2.24 Your Actions Create Equal Reactions Somewhere & Sometime In The Future Guaranteed!

KARMA / WILL

Karma is created by the activities of

1. the mind,

2. the sense organs,

3. the organs of action, and

4. the vital forces of the body

a. cognition

b. volition

c. maintenance of the body

d. etc.

which bring about their mutations.

There are two kinds of Karma:

1. Acts done by an individual:

a. out of his own free will (an attempt to overcome one’s innate tendencies as listed in 2.a. below), or

b. those that he performs being induced by the impulse of some particular organ, there being some amount of resistance on his part to the impulse, and

2. Acts done by an individual:

a. either unconsciously (not caused by Karma of the present life and which lead to activities which are innate within us and which we are destined to perform), or

b. being under the complete control of some dominant organ or some exciting cause (Karma which is regulated by a chance or fortuitous assemblage of external causes).

HOW ACTIVITIES OF THE WILL BECOME KARMA

Any voluntary will arises spontaneously in the mind and becomes translated into involuntary action.

By conscious effort through the practice of Hatha-Yoga, it is been found that automatic activities of the vital forces and organs of action can be stopped.  Because of this ability to stop involuntary action which rose spontaneously in the mind after being initiated as will, these actions are seen to be dependent upon the activity of will.  Will thus becomes the principal Karma or is the ingredient of Karma or is Karma itself.

All involuntary actions (i.e. actions of the heart, etc.) are part of the inherent physical functions that commence with birth and are connected with experience associated with the development of Karma.

All of the organs including the mind are nothing but particular combinations of the three Gunas.  The three Gunas (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas) are always in a state of flux – one overwhelming the other two.  This is the root cause of the mutations which experience and the organs (both internal and external) constantly undergo.  Mutation implies change in those combinations.  Inherent mutation not under one’s control is called experience or Karma due to previous latencies.  The voluntary but compulsive activities which an individual has to perform owing to his physical existence are examples of Karma which he has control through the use of his free will.

With the help of the voluntary faculty of creating Karma, an individual can accelerate, control or divert into a different channel this flow of inherent modifications of the faculties.  As the line of demarcation between light and darkness is indiscernible, so is it between karma and the innate and involuntary activities, but their extremes are distinct and different.

The aforesaid activities are again of two kinds according to the time taken by them to fructify:

1. Activities which are performed and which fructify during the same life, and

2. Karma that will fructify in a future life.  The latter may belong to the present life or to any previous life.

According as it gives us pleasure or pain, Karma is divided into four kinds:

1. White – karma that begets happiness,

2. Black – karma which produces pain,

3. White and Black – karma which gives us both happiness and misery, and

4. Neither White nor Black – karma which leads to neither happiness nor sorrow.

Karma is further classifed under the following categories:

1. Fruit bearing Karma, the results of which are already manifest,

2. Fresh Karma, that are being performed in the present life, and

3. Accumulated Karma, the results of which have not become manifest.

LATENT IMPRESSION OF KARMA

The impression of every act or feeling is retained in our mind by its retentive faculty.  Having seen a tree we can go on thinking about it after shutting our eyes.  This proves that after looking at an external object (the tree in this case) we can retain its impression in our mind.  The impressions of the activities of the hand and other organs of action are similarly retained.  The subtle impression of a thing stored up in the mind is its latency.  The impressions of all things seen, done or felt are retained as Karma and it is for this reason that we can recall them later on.  The latency of karma is also usually referred to as Karma.

It is true that certain events or things cannot sometimes be properly recalled, but this is an exception which proves the rule.  In cases in which they cannot be properly recalled, there exist reason for such lapse of memory.  The reason for lapse of memory are:

1. Perception or conception not being very keen,

2. Lapse of considerable time,

3. Change of condition or environment,

4. Confused ideation, and

5. Absence of proper exciting cause.

If these causes hampering recollection are absent and if all or any one of the following factors

Samskara = Latent impressions of mental and physical actions.  The impression of every act or feeling is retained in our mind by its retentive faculty.

Karmasaya = Latent force that lies behind the sense and work organs which will eventually fructify.

Vasana = Three types of subliminal imprints leading to attachment:

1. Recollections of the experience of pleasure and pain.

2. Samskaras which give shape to feeling of pleasure and pain.

3. Through the activities of the organs of the body, latent impression is formed of the indistinct cognition of the shape and nature of those organs as also that of the duration of life.

Vasana results only in memory.  Memory shaped by Vasana becomes the matrix, out of which through Karmasaya, evolves fresh karma and fruits thereof.  From our experience of a particular feeling of pleasure emanates Vasana for that kind of pleasure.  And although it does not create any new object of pleasure it shapes anew a feeling of pleasure quire similar to what was experienced before.  Inherent attachment following recollection of that pleasure induces further action.