The law which seems to bind us to the material world is the Law of Karma. Many think they know about karma—that if you do a good deed, something then good will happen to you, and if you do a bad deed, then something bad will happen. But what is karma?
Shree KrsnaGuruji states that karma is the sum total of all actions and reactions. Maya’s illusion is a balanced realm. Nothing is left askew. Action, be it thoughts, words or deeds creates karma. It is the law of karma that keeps us in the cycle of birth and death.
The “Book” of Karma as the Master called it, has to be kept in balance. Every action must be completely repaid in the exact form and value. You will have rebirth for your own karmas and for the ones that others involved you in, knowingly or unknowingly.
You will have rebirths for the collateral karmic debt that comes to you from the cascading effect of your actions as it ripples out across the material world. Imagine the stack that has built up over many, many lifetimes. The Book of Karma is vast, almost infinite
Let us say that you are driving a car and a person cuts you off. In your mind, you have cursed that person. You have not even said it out loud, yet you have created a karma with that person. You will have to come back for another life where you cut him off and he has that thought of you.
Think about all the actions you perform in one day. That one day alone will bring you so very many rebirths. Now, multiply that by all the days of your life. How many rebirths will you have?
In each birth, you come with a store of karma which is to be repaid in that lifetime. This store of karma is called Prarabdha karma.
The new karma that you create in this birth, which will be added to your karmic debt, is called Kriyamana or Agami karma.
Finally, there is a huge store of unrepaid karma recorded over all your lives to which your current birth’s kriyamana karma will be added once this life has ended. This karma is called Sanchit karma. It is this vast Book of Karma which propels you again and again into rebirths.
Our Spiritual Master states that there is no instant karma. New karmas created here and now are the Kriyamana which, at the end of this life, becomes part of your Sanchit. You have only that portion, the Prarabdha karma to complete in this life.
If you have borrowed 10 dollars in a past life, you may have to repay it in this life. Sometimes you may wonder how this might happen, but perhaps you are in a store purchasing an item. When you come out of the store, you may realize that you were shorted 10 dollars. This may be your repayment. We just cannot truly fathom the intricacies of karma; it is so very vast. If the Karmic transaction is not completely fulfilled, it remains in your book.
Shree KrsnaGuruji further states that there are no big karmas or small karmas, only karma. Any karma added to your book will have to be repaid and will be the cause of subsequent births–birth after birth after birth!
It is only those selfless actions which follow the dharma and are performed for God that do not add karma to our book of karma. These selfless acts are called Nishkam karma.
