What is karma?
Karma is generally regarded as our deeds as a living being in this world. Some are compulsory karmas, such as eating, breathing, natural activities, washing and cleaning. Karma or deeds for mankind is far more complex than this definition and encompass much more than a mere physical activity we undertake in our lifetime. Karma for mankind is the sum product of all the physical activities, the thoughts, the food we eat and our complete lifestyle, physical and spiritual, both. Actions performed unknowingly, innocently or unintentionally are not karmas. The use of mind is missing here, so without any spiritual activity there cannot be any karma. Karma could be likened to the seed which grows into large trees. With unhealthy seeds, you get sickly trees on which unhealthy fruits grow, while healthy seeds give you healthy trees on which healthy fruits grow. Karma gives birth to instant consequences, which may or may not be visible to you immediately. Whether you killed an ant or an elephant plucked the leaf of a plant or gave solace to a dying man on the roadside; with each such karma you immediately sprouted a consequence. When you do not perform a physical deed, but imagine, plot and plan certain activity, good, or bad, you create another set of karma which again creates a consequence. This consequence may not be visible; your thoughts were healthy or unhealthy, the consequences of which shall affect you anytime during your lifetime. You need to remember, your thoughts definitely affects your physical self. Thoughts in the form of anger, kills you. Again, the consequence of karma is in what you eat. For instance, when you eat and drink food that harms you, it creates bad karma with bad consequences. Such bad consequences are not visible immediately. We all know those who lived on rich food and alcohol for years suffered unfortunate consequences. Similarly, karma and its consequence are born out of our lifestyle. With disciplined lifestyle, the consequence of karma is good and healthy while with reckless lifestyle, the consequence of karma is injurious. This even a young child would be able to tell you. Since the consequence is not visible immediately, people attribute the bad effect of the karma to old age and other related diseases; they generally refuse to attribute their misfortune to bad karma and its unhealthy consequences. This is why most people, being the slave of bad karma, suffer in this world. See them, they are so pathetic and still carry on with their unhealthy lifestyle, refuses to see themselves as growing older. Their age, diet, activities and food and other habits are all scattered and in disharmony. The guiding factory here is age. To perform good karma we need first to guide ourselves with our age. With age, we dress, eat, perform activities and speak. We must learn to respect our age and do all those activities that may be in harmony and give birth to good consequences.
“Think before you act” is one proverb, which is appropriate here. If you think about the consequences of your action, you will never be reckless. If you learn to visualize the damages that may befall you in those karmas, you will definitely learn to keep away from such activities and thoughts. The arm of karma is long, invisible, and tenacious. Since you are the one who perform the karma and invite the consequences, you yourself carry all the consequences along wherever you may run to save yourself from those consequences. The consequences of the karma are stuck to you until you die or pay for it in your lifetime. Unfortunately, man cannot see this and therefore, indulge in all sorts of unhealthy activities, thoughts, foods, and lifestyle. Man is a fortunate being with bundles of extra features in him as compared to our less fortunate sentient beings. His misfortune lies in the misuse of those extra features exclusively bestowed upon him.
Our karma can always alter our personality and destiny. With past karmas, we chalk our destiny. With present karmas, we alter and change our destiny. With the future karmas, we still alter and change our destiny. Each time we perform any bad karma, it is imperative we learn from those past bad karmas and in our future karmas try to convert similar incidents into good karmas. This way we learn from our past mistakes and re-define our destiny for good.
When we go about performing any karma we need to educate or acquire knowledge in the subject before we venture into any action, thought, word or behavior, because ignorance leads us to bad karma. Passion, expectation, desire, ambition, and greed are all reasons to bad karmas. Another reason is the heightened use of our 5 senses, it leads us to commit bad karma when the mind is weak and the five senses turn wild, untamed and out of mind’s control.