Karma is a law of spiritual dynamics that can be related to every action in daily life. "Karma" is a Sanskrit word meaning "action," and it expresses the whole cycle of cause and effect. The law describes in particular the accumulation of effects produced by the causes we have set in motion through our past attitudes and actions; it also includes the new causes we start today, which will bear fruit in the future.
Physics shows that no energy can be released without a natural consequence following. A stone thrown into the air returns to the earth by the law of gravity. In life, too, when actions, thoughts and feelings are set in motion, the result may come at once or be delayed, depending on circumstances. Every thought, desire and action disturbs the balance to some degree and starts a process of readjustment. This law is moral as much as it is physical, and it can be observed directly.
We Choose Our Karma
The law works whether we are aware of it or not. What sets it in motion is our own free will alone. Death does not close the account, just as moving to a new city does not cancel the debts left in the old one.
In fact, all circumstances are opportunities for us. For they are the natural results of our past life and should be seen as stepping stones for our future growth. Our destiny is not imposed on us; we create it ourselves.
Cause and Effect
Sometimes we see the effect but not the cause, and so what happens seems inexplicable. Sometimes we witness the cause, but the effect seems to be missing. Yet seen from the standpoint of the Immortal Life that continues through successive lives, all events are found to have natural causes and logical effects.
Understanding the law of spiritual dynamics makes us self-reliant beings, able to become conscious masters of our environment. This requires working with the law: setting in motion the causes that will produce the results we want, and neutralizing those we do not want.
It Is Not Fate
Karma is neither predestination nor fate. Fatalism, or predestination, implies that we are so bound to circumstances or to some power outside ourselves that no effort of ours can set us free. Under the law of karma, however, we have the power to change our future from this very moment.
Basic Principles
The working of the law can be very complex; there is an almost infinite number of possibilities and combinations in human life. Even so, certain basic principles can be easily grasped and applied.
Normally we live in three worlds: the physical, the emotional and the mental. In each we use a vehicle (body) suited to that world. As we act in these worlds we generate energies, or forces, and these forces produce corresponding results on their own levels. Physical actions create our physical environment; desires determine our family and social ties; and thoughts shape our mental abilities or deficiencies. The sum of all these transforms our character.
Action on the Physical Level
The law is impersonal; it is neither good nor evil. From the standpoint of evolution, good or right is whatever is in harmony with the progress of evolution, and evil is whatever opposes the progress toward perfection. Even in the case of evil actions the law does not punish; it teaches.
Action on the Emotional Level
The force generated on the emotional level is desire, or emotion. Pursuing a desire sets effort in motion. We learn how wise a desire is by experiencing the results of satisfying it. Desire also creates opportunity. When we grasp this principle we see that if we want to have opportunities in some field in the future, we must not only nourish that desire today but also, as far as possible, begin acting on it now.
Action on the Mental Level
The third force is thought. The force we generate in thinking increases our capacity to think and raises the power of the mind as an instrument. Thought is also a great creative force with which we can build our habits and their sum, our character. This is our key to power. Knowing that we become what we think, we can consciously direct ourselves to think about the virtues and qualities we wish to have. This process is as natural as developing muscles through exercise, and it can be practiced consciously and regularly.
Reincarnation Is a Necessary Instrument
Every human being constantly generates these three kinds of force: physical, emotional and mental. With their successes or failures these forces determine not only our present way of life and our state of consciousness after death, but also our environment and our relationships with others in later incarnations (embodiments). The balance of justice cannot always be struck within the limits of a single life. The cycles of reincarnation provide the time karma needs to work itself out.
Action and Motive
To understand karma it is important to distinguish action from motive. Actions are reflected in our environment; motive, in the quality of our character.
Opportunities
From time to time an opportunity arises before us that we think we cannot fulfill. Yet if the law had not brought it as the result of our past desire and effort, that opportunity would not be there. Such opportunities should be seized with courage. If we are almost able to do something, it means we have worked for it in the past. Perhaps we are adding to the force of our past efforts the final step that will bring out an ability lying hidden within us.
The effect of karma is often not felt at once. It is like a seed that sleeps in the soil but in the end sprouts, ripens and is harvested. We sow the seeds of our future in the fertile soil of our physical, emotional and mental nature, and we also carry with us the abundant harvest of many sowings made in the past.
Character is the visible record of the past and the promise of the future. Our present qualities and abilities are the results of our yesterdays and the rungs of the ladder that reaches to greater tomorrows. As we climb, we reshape the present to resemble more and more the image of the future. Even failures become rungs on the ladder to perfection, and in the end all time is seen as the Eternal Now.
