Karma Articles Dictionary

Karma

Volition, volitional or intentional activity.

Karma is always followed by its fruit, Vipaka. Karma and Vipaka are oftentimes referred to as the law of causality, a cardinal concern in the Teaching of the Buddha.

• Common karma: the difference between personal and common karma can be seen in the following example: Suppose a country goes to war to gain certain economic advantages and in the process, numerous soldiers and civilians are killed or maimed. If a particular citizen volunteers for military service and actually participates in the carnage, he commits a personal karma of killing. Other citizens, however, even if opposed to the war, may benefit directly or indirectly (e.g., through economic gain). They are thus said to share in the common karma of killing of their country.

• Fixed karma: in principle, all karma is subject to change. Fixed karma, however, is karma which can only be changed in extraordinary circumstances, because it derives from an evil act committed simultaneously with mind, speech and body. An example of fixed karma would be a premeditated crime (versus a crime of passion).

 (See also: Karma , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Karma -

(1) any activity performed in the course of material existence.

(2) pious activities leading to material gain in this world or in the heavenly planets after death.

(3) fate; former acts leading to inevitable results.

(See also: Karma , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Karma:

In many eastern religions, the load of guilt or innocence carried from one incarnation to the next, determining one’s lot in the next life; often used by American occultists as a general term for moral responsibility, as in “You can do that if you want to, but it’s your karma.”

(See also: Karma , Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

A dream dictionary with dream-symbols and their meanings.

A spiritual view on dreams and the meaning of dreams by Sri Swami Sivananda, an authority in the vedic sciences and traditions.

Karma: Depending on the culture, the concept of karma has several different interpretations. While some schools of thought use the term to mean a sort of payback for our good and bad deeds, others (notably Buddhist scholars) maintain that karma never means the effect of a good or bad deed, but the deed itself. This initial deed, they argue, sets into motion a chain of events that leads to eiher good or bad situations, depending on the nature of the original deed. Edgar Cayce, on the other hand, taught that the consequences of our actions in this life were not karma, but simply cause and effect. He said that karma was always what we bring into this life as consequences from a past life.

(See also: Karma , Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

In 1999, Bennie LeBeau of the Eastern Shoshone tribe began to experience a torrent of dreams and visions. The visions directed him to set in motion the plans for a massive Medicine Wheel Ceremony. The ceremony is set to take place at High Noon on Saturday, May 8, 2004 at more than 20 sacred sites in the American West, and at many other sacred sites elsewhere around the world, including Australia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and the Middle East.

Read more here: » Native American Spirituality: Native American Medicine Wheel Ceremony on May 8th 2004

Karma: In Hindu tradition the karma is the record of all actions from all lives, the consequences for which are determined by the intentions of the act, not the consequences of the act. In Yoga, this is the form of practice that emphasizes work.

 (See also: Karma , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

About Karma. How to remove bad karma, and how to increase good karma? Physical sat karma is the positive karma that one earns through right words and action. The article describes the different actions that can be taken in order to influence the karma.

Read more here: » Karma: Physical Sat Karma

Karma - H,N

Refers to the "debt" accumulated against a soul as a result of good or bad actions committed during one's life (or lives). If one accumulates good karma, he will supposedly be reincarnated in a desirable state. If one accumulates bad karma, he will be reincarnated in a less desirable state.

(See also: Karma , New Age, Body mind and Soul)

KARMA -

1. the belief that one’s thoughts and deed can be counted against or for them to their spirtual growth by counted against or for them to their spirtual growth during several life times in Sanskrit, it means “action”. Follow the law of cause and effect (TRASB)

2. ‘action’, measure of attachment, one’s worldly circumstances, psychological development and level of consciousness, often distinguishes as good of bad Karma, though in Indian tradition, all Karma is to transcended: Imperfections that are washed or burned by yoga, meditation, service, cultivating the Dharma or other spirtual practice. That which is created so long as one doesn’t realize one’s original nature. (Bodhidharma) Consequences of a thought, word or deed; reaping what is sown. Sum of the consequences of one’s thoughts, words, or deeds in this and previous lifetimes. Chain of moral cause and effect. Force generated by consciousness or actions that conditions this and future lives. Fate, the natural and necessary happenings of one’s lifetime, preconditioned by one’s past lifetimes. moral debt, worked out and repaid usually gradually, for past actions. That which the individual has instituted, carried forward, endorsed, omitted to do, or has done right, through the ages until the present moment ’ mythical rock symbolizing peace and courage. (Vietnamese) (NAD)

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karma: (Sanskrit) "Action, deed."

