Some of us would have asked a question at some point in our lives that why righteous people working hard and exercising ethical practices seem to be living a miserable life? On the other hand, why corrupt, fraudulent, vicious people who exercise unethical practices seem to be living a happy and prosperous life? Is there a law and order in the world or is the operation of the world random? The answer is, yes, there is a law which governs this world and that is Law of Karma.
The Law of Karma is universal and eternal. There is no exception or amendment to this law. The law is: you cannot escape from the fruit of your action or karma and your karma decides what fruit you get. You reap what you sow. But when will your crop be ready? That depends on what you sow. If you sow microgreens, the crop will be ready in few days but if you sow a mango seed, it takes few years for the tree to bear fruits. Similarly, not every karma will take same amount of time to bear the fruit.
- Some karmas will instantly bear the fruits. For example, you eat food and your hunger is immediately satisfied. The karma which instantly bears fruits are called “Kriyaman Karma”.
- Some karmas take time to ripen although the actions are done. These accumulated karmas, referred to as “Sanchit Karma”, are kept in abeyance until their fructification at the opportune time. For example, you sow wheat seeds today, but you will have to wait for about four months for it to become ready for reaping.
- Those karmas, out of your accumulated or Sanchit karmas, which are now ripe and ready to give fruits are called “Prarabdha Karma”, also commonly known as destiny.
- There are innumerable Sanchit karmas accumulated in our balance over innumerable number of lives. Not all of them will bear fruit in one lifetime.
- Your Prarabdha or destiny in this life is strictly accordingly to the Sanchit karmas which have become ripe and ready to give fruits. You cannot leave your body until you exhaust all of your Prarabdha karmas of this life and you will have to keep taking births until you exhaust all of your accumulated or Sanchit karmas.
- However, the problem is while exhausting our Prarabdha karmas in one birth, we add new karmas, good or bad, to our balance and the cycle of birth and death becomes never ending. If we can exhaust our Prarabdha karmas without creating new Sanchit karmas in one lifetime, then soon we can be liberated. But how do we do that? We will discuss them in one of the future blogs.
Now with this understanding of Law of Karma, you will understand that prosperous people doing unethical practices are bearing the fruits of their previous good karmas of this or past lives. But their current unethical karmas are also being accumulated in Sanchit. A time shall come when these good karmas will get exhausted, and their current bad karmas will become ripe to give fruits. At that time, they cannot escape from the consequences of those bad karmas. Similarly, misery of ethical and righteous people is not the result of their righteousness, but they are bearing fruits of their previous bad karmas from this or past lives. As soon as these bad karmas are exhausted, and their current good karmas become ripe, they will enjoy fruits of their righteous actions.
To further understand this, let’s assume there are two jars. My jar has rice grains in the bottom half of the jar representing good karmas. Although I am currently adding pebbles in the jar representing bad karmas, what I am gathering from the bottom of the jar is rice. But as soon as all the rice get exhausted, I will start gathering the pebbles. Your jar already has pebbles in the bottom, and you are now adding rice grains into the jar. As soon as all the pebbles get exhausted, you will start enjoying the rice.
Thus, understanding the Law of Karma will help ourselves abstain from unethical actions and keep our hope alive in the time of misery.
Reference:
“Theory of Karma” by Sri Hirabhai Thakkar, published by Kusum Prakashan (book available on https://kusumprakashan.in/)