The greatest asset of India is neither the Taj Mahal nor the buzzing metropolis of Mumbai. For tens of thousands of years, India’s greatest asset has been its philosophy and spiritualism. Tourists or even people who live here, hardly take advantage of this wealth and benefit from it.
Karma Sutra is the Indian doctrine of karma. It explains the cause and effect of destiny and decodes the karmic laws that govern us. By mapping our karmic assets and liabilities, we can outline our karmic balance sheet and determine how to enhance it’s P&L.
In the final analysis, Karma Sutra is a tool that may help you carve a better future in this lifetime and earn the karmic wealth that will command your ethereal status after death.
Read the real life stories of some of the most powerful saints who lived on this planet.
Figure out why karma dictates your destiny.
Decipher the secrets behind the laws of karma.
Learn how Karma can influence your luck.
The question “Why does this happen to me?” will be resolved on reading this book.
Excerpt:
There are two kinds of karmas – voluntary and involuntary. Brushing your teeth every morning is a voluntary karma. Things that happen without one’s desire are involuntary karmas. For example, protecting yourself from a falling object, which instead falls on an ant and kills it is an involuntary karma. Likewise, stepping onto an ant while walking is an involuntary karma. Involuntary karmas are not accounted for.
Since we experience the karmas that happen through our body, mind, and spirit (at various levels of consciousness i.e. conscious, subconscious and unconscious) we take ownership of such karmas and hence become responsible for them. Intent is another aspect which makes us accountable, or otherwise for our karmas. A judge sentencing a murderer to the gallows has a different karma and does not pay for it, but the murderer does. Both performed a similar act – both responsible for someone’s death. The difference is that the judge is doing his duty based on the rules of the land.
He has no emotional connect or personal agenda against the convict. He does not take ownership for his act.
An amalgamation of such karmas forms the balance sheet of our jivaatma or individual being, or the spark of divinity that exists at our core. This forms the basis of our future destiny that could exhaust partially in this very life or even span several lives.
The body is the karma kshetra or the incarnation where the karmas are worked out, exhausted, and squared up for it to be free of karmas. Only when a body is free of karma can it attain mukti, i.e., freedom from birth and death, and finally attain moksha, or becoming one with the Supreme. In order to achieve this, the individual has to ensure that fresh karmas stop getting generated.
This is easier said than done. Intellectually, one can read the last sentence and understand it, but practically it’s almost impossible to achieve! From the time we wake up to the time we sleep, we are engaged in different types of karmas. Several lifetimes produce several profit and loss accounts of karma. The balance sheet of an individual defines their current state of wealth.
To the best of my knowledge, even after our bodies die, we can perform good and bad deeds. Many spirits harm others, whilst some elevated ones help. Across centuries, many saints have been known to act as spirit guides to people. They communicate in their dreams, through mediums and other signs. Our spiritual guru continues to guide us by meeting his disciples in their dream state. Sai Baba has appeared in the dreams of several of his followers and blessed them with a darshan. Such examples can be found in the stories of most great saints like Jesus, Moses (he appeared in a vision form to my sister 20 years ago in New Jersey several times) and many others.
Let us look at the theory of karma and how it works. We will examine the segmentation of the types of karma.
Types of Karma
According to ancient Indian wisdom, karmas are divided into three segments:
1. Kriyaman Karma
2. Sanchit Karma
3. Prarabdh Karma
Kriyaman Karma (Present life karmas)
An action that is instantly fructified and exhausted at the same time without carrying forward to the future is referred to as kriyaman karma.
Here the cause and effect, action and reaction, and efforts and their fulfillment happen in the present and cancel each other out so that there is no carry forward. All the mundane and insignificant things we do fall under this category. For example, drinking water when thirsty neutralises the cause of thirst, which is the effect. There is an instant reaction to the action of fetching water to drink; the effort of drinking gives a result. These are self-balancing kriyaman karmas. Scratching where it itches, taking a medicine for a headache, going out for entertainment, visiting a spa, buying clothes, cleaning a room, driving a car, are some of the kriyaman karmas that we do routinely.
These karmas do not create positive or negative obligations, and as there is nothing to be squared off, they are not carried forward.
The deeds we perform in this life which do get carried forward, to either a future time or a future life, are called karmas or karmic assets. It is the aspiration of the evolved beings to convert all their karmas into kriyaman karmas in order to achieve quicker exhaustion of current karmas.
Sanchit Karma (Karmas carried to stored balances)
The profits and losses are both carried forward to the balance sheet where you cannot deduct one from the other. The assets and liabilities cannot cancel out each other. You have to suffer the negative balances as well as enjoy the positive ones, as determined by the karmic law. And this is precisely why life is a mixture of happy, sad and neutral moments. Illness, emotional setback, relationship issues, loss in business are some of the few examples of suffering a well-to-do man or woman have to go through despite having everything at their disposal. Their wealth, status, success, environment etc. are the positive balances fructifying along with the negative ones.
Destiny is the movie of our life. I believe, life is like a movie, made a long time ago, but witnessed in the present. Karmas are the amalgamated content from which the screenplay is derived. Based on this content, the script evolves. It has interactions with others where old debts need squaring off. If the lead actor has a more positive balance sheet, then he/she is born in a good family which has material, mental and/or spiritual wealth.
