“Understanding Karma and How It Effects All of us Past, Present and Future”
The Threefold Laws of Karma are:
- Actions that are performed in terms of one’s prescribed duties, in relation to family and work responsibilities as mentioned in the revealed scriptures create good or bad karma.
- Actions that are performed through the misuse of one’s freedom are prohibited or forbidden actions and and direct one to the lower life forms of life at death are called vikarma,.
- Actions that free one from the cycle of birth and death and known as devotional service to Krishna create a karma. Such transcendental service carries no reaction because it is on the transcendent platform. This is the level of transcendental action we must strive for.
Newton’s Law of Physics on the material platform states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Laws of Karma operate in the same manner and determine the fate of the individual in the future. Our future fate is determined by our actions both good and bad. John Lennon, of Beatles fame, also mentions in his song Instant karma, ‘Instant Karma’s gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head, You better get yourself together, Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead.” So we may get an immediate reaction to our actions and that is what he means by instant karma.
In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells his friend Arjuna, “For one who is born death is certain and for one who has died birth is certain.” What kind of birth we gain in the future is therefore dependent on our karma and vikarma actions.
In this article we will discuss how karma will affect our future lives. Most people don’t know about the Laws of Karma but ignorance of the law even in a mundane court is never an excuse for innocence. As a human being it is our responsibility to learn how to act as a first class human behaviour. This is one of the reasons for this article. You can deny the truth when you hear it, but you can’t hide from the truth.
Karma in Christianity refers to reactions from sinful activity. In the Catholic Church they divide action into two categories: Venial and Mortal sins. The reaction of a venial sin is less severe than a mortal sin. A venial sin for example is an impure thought. A mortal sin is when you directly disobey one of the 10 commandments such as “thou shalt not kill ” If you die having committed a venial sin you go to purgatory a state of called limbo. Limbo is a state of suspended after you complete your punishment you will return to earth. It suggests there is some form of reincarnation. If you die having committed a mortal sin, according to their belief you will end up in the fires of hell for eternity.
In the Vedas people are taught that killing humans or animals like cows carry very serious karmic reactions both individually or collectively and are mortal sins. Cows are never meant to be killed or eaten by human beings. In every Vedic scripture cow killing is vehemently condemned. Indeed, one who kills a cow must suffer for as many years as there are hairs on the body of a cow with repeated births and deaths in the lower species of life. Cows are actually accepted as the mothers of human society because they supply food in the form of butter, yogurt, cheese and milk. They are of all animals given by God, the most valuable.
Yes there is such a thing as collective karma. In fact war is often attributed to the karma from meat eating that goes on in the fast food industry and the operation of factory farm slaughterhouses. These businesses operate with no mercy and compassion in growing and processing of meat for human consumption. We will not discuss those details in this article but needless to say they are horrific beyond our imagination.
Despite the facts, parents turn a blind eye and feed their children food like hot dogs and baby calf. The type of karma they receive for these sinful acts is an example of vikarma. Vikarma means actions in the revealed scriptures which are prohibited for the human being and carry severe reactions individually and collectively.
More advanced men want to be free altogether from the actions and reactions of work. Intelligent men well know that both good and bad work equally bind one to the material miseries. Consequently they seek that work which will free them from the reactions of both good and bad work. That is called a karma.
In Bhagavad-gītā translated by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Lord Krishna says that one should surrender unto Him, giving up all other engagements; this is a karma, action in Krishna Consciousness. Krishna gives His word there that He will protect such surrendered souls from the reactions of all sinful activities.
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, a spiritual master in the Vaisnava tradition tells us that the distresses from sinful activities are due both to the sins themselves and to sins committed in our past lives. Generally, one commits sinful activities due to ignorance. As I already mentioned ignorance is no excuse for evading the reaction to sinful activities. Just like ignorance of the laws of the land are not grounds for innocence in the court of law. Let’s further understand how karma works and how it affects everyone.
Bhaktivedanta Swami explains that sinful karmic activities are of two kinds: those that are mature and those that are not mature. The sinful karmic activities for which we are suffering at the present moment are called mature. The many sinful activities stored within us for which we have not yet suffered are considered immature. A man may have committed criminal acts but has not yet been arrested for them. As soon as he is detected, arrest, conviction and punishment are awaiting him. Similarly, for our sinful activities we are awaiting distresses in the future, and for others, which are mature, we are suffering at the present moment. In this way there is a chain of sinful activities and their concomitant distresses, and the conditioned soul is suffering life after life due to these sins. We are suffering in the present life the results of sinful activities from his past life, and meanwhile creating further sufferings for future lives.
