Episode Details

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 t