Karma - Swami Jyotirmayananda

The law of karma is the law of cause and effect operating through the subtle plane of man. Though the Sanskrit word karma literally means action, it implies the impressions of actions that exist in the subconscious and the unconscious depths of the mind. Human life and its circumstances are elaborations based upon the subconscious and unconscious contents.

Therefore, for every reincarnating spirit — that is what every human being is — there is a storehouse of karma from the past lives. All karmas do not fructify, or bear fruit, in the same life. Certain karmas continue to exist in the form of seeds without germinating, without fructifying. They may bear fruits in the future lives.

Thus, broadly speaking karma is of three types: 1. Sanchita karma or accumulated karma. 2. Prarabdha karma or fructifying karma — that is karma in the process of germinating, developing and bearing fruits in the form of experiences of pleasure and pain. 3. Kriyamana karma or actions that are being performed in the day-to-day life, which will bear fruit in the near future or in a distant future, in the forthcoming births.

© `Tattvaloka’ (June/July, 1995) PB No.631, GPO Mumbai 400 001.

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