nation by his Karma and would then share the national destiny for good or for evil, so far as that destiny affected the fate of an individual... The family tie is naturally of a more personal character than is the national, and those who weave bonds of close affection in one life tend to be drawn together again as members of the same family. Sometimes... members of a family may be scattered and may not meet again until after several incarnations. p. 73"

"Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don't even notice it."

"That swarm of ants that I observed, each one following the one ahead, have every one been Indra in the world of the gods by virtue of their own past action. And now, by virtue of their deeds done in the past, they have gradually fallen to the state of ants."

"Such is an outline of the great Law of Karma and of its workings, by a knowledge of which a man may accelerate his evolution, by the utilization of which a man may free himself from bondage, and become, long ere his race has trodden its course, one of the Helpers and Saviours of the World. A deep and steady conviction of the truth of this Law gives to life an immovable serenity and a perfect fearlessness: nothing can touch us that we have not wrought, nothing can injure us that we have not merited. And as everything that we have sown must ripen into harvest in due season, and must be reaped, it is idle to lament over the reaping when it is painful; it may as well be done now as at any future time, since it cannot be evaded, and, once done, it cannot return to trouble us again. p. 77"

"The soul is always found to be in bondage (with its Karma) since the beginingless time and hence continuously undergoes the cycle of birth and death in these four states of existence until it attains liberation."

"Many authorities hold that the original idea of Karma was that of a great natural law operating along exact lines, as do the laws of mathematics and chemistry, bringing forth the exact effect from every cause, and being, above all, questions of good or evil, reward or punishment, morality or immorality, etc., and acting as a great natural force above all such questions of human conduct. To those who still adhere to this conception, Karma is like the Law of Gravitation, which operates without regard to persons, morals or questions of good and evil, just as does any other great natural law. In this view the only "right" or "wrong" would be the effect of an action—that is, whether it was conducive to one's welfare and that of the race, or the reverse. In this view, if a child places its hand on a hot stove, the action is "wrong," because it brings pain and unhappiness, although the act is neither moral or immoral. And another action is "right" because it brings happiness, well-being and satisfaction, present and future, although the act was neither moral nor immoral. In this view there can be neither reward nor punishment, in the common acceptation of the term, although in another sense there is a reward for such "right" doing, and a punishment for such "wrong" doing, as the child with the burnt hand may testify to. p. 224"

"Most Indian systems employ the term karma to designate certain traces (vasanas) or seeds (bija) left behind, as it were by one’s deeds. These residual factors will someday bear fruit in the sense of generating or conditioning experience; thus it is said : Every action must eventuate in an appropriate reward or retribution to the performer of that action. Jainas adhere to the general outlines of this view. But they stand alone in asserting unequivocally that karma is itself actual matter, rather than the sort of quasi-physical or psychological elements envisioned by other schools."

"Under this view people are not punished "for" their sins, but "by" them — and "Sin" is seen to be merely a "mistake," not a crime. And Pain arises not as a punishment for something done wrongly, but as a warning sign of "hands off"; and consequently pain is something by which we may mount to higher things—to Something Better—and not a punishment... refuses to use the terms "reward and punishment," or even to entertain those ideas, but instead sees in everything the working out of a great Cosmic Plan whereby everything rises from lower to higher, and still higher. p. 248"

"In Jainism, this term has two meanings. 1)Action or activity in the sense of karma-bhumi lands and karmans. 2) a type of extremely subtle matter (pudgala) that is attracted to the soul (jiva) by actions of body, speech and mind. It is bound with the soul whenever actions are motivated by passions (Kasayas)."

"Jainism conveys a totally different meaning of Karma as commonly understood in the Hindu philosophy and western civilization. According to Tatvartasutra, karma is a mechanism that makes us thoroughly experience the themes of our life until we've gained optimal knowledge from them and until our emotional attachment to these themes falls off."

"What appears to us to be an accurate definition of justice does not also appear to be so to the Gods. For we, looking to that which is most brief, direct our attention to things present, and to this momentary life, and the manner in which it subsists. But the Powers that are superior to us know the whole life of the Soul, and all its former lives."

"Karma is therefore that which Man . . . has instituted, carried forward, endorsed, omitted to do, or has done right, through the ages until the present moment. Today, the harvest is ripe and mankind is reaping what it has sown, preparatory to a fresh ploughing in the springtime of the New Age, with a fresh sowing of the seed which will (let us pray and hope) produce a better harvest."

"To desire and make a display of clothing is karma for the path of beasts. To greedily Crave food is karma for the path of famished ghosts."

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

"Jivas (souls) are either caught by karma (action) in the world of reincarnation (samsara) or liberated (mukta) and perfected (siddha)."

"The Invariability of Law. That we live in a realm of law, that we arc surrounded by laws that we cannot break, this is a truism. Yet when the fact is recognised in a real and vital way, and when it is seen to be a fact in the mental and moral world as much as in the physical, a certain sense of helplessness is apt to overpower us, as though we felt ourselves in the grip of some mighty Power, that, seizing us, whirls us away whither it will. The very reverse of this is in reality the case, for the mighty Power, when it is understood, will obediently carry us whither we will; all forces in Nature can be used in proportion as they are understood “Nature is conquered by obedience ” — and her resistless energies are at our bidding as soon as we, by knowledge, work with them and not against them. We can choose out of her boundless stores the forces that serve our purpose in momentum, in direction, and so on, and their very invariability becomes the guarantee of our success."

"The Vedic seers discovered the Law of Karma over eight thousand years ago and immortalized in the Vedas."

"The past karma of an individual consists of two parts, prarabdha karma and sanchita karma. The prarabdha karma is the part of one’s past karma which is to bear fruit in the present life of the individual. The sanchita karma is the accumulated karma of the previous births, which is to bear fruits in the future. The karma, which is being done now will produce results in the future and is called the agami karma (other names are kriyamana karma and vartamana karma). In Hindu tradition these karmas are compared to an archer and a bow. The arrows that have been shot by the archer, which are already on their way to the target and the archer has no control over them are akin to prarabdha karma. The arrows he is about to shoot are akin to the agami karma and the arrows lying in his quiver are akin to the sanchit karma. This illustrates the Hindu view that one has no control over prarabdha karma, but full control over sanchit and agami karmas."