What is the true meaning of 'Karma' and how is it controlling our lives? The 3 Aspects of Karma

Speaker A [00:00:00]:

What is karma? And are we really free in this world? Do we actually have any control on our life and our destinies? This is a very important question. Karma is very loosely discussed, and it is talked about very commonly by a lot of people, but I don't think most of us truly understand what karma is. So today, we will go deep into the subject and understand what is karma and what is the nature of karma. The word karma comes from the Sanskrit word, tree, which stands for action. So every kind of action that you perform is karma? The physical action that you perform with the help of your body is karma. Whatever mental action that you perform in terms of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, etcetera, also constitute karma? At the same time, whatever action that you perform at the energy level, at the subtle level, also constitute karma? Now when we say karma, what exactly are we talking about? To understand this? We need to understand the nature of the human mind. Whatever we understand about the human mind And whatever the modern science understands about the human mind is very little. Our mind is very deep? It has various layers to it.

Speaker A [00:01:29]:

We are only familiar with the surface level of mind, which is the conscious mind which we use to think different thoughts and make different decisions and do different things in our life? But then there is the subconscious mind, which has deep seeded belief systems, deep seeded thoughts and conditioning, which is controlling our lives? And below that, there is something called as the unconscious mind, which is very difficult to understand and which is very difficult to describe. And it is said that this unconscious mind is connected to the universal mind, which has access to the memories of the entire cosmos? Coming to karma, What we need to understand is that whatever we do and whatever action we perform, It leaves a certain residue in our minds, and it creates a certain impression. A memory is created. If you perform good actions and if you perform good deeds, good memories and good impressions are created. And if you perform negative actions, negative impressions are created. Karma works on the basic principle of cause and effect. So throughout your life, you perform various actions, and each of these actions creates an impression in the deepest level of your mind. And according to Hinduism, we have various rebirths and reincarnations, and we are born again and again in different physical bodies, and we live different lives as different people? This is common to many cultures and many religions.

Speaker A [00:03:14]:

Now whether you believe in reincarnation or rebirths or not is a separate discussion, and it is a separate topic. But basically, what the ancient scriptures of, India and Hinduism say is that throughout the life cycle of the subtle body, which is the mind, which is called as the sukshma sharira in Sanskrit. It takes in the impression and the memory of all the actions performed by it throughout all its different lives, And all of it together forms a huge ocean of memory, and we call it the Sanchita Karma. So there are 3 aspects of karma that we need to understand here. 1 is the Sanchita Karma, second is the prarabdha karma. 3rd is agami karma. Sanchita karma is and ocean of memory that the subtle body or the mind has, which within itself contains the impressions and the memory of all its action throughout different lifetimes? And then what happens is when that subtle body comes to a new physical body, only a certain amount of Sanchita Karma is allotted for the settled body to live its current life. Now we all are living a certain life right now in a certain physical body, and a certain amount of memory is allotted to our system to live this life? This is prarabdha karma.

Speaker A [00:04:55]:

So our prarabdha karma is responsible for the parents that we have. It is responsible for the way we look, the way we talk, our default belief systems, our default personality, everything is because of the prarabdha karma. And then there is the agami karma, which is the new karma that we are creating in the current life, which is going on and adding on to the Sanchita Karma, which is the ocean of memory that we have from all of our different lives. So this is how the system works, and this is how it is explained in the scriptures. Now along with this, we also have something called as The evolutionary memory or evolutionary karma, which is the memory that we have because of the process of evolution biologically? So we are all familiar with the theory of evolution, which was explained by Charles Darwin, and we understand how we evolved from different species to become the Homo sapiens. Now within our system, we also hold the Evolutionary memory, which is the memory that we have because of evolution. Now think about this. When we were animals, the Circumstances and the environment around us was very different.

Speaker A [00:06:15]:

It was very scary. We were living in the forest. We had a lot of dangers coming in our way, so our survival was very much dependent on how careful we were and how quick we were in taking different decisions and in responding to different situations? So when we were animals, we had to be very careful about our lives, because Almost anything could kill us. There were a lot of animals which were trying to kill us, and we had to find Shelter, we had to find water, we had to find food, so there was a lot of stress that we had to take in order to live that life. Now all that memory is encoded and is embedded within us, and it is actually determining the way we in make decisions even today? Even today, most of us do not take risks, and we always want to be in our comfort zone, and we stress about different things because of that tendencies that we hold due to our evolutionary memory. Like this? The various kinds of karma that we have are directing our lives, Especially the karma that we have, which has been allotted from the Sanchita Karma to live this current life is very much controlling our lives, and it has created fault destiny for our lives? Now this doesn't mean that we cannot control our destiny, and we cannot take charge of our lives? But in order to do that, we need to break the momentum set by karma, and we need to come out of our tendencies and our default personality, and we need to move towards conscious living. We had spoken about conscious living a little bit in a previous episode, and we will talk more about it in future episodes. But if we live our lives consciously, and if we are conscious of our thought patterns and our feelings and our belief systems and change them the way we want them to be, then we can take charge of our lives, and we can take control of our destiny.

Speaker A [00:08:36]:

And when we talk about karma, we need to also talk about karma yoga. Karma yoga is a very big topic on its own, but to explain it in a simple way, karma yoga is performing action while being detached from the results of that action? This is what Lord Krishna spoke about in Bhagavad Gita. Whenever someone performs certain action without any expectation or by being detached by the results of that action that will not create an impression in the subtle body or the mind. So karma yoga is about detachment. Now this is actually very scientific. Imagine if we can live that way. Imagine if we can from a certain action while being detached from the outcomes of that action? Imagine the freedom that we would have if we can actually live that way? And I know it is very difficult to do it because the way society is and the way we have when conditioned and the way we have been brought up? We always think about the fruits of our action. We always do things with a certain goal in mind? But we can at least try to apply this teaching as much as possible.

Speaker A [00:09:53]:

We can have goals for our lives, But at least in the day to day activities, when we are performing small daily actions, if we can be a little bit detached from the outcomes and simply perform those actions in the best way possible? I think we can truly transform our lives. I hope you found this valuable, and if you are liking this podcast, make sure to give a review for it and make sure to subscribe to our podcast. And if you want to go more deep into learning these concepts and to take charge of your life and to consciously create your life the way you desire? You can join our community and learning platform, the Advaita Conscious Society, by visiting adhvaitha.com Thank you, and I'll see you on the next one.