One of the most important principles in Hindu thought, karma refers to

á      any act or deed;

á      the principle of cause and effect;

á      a consequence or "fruit of action" (karmaphala) or "after effect" (uttaraphala), which sooner or later returns upon the doer. What we sow, we shall reap in this or future lives. Selfish, hateful acts (papakarma or kukarma) will bring suffering. Benevolent actions (punyakarma or sukarma) will bring loving reactions.

Karma is a neutral, self-perpetuating law of the inner cosmos, much as gravity is an impersonal law of the outer cosmos. In fact, it has been said that gravity is a small, external expression of the greater law of karma. The impelling, unseen power of one's past actions is called adrishta.

The law of karma acts impersonally, yet we may meaningfully interpret its results as either positive (punya) or negative (papa)- terms describing actions leading the soul either toward or away from the spiritual goal. Karma is further graded as: white (shukla), black (krishna), mixed (shukla-krishna) or neither white nor black (ashukla-akrishna). The latter term describes the karma of the jnani, who, as Rishi Patanjali says, is established in kaivalya, freedom from prakriti through realization of the Self. Similarly, one's karma must be in a condition of ashukla-akrishna, quiescent balance, in order for liberation to be attained. This equivalence of karma is called karmasamya, and is a factor that brings malaparipaka, or maturity of anava mala. It is this state of resolution in preparation for samadhi at death that all Hindus seek through making amends and settling differences.

Karma is threefold: sanchita, prarabdha and kriyamana.

-       sanchita karma: "Accumulated actions." The sum of all karmas of this life and past lives.

-       prarabdha karma: "Actions begun; set in motion." That portion of sanchita karma that is bearing fruit and shaping the events and conditions of the current life, including the nature of one's bodies, personal tendencies and associations.

-       - kriyamana karma: "Being made." The karma being created and added to sanchita in this life by one's thoughts, words and actions, or in the inner worlds between lives. Kriyamana karma is also called agami, "coming, arriving," and vartamana, "living, set in motion." While some kriyamana karmas bear fruit in the current life, others are stored for future births.

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Each of these types can be divided into two categories: arabdha (literally, "begun, undertaken;" karma that is "sprouting"), and anarabdha ("not commenced; dormant"), or "seed karma."

In a famed analogy, karma is compared to rice in its various stages. Sanchita karma, the residue of one's total accumulated actions, is likened to rice that has been harvested and stored in a granary. From the stored rice, a small portion has been removed, husked and readied for cooking and eating. This is prarabdha karma, past actions that are shaping the events of the present. Meanwhile, new rice, mainly from the most recent harvest of prarabdha karma, is being planted in the field that will yield a future crop and be added to the store of rice. This is kriyamana karma, the consequences of current actions. In Saivism, karma is one of three principal bonds of the soul, along with anava and maya. Karma is the driving force that brings the soul back again and again into human birth in the evolutionary cycle of transmigration called samsara. When all earthly karmas are resolved and the Self has been realized, the soul is liberated from rebirth. This is the goal of all Hindus.

For each of the three kinds of karma there is a different method of resolution. Nonattachment to the fruits of action, along with daily rites of worship and strict adherence to the codes of dharma, stops the accumulation of kriyamana. Prarabdha karma is resolved only through being experienced and lived through. Sanchita karma, normally inaccessible, is burned away only through the grace and diksha of the satguru, who prescribes sadhana and tapas for the benefit of the shishya. Through the sustained kundalini heat of this extreme penance, the seeds of unsprouted karmas are fried, and therefore will never sprout in this or future lives.

See: diksha, grace.

Like the four-fold edict of dharma, the three-fold edict of karma has both individual and impersonal dimensions. Personal karma is thus influenced by broader contexts, sometimes known as family karma, community karma, national karma, global karma and universal karma.

See: karma, anava, fate, maya, moksha, papa, pasha, punya, sin, soul, karma yoga.

karmasamya: (Sanskrit) "Balance or equipoise of karma."