The lead actor will have a positive horoscope. Physically, he/she will be attractive, strong, mentally agile and intelligent. If the balance sheet is extremely strong, the lead actor will be of high morality, philanthropic, and be spiritually inclined and often be intuitive. Added to this, if the actor applies a lot of effort then he/she could attain spiritual powers, and will be able to heal and bless others. The actor could well be Krishna, Sita, Mother Teresa, Gautam Buddha, Raja Janak or King Ram, or thousands of others who have shared a similar script. Of course, the movie has to be released but for that it would require free theatres and a date of release.
However, there are some interesting twists to this theory. The twist is that the karmas are exhausted not according to the ratio in which they are stored but as allowed by the destiny of this life. The date of release (the birth time of the child) would have a luck of its own.
A person’s destiny works according to the movement of his/her stars. It follows a pattern of favourable and negative periods and a mix of both. The moment a person is born is called a mahurat. The mahurat has a specific star chart for that moment. The planets are positioned at various angles in juxtaposition to each other. The science of astrology determines the future trends of a person or the future of that particular time. Besides, there is a constant movement of the planets during a person’s lifetime. This is his/her dynamic star chart which also affects his/her life. The interplay of rays at different angles of the planets, their conjunction and their relationship with each other, create a specific vibration that helps the occurrence of an event, rise of a feeling, a coincidence happening, a thought process evolving, that leads to the fulfillment of destiny or a fructification of the karmas.
Going back to the movie theory, we get very few super lucky actors, so the screenplay has to have a mix of good and not-so-good luck. Where the balance of karma is not so positive, the screenplay would be a mix of good fortune in bits and suffering in lots. The suffering could be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual in nature. Every script is a mix of multiple emotions and inspires both – laughter and tears.
Whatever the script, the lead actor has the opportunity to use the power of intent to do better deeds than what may come naturally to him/her. So, the locations may remain the same as also the sequence of events, but the actor can act graciously, be kinder, think philosophically, have a positive attitude and achieve a better profit and loss account in this life. The next movie may bring a luckier role for him/her.
If the actor’s conditioning or role-play in most of his previous characterisations has been of a negative nature, chances are he/she will continue that trend even in this life. He may be a successful mafia don, earn a lot, have great influence, hoard pots of gold, enjoy life materially and socially, but also earn a lot of negative karmas whilst exhausting a lot of positive ones. His role in the forthcoming movie could well be a tragic one!
Prarabdh Karma (Karmas to fructify in present life)
The karmas that fructify during a person’s lifetime in the form of his/her luck are prarabdh karmas.
Most of the time, people don’t take note of their good luck and are not grateful and often take it for granted. Others believe their good luck is a result of their hard work, clever thinking and being at the right place at the right time.
Though our luck is predetermined and so are our prarabdh karmas, how we accept that luck is a game to play. Today’s fortune is yesterday’s effort; so today, we have an opportunity to sow the seeds for the next crop, while we enjoy the present one.
Most people’s prarabdh karma involves hard work and humongous effort for either commercial sustenance or social upliftment. Everyone is not always lucky to have the luxury of doing good deeds or practicing charity. It is not easy for most to make a concerted effort to add to their profit and loss accounts.
In large cities, individuals get consumed in operational management, long commutes to and from work and follow-ups at home. Here you can use your ingenuity and attitude to do the same thing differently and sow future seeds. Whilst at work, one can be nice to others, do small good deeds, be helpful, etc.
Little gestures can accrue a lot of good kriyaman karmas. Similarly, if we are ‘karmically’ wealthy, we may be blessed with material wealth in this life. It is up to us whether we use this gift selfishly, spend lavishly on our homes, hold extravagant functions or do the balancing act by sharing some happiness with those who cannot afford such gifts, through philanthropy. By doing so, we insure ourselves for a better future. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are two illustrious examples. In India, the Birlas, the Tatas and many other wealthy families have balanced their acts. Most religions teach their followers to give back to society and those who do, benefit from these teachings.
The Guilt Factor
When we do positive deeds, we feel a sense of satisfaction, whereas negative deeds make us feel guilty and often we develop low self-esteem. Guilt is a sure way of willing ourselves negative karmas by accepting the doer-ship of the action. A better way to negate the guilt is to pile on a lot more good karmas to overshadow the negative ones. It is important to have maximum karmic profits and minimum losses.
Not a day passes when people do not feel guilty about something or the other. It could be something as small as thinking negatively about someone or harbouring emotions like envy, anger etc. It will be wiser to accept your inadequacy and forgive yourself with a resolve not to disappoint again. This would be a far more positive way of correcting yourself rather than feeling guilty and holding a grudge against yourself.
The Maya Circle
The power of delusion is called maya.
What we perceive, we believe. For us that is reality. So is every mirage until we discover otherwise. For a turtle, the world consists of different shades of red. For some animals, it is black and white, for humans, it is made of seven colours. We know that the seven colours are only 1/7th of the entire spectrum of light.
We can review our past. The future is yet to be created. Yet Nostradamus saw it hundreds of years ago. This shows our limited access to reality. We perceive with our five senses that is analysed by our mind. There is a power called intellect, which discriminates the thoughts and perceptions of our mind.
According to the ancient Hindu scriptures, all that we see, perceive and believe, falls within the circle of maya. Our existence and our identities are nothing more than a projection sustained by the mind. The existence of three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping are also a part of that delusionary reality.
Ancient people believed that the only way to know reality was to transcend the senses, the mind and the intellect, and that’s when we would discover the eternal truth and cross over from the enforcing power of delusion. The oneness of this cosmos, (the Supreme Consciousness), which today is hearsay, and only a partially believable possibility, is an experience beyond duality.