Let’s take a further look at mature sinful activities. When one is suffering from some chronic disease, some legal implication, born in a low and degraded family or is uneducated or very ugly this is a result of mature sinful activities from past karma and vikarma actions. There are many results of past sinful activities for which we are suffering at the present moment, and we may suffer in the future due to our present sinful activities. All of these reactions to sinful deeds can immediately be stopped if we take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
As evidence for this, Rūpa Gosvāmī a great saint pure devotee of Krishna from India quotes from the scripture Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Eleventh Canto, fourteenth chapter, verse 19. This verse is in connection with Lord Kṛṣṇa’s instruction to Uddhava, where He says, “My dear Uddhava, devotional service unto Me is just like a blazing fire, which can burn into ashes unlimited fuel supplied to it.” The purport by Bhakitvidenta Swami is that as the blazing fire can burn any amount of fuel to ashes, so devotional service to the Lord in Kṛṣṇa consciousness can burn up all the fuel of sinful activities. This is an example of a karma or action in Krishna consciousness which liberates the conditioned soul.
Again In the Bhagavad Gītā the friend of Krishna, Arjuna, thought that fighting was a sinful activity, but Kṛṣṇa engaged him on the battlefield under His order, and so the fighting became devotional service. Therefore, Arjuna was not subjected to any sinful reaction despite the number of people he had to kill in the war. This is another example of a karma or action under the order of Krishna.
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī quotes another verse from the Third Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, thirty-third chapter, verse 6, in which Devahūti addresses her son, Kapiladeva, and says, “My dear Lord, there are nine different kinds of devotional service, beginning with hearing and chanting. Anyone who hears about Your pastimes, who chants about Your glories, who offers You obeisances, who thinks of You and, in this way, executes any of the nine kinds of devotional service – even if they is born in a family of dog-eaters [the lowest grade of mankind] – becomes immediately qualified to perform sacrifices and can remove the reactions for their sinful life though the performance of devotional service. One who is engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and devotional service has without doubt become freed from all contamination’s of material sinful activities. Devotional service therefore has the power to actually nullify all kinds of reactions to sinful deeds. A devotee is nevertheless always alert not to commit any sinful activities; this is his specific qualification as a pure devotee.
If a person is born in a family of dog-eaters it means that his past activities were all sinful. When such a person takes to the path of devotional service and begins to chant the holy names of the Lord – Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare this means that his sinful reactions have immediately become neutralized. This is the transcendental potency of the holy names as confirmed by the Yuga Avatara Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
It is stated in the Padma Purāṇa that there are four kinds of effects due to sinful activities, which are listed as follows:
(1) the effect that is not yet fructified,
(2) the effect that is lying as seed
(3) the effect that is already mature
(4) the effect that is almost mature.
It is also stated that all these four effects become immediately vanquished for those who surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, and become engaged in His devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Those effects described as “almost mature” refer to the distress from which one is suffering at present, and the effects of ”lying as seed” are in the core of the heart, where there is a certain stock of sinful desires which are like seeds. The Sanskrit word kūṭam means that they are almost ready to produce the seed, or the effect of the seed. “An immature effect” refers to the case where the seedling has not begun. From this statement of Padma Purāṇa it is understood that material contamination is very subtle. Its beginning, its fruition and results, and how one suffers such results in the form of distress, are part of a great chain. When one catches some disease, it is often very difficult to ascertain the cause of the disease, where it originated and how it is maturing. The suffering of a disease, however, does not appear all of a sudden. It actually takes time and as in the medical field, for precaution’s sake, the doctor injects a vaccination to prevent the growing of the disease. Similarly the practical injection engagement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness will stop all the fructifications of the seeds of our sinful activities it is that simple. A complex situation is resolved by a simple solution. In Krishna consciousness we recommend simple living and high thinking.
In this connection, Śukadeva Gosvāmī speaks in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, about the story of Ajāmila, who began life as a fine and dutiful brāhmaṇa but who in his young manhood became wholly corrupted by a sex desire. At the end of his sinful life, just by calling the name of his son whom he named Narayana another name for Krishna he was saved by the mercy of the Lord despite his previous sinful actions. This demonstrates the power of akarma service.