See: karma.

karmashaya: (Sanskrit) "Holder of karma." Describes the body of the soul,

(See also: Karma , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

reincarnation: "Re-entering the flesh." Punarjanma; metempsychosis. The process wherein souls take on a physical body through the birth process.

Reincarnation is one of the fundamental principles of Hindu spiritual insight, shared by the mystical schools of nearly all religions, including Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism (and even by Christianity until it was cast out by the Nicene Council in 787). It is against the backdrop of this principle of the soul's enjoying many lives that other aspects of Hinduism can be understood. It is a repetitive cycle, known as punarjanma, which originates in the subtle plane (Antarloka), the realm in which souls live between births and return to after death. Here they are assisted in readjusting to the "in-between" world and eventually prepared for yet another birth.

The quality and nature of the birth depends on the merit or demerit of their past actions (karma) and on the needs of their unique pattern of development and experience (dharma). The mother, the father and the soul together create a new body for the soul. At the moment of conception, the soul connects with and is irrevocably bound to the embryo. As soon as the egg is fertilized, the process of human life begins. It is during the mid-term of pregnancy that the full humanness of the fetus is achieved and the soul fully inhabits the new body, a stage which is acknowledged when the child begins to move and kick within the mother's womb. (Tirumantiram, 460: "There in the pregnant womb, the soul lay in primordial quiescence [turiya] state. From that state, Maya [or Prakriti] and Her tribe aroused it and conferred consciousness and maya's evolutes eight- desires and the rest. Thus say scriptures holy and true.")

Finally, at birth the soul emerges into earth consciousness, veiled of all memory of past lives and the inner worlds. The cycle of reincarnation ends when karma has been resolved and the Self God (Parasiva) has been realized. This condition of release is called moksha. Then the soul continues to evolve and mature, but without the need to return to physical existence. How many earthly births must one have to attain the unattainable? Many thousands to be sure, hastened by righteous living, tapas, austerities on all levels, penance and good deeds in abundance.

See: reincarnation, evolution of the soul, karma, moksha, nonhuman birth, samsara, soul.

(See also: Reincarnation , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

kriyamana karma: (Sanskrit) "Actions being made."

See: karma.

(See also: Kriyamana karma , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Karma :

Karma

(Karman, Sanskrit) This is a noun-form coming from the root kri meaning "to do," "to make." Literally karma means "doing," "making," action. But when used in a philosophical sense, it has a technical meaning, and this technical meaning can best be translated into English by the word consequence.

The idea is this: When an entity acts, he acts from within; he acts through an expenditure in greater or less degree of his own native energy. This expenditure of energy, this outflowing of energy, as it impacts upon the surrounding milieu, the nature around us, brings forth from the latter perhaps an instantaneous or perhaps a delayed reaction or rebound. Nature, in other words, reacts against the impact; and the combination of these two  - of energy acting upon nature and nature reacting against the impact of that energy  - is what is called karma, being a combination of the two factors.

Karma is, in other words, essentially a chain of causation, stretching back into the infinity of the past and therefore necessarily destined to stretch into the infinity of the future. It is unescapable, because it is in universal nature, which is infinite and therefore everywhere and timeless; and sooner or later the reaction will inevitably be felt by the entity which aroused it.

It is a very old doctrine, known to all religions and philosophies, and since the renascence of scientific study in the Occident has become one of the fundamental postulates of modern coordinated knowledge. If you toss a pebble into a pool, it causes ripples in the water, and these ripples spread and finally impact upon the bank surrounding the pool; and, so modern science tells us, the ripples are translated into vibrations, which are carried outward into infinity. But at every step of this natural process there is a corresponding reaction from every one and from all of the myriads of atomic particles affected by the spreading energy.

Karma is in no sense of the word fatalism on the one hand, nor what is popularly known as chance, on the other hand. It is essentially a doctrine of free will, for naturally the entity which initiates a movement or action  - spiritual, mental, psychological, physical, or other  - is responsible thereafter in the shape of consequences and effects that flow therefrom, and sooner or later recoil upon the actor or prime mover.

Since everything is interlocked and interlinked and interblended with everything else, and no thing and no being can live unto itself alone, other entities are of necessity, in smaller or larger degree, affected by the causes or motions initiated by any individual entity; but such effects or consequences on entities, other than the prime mover, are only indirectly a morally compelling power, in the true sense of the word moral.

