T H E   L A W   O F   K A R M A

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PART 4
However, a good action will be rewarded and any effort supported by a beneficial and positive intention or inspiration will generate its wonderful “fruits” in the present or next incarnation.

The actions from our past lives condition our birth in the present incarnation and determine the social, economic, spiritual circumstances in which we live our life.

Our thoughts, feelings and actions have had an important role in the situations we face now. It is us who, through our free will, have created our “experience field” in life by the means of our more or less conscious choices from our past lives.

CHOOSING FREEDOM
Individual karma may have different aspects that should be known in order to perceive the nature of the determination that influences us. Thus, there are three types of karma:

1. SANCHITA KARMA, or the karma of our past lives actions. It is the so-called potential karma.
2. PRARABHDA KARMA, or the consumed karma until the end of our present life.
3. AGAMI KARMA, or the karma we have acquired as a consequence of our present actions. We will face this karma in the future.

In Vedantic literature there is a symbolic image that facilitates a better understanding of each of these three types of karma. Thus, an archer’s quiver full of arrows represents SANCHITA KARMA; the shot arrow represents PRARABHDA KARMA; the prepared arrow, which will be shot later, is AGAMI KARMA.

Thus, we draw the fundamental conclusion that the laws that rule and will rule our own destiny. Therefore, we should consider the problem of choice or of using our free will.

Even if people are often limited in their actions, occult tradition asserts that no matter what their deeds, they can use their free will and that exterior circumstances and events that affect them are the consequences of the karma generated by their own thoughts and actions.

THE INSTRUMENTS OF FREE WILL
The problem of free will is complex. In order to better comprehend these mysteries of manifestation we can make a comparison between the Universe and man.

In the Universe many phenomena are influenced by cosmic determinism but there are fields of specific actions that are not subject to the law of causality.

Man’s situation is similar; our psychic world sets in action laws, which are complex when compared to the ones ruling the outer world and the elementary particles, because the human being is highly aware of itself and possesses a clear will. This awareness and clear will are the fundamental instruments of manifestation for free will.

UNDERSTAND THE PAST AND MASTER THE FUTURE
The fated karma, which will manifest in this life (PRARABDHA KARMA) has all the chances to do so unless we do something to transform our own nature and don’t ignore the true goal of life.

On the contrary, in the case of a man who permanently improves his moral and spiritual nature, who is patient, skilful, with a strong will, who beneficially uses his free will, the matured karma (PRARABDHA KARMA) which was created before this present incarnation, won’t be implacable anymore. It will be changed and attenuated, sometimes in amazing ways.

The more people use their free will, the harder it is to foresee their future. That is why a yogi following a spiritual path is said to become the master of his own destiny.

It is important for us to understand that we are not mere puppets in the hands of a blind fatality and that our life is not ruled by coincidences or hazards. People’s fates are very different just like the choices we make through our free will.

A Buddhist text (Majjima Nikaya) explains the differences between human beings: “Just like the trees are different according to their seed, so the people’s fates are different, according to the actions whose effects they have to face.”

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