It is said that austerity, charity and the performance of ritualistic ceremonies for counteracting sinful activities are recommended processes, but that by performing them one cannot remove the sinful desire-seed from the heart, as was the case with Ajāmila in his youth. This sinful desire-seed can be removed only by achieving Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This can be accomplished very easily by chanting the mahā-mantra, or Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, as recommended by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. In other words, unless one adopts the path of devotional service, he cannot be one-hundred-percent clean from all the reactions of sinful activities. This should be our goal in life.
By performing Vedic ritualistic activities, by giving money in charity and by undergoing austerity, one can temporarily become free from the reactions of sinful activities, but at the next moment he may again become engaged in sinful activities.
For example, a person suffering from venereal disease on account of excessive indulgence in sex life undergos severe pain in medical treatment, and is then cured for the time being. Because he has not been able to remove the sex desire from his heart, he must again indulge in the same thing and once again become a victim of the same disease. So medical treatment may give temporary relief from the distress of such venereal disease, but unless one is trained to control sex desire, it is impossible to be saved from such repeated distress. Similarly, the ritualistic performances, charity and austerity that are recommended in the Vedas may temporarily stop one from acting in sinful ways, but as long as the heart is not clear, one will have to repeat sinful activities again and again and suffer the resultant karma.
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it explains that when an elephant enters into a lake and takes a bath cleansing his body thoroughly as soon as he comes onto shore he again takes some dust from the earth and throws it over his body. Similarly, a person who is not trained in Kṛṣṇa consciousness cannot become completely free from the desire for sinful activities and neither yoga training, philosophical speculations or fruitive activities can stop one from cultivating the seeds of sinful desires. Only by being engaged in devotional service can this be done.
The tight knot of false ego is due to ignorance. As long as one is ignorant about his identity, he is sure to act wrongly and thereby become entangled in material contamination. This ignorance of the real purpose of human life can be dissipated by Kṛṣṇa consciousness, as is confirmed in the Padma Purāṇa: “Pure devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the highest enlightenment, and when such enlightenment is there, it is just like a blazing forest fire, killing all the inauspicious snakes of desire.” The example is being given in this connection that when there is a forest fire the extensive blazing automatically kills all the snakes in the forest. There are many, many snakes on the ground of the forest, and when a fire takes place, it burns the dried foliage and the snakes are immediately killed. Similarly, the blazing fire of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so strong that the snakes of ignorance and material desires are immediately killed.
Srila Prabhupada states, “God has made His laws so perfect that one cause, effects one thing, and that in turn effects another, and so on. We may see an apple grow and explain it as “nature,” but this nature is working according to certain laws. An apple has a certain color and taste because it is following specific laws set down by Krsna. Krsna’s energies are perfect and are working perfectly. Everything is being carried out under systematic laws, although we may not perceive these laws.’ The laws of karma are also created by God to dispense justice. Some people are not willingly to accept that these laws exist and think they can do anything they want without any reaction.
They deny their fate even though their conscience tells them they are doing the wrong thing. It is like an ostrich hiding it’s head in the ground thinking that the danger they are confronting will go away. It is said there are only two sure things in life: death and taxes. People, because of a misuse of human intelligence may choose to do the wrong things in life and pretend there will be no reaction to them either in the present or the near and distant future. We cannot hide from the punishment due to our bad behaviour according to God’s laws and his laws of karma. These laws are irrefutable and unavoidable.
Fear is caused by not knowing what will happen to us at the time of death. Krishna tells us in the Bhagavad Gita if we serve him without any material motive we will be protected from the greatest fears by Him. We are after all, not these bodies but pure spiritual souls. When we act on the spiritual platform of service to Krishna we will be freed from the resultant actions of work performed by us in this material world. This service is called akarma, a service performed for Krishna which carries no material reaction.
Such devotional service can be learned from a bona fide spiritual master like A. C. Bhaktivendanta Swami. His teachings are elaborately presented in his books and online to guide us out of this material entanglement and focus us on our journey back to godhead, where there is no repeated birth and death due to the influence of karma and vikarma reactions. Living in the illusions of life, is not living at all it is said, and we should ask ourselves how long we will sleep in the lap of the witch called illusion, maya. It’s time to wake up from this material dream we are in and realize the human form of life is a great gift and it is also a life of responsibility.