Karma siddanta says you reap what you sow. If you plant a mango seed you would enjoy mango fruit but not apple fruit. Simple isn't it? In a practical scenario, it says your action(karma) today determines what you face tomorrow. A student who has an exam tomorrow and works hard today, gets good marks tomorrow. A student who does do it, gets less marks. Means day in day out you keep doing karma and enjoy/suffer the karmaphala. (fruit of karma). Heck! what is confusion in it?
Lets try to extend this principle a little further:
Hinduism says the living being keeps encountering series of rebirth's in a circular fashion. Well proof? Here is what Lord Krishna Says in Bhagavad-Gita
| vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya navani grhnati naro ’parani tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany anyani samyati navani dehi "As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones." How ever it is not always true that we get human birth. Last birth may be a cockroach or tiger or any thing else. The current life is determined by karma we have done in earlier lives. meaning the karma phala does not end after death, instead it carries forward to next lives. Earlier illustrations are easy to believe as there is a concrete proof we can see with our own eyes, this illustration is a little difficult as the proof cant be seen with senses. (I somehow cant understand why even people who understood mathematical induction principle cant apply same here :-)) Now that we have got the principle lets see a small illustration here. Two students attend same classes, study same time but one is able absorb the gist of education where as the other does not. Here the visible Karma is identically done by the students. What's is the reason why one succeeds and other does not? It is because the previous karma has taken over (from previous life or same life) and the negative karma show impact. Negative karma could be lack of strong foundation of basics. Given this background lets inspect the question. When some one says "daivam karunichindi", it essentially means his earlier karma has started showing its positive impact in his current life. When some one repents stating "Idanta na karma", it simply means his bad karma is taking over his current karma. As opposed to many religious beliefs GOD is not some body who sits and observes each and every person day in day out and try to reward/punish for actions manually. We can say it is an automated program written GOD himself so that his intervention is not required. He merely does the production support. :-) So if every things is determined by the prarabda karma, what is need to work(karma) now? For future lifes as first reason. Secondly previous karma is taking over only if you current karma is not strong enough to nullify. So we need to work even now. |
Source: Yoga Vasistam -- A lesson taught by Vasista to Lord Rama. Considered a seminal book on philosophy even before Bhagavad-Gita. (I used my interpretation here though)
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