An example of this is seen in what the theosophist means when he speaks of family karma as contrasted with one's own individual karma; or national karma, the series of consequences pertaining to the nation of which he is an individual; or again, the racial karma pertaining to the race of which the individual is an integral member. Karma cannot be said either to punish or to reward in the ordinary meaning of these terms. Its action is unerringly just, for being a part of nature's own operations, all karmic action ultimately can be traced back to the kosmic heart of harmony which is the same thing as saying pure consciousness-spirit.

The doctrine is extremely comforting to human minds, inasmuch as man may carve his own destiny and indeed must do so. He can form it  or deform it, shape it or misshape it, as he wills; and by acting with nature's own great and underlying energies, he puts himself in unison or harmony therewith and therefore becomes a co-worker with nature as the gods are.

See also: Karma , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

panchakarma (Pancha Karma therapy, rejuvenation therapy, Ayurveda): Ayurvedic group of five purificatory steps or elimination therapies. Panchakarma comprises:

(a)  emesis therapy (therapeutic vomiting);

(b)  purgation therapy - evacuation of the bowels with a laxative;

(c)  errhine therapy (nasal insufflation therapy) - intranasal application of decongestants such as medicated oils, powdered herbs, and ghee (fat derived from butter of cow or buffalo origin);

(d)  oily enema therapy; and

(e)  decoction (watery) enema therapy. Some Ayurvedists regard the two types of enema therapy as one step and bloodletting therapy (Raktamoksha) as the fifth.

See: Ayurveda

(See also: Panchakarma , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

sanchita karma: (Sanskrit) "Accumulated action."

The accumulated consequence of an individual's actions in this and past lives.

See: karma.

(See also: Sanchita karma: , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Karma

(Sanskrit "deed," "action," "ritual," "result") A central Indian term with various meanings.

1)    Any mental, verbal, or physical action or intention, especially a morally correct or textually prescribed activity.

2)    The results or consequences of actions or intentions.

3)    The Hindu principle of cause and effect, originally developed in South Asian religions, that determines one's past, current, and future existences. Everything we do produces some effect, now or later, on the physical or astral planes. Representing neither good nor evil, all actions and events cause corresponding actions and events in the past or future (including past and future lives through reincarnation).

4)    Ritual activity, particularly the ancient Indian rites propitiating a pantheon of gods as prescribed in the Vedic texts. Ritual performance might be done to meet religious obligations, such as initiation into the community, to honor one's ancestors, or to fulfill individual desires such as wealth, progeny, or immortality. The results of ritual, which are also called karma, were sometimes interpreted as "unseen" (apurva), that is, postponed or not yet noticeable in order to explain apparently delayed consequences. While all could admit that actions would eventually bear consequences, the doctrine of unseen results provoked lively debate and reconsideration of the importance of ritual.

5)    The erroneous western interpretation: That the good and bad deeds that we do adds and subtracts from our accumulated record, our karma. At the end of our life, we are rewarded or punished according to our karma by being reincarnated into either a painful or good new life.

(see Karma)

(See also: Karma , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

prarabdha karma: (Sanskrit) "Action that has been unleashed or aroused."

See: karma.

(See also: Prarabdha karma , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Karma (Sanskrit). Physically, action: metaphysically, the LAW OF RETRIBUTION, the Law of cause and effect or Ethical Causation. Nemesis, only in one sense, that of bad Karma.

It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism ; yet it is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the meta physical Samskara, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire.

There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly, and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations.

When Buddhism teaches that "Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in transmigration ‘ or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains nought after each Personality but the causes produced by it ; causes which are undying, i.e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out by them, so to speak, and such causes - unless compensated during the life of the person who produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego, and reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between effects and causes is fully reestablished. No "personality" - a mere bundle of material atoms and of instinctual and mental characteristics - can of course continue, as such, in the world of pure Spirit.

Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence, namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that Ego which chooses the personality it will inform, after each Devachan, and which receives through these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced, it is therefore the Ego, that self which is the "moral kernel" referred to and embodied karma, "which alone survives death."

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a-karma:

a-karma. Non-action; detached action whose consequences do not leave a binding impression.

(See also: a-karma , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)