Karma and Reincarnation

Karma

Karma literally means "action" or "deed" and is the force that drives reincarnation. It is a moral concept, acting on the principle of cause and effect. Every time we think or do something, we create a cause, which bears corresponding effects.

In Vedic religion, it is thought that our situation in this life is the fruit of our karma, actions, and reactions, from our past life and karma is accumulated throughout our reincarnated lives. Karma can be purified, however, through performing good deeds.

Karma explains the problem of evil that persists in spite of an all powerful G-d. It is not fate, and every soul is thought to have free will, able to determine its only destiny. It only applies to human actions as animal actions are performed based on instinct alone, meaning karma can only be generated in human life. It is a myth to say that karma is simply a scapegoat for suffering.

Those who sow goodness will reap goodness, those who sow evil will reap evil, and we will be punished from our wicked actions.

Papa + Punya

Karma is made up of two aspects: punya and papa. Punya is earned when our activities are good, while pap is earned when our activities are bad. When punya matures, it results in happiness and comfort. When pap matures, it results in nothing but suffering.

Punya (Merit) involves following principles of varnashramadharma, giving to charity, or going on pilgrimage.

Papa (Sin) involves avoiding ones duty, or avoiding and abusing the five sacred sections of society: women, children, animals (especially cows), saintly people, and the elderly.

Reincarnation

All Hindu's believe that the atman exists in a cycle of birth into a body, followed by death, and then rebirth into a new body. It will not necessarily be a human body, depending on your karma. This cycle is called samsara, the aim of the soul is to be freed from this cycle and gain liberation (moksha).

The quality of life into which a soul is reborn depends on the previous karma, It is automatic and impersonal, differing to Abrahamic ideas of judgement in this way. The purpose of rebirth is to work off karmic debt. Because of this, karma is often described as the chain that binds each atman to the wheel of samsara.

There are four aims in Hindu life:

Dharma - living in an appropriate way and following your duty

Artha - pursuing wealth through lawful means

Lama - pursuing delight of the senses, adoration, preparing the soul (especially that of the householder) for devotion to G-d.

Moksha - release from rebirth to a state of being where the soul does not desire anything at all. To lose your individual identity and become part of Brahman, entering into G-d's presence, or like a green bird entering a green tree, merging while retaining separate identity.

Each Hindu also has four daily duties: to show respect to deities, ancestors, all beings, and to honour all human kind.

Types/Aspects of Karma

Sanchita Karma - accumulated karma - is the baggage of karma from past lives brought into this one. It is like a mountain with each lifetime adding to the store. It is the karmic debt which must be erased to reach moksha.

Moksha Patamu/Moksha Chitram is the ancient Indian game that we know as "Snakes and Ladders". The squares of positive karma on the original game are Faith, Reliability, Generosity, Knowledge, and Asceticism. The squares of negative karma are Disobedience, Vanity, Vulgarity, Theft, Lying, Drunkenness, Debt, Rage, Greed, Pride, Murder, and Lust. The final square, 100, represents moksha or escape from the cycle of reincarnation.

Negative karma can also be erased through knowledge of Brahman, meditation, and good deeds.

Prarabdha Karma - fruit-bearing karma - is the portion of karma that has ripened to show its effects in the present life, and assigned to be worked out currently. It shapes everything about a person's situation in the present life - body, family, race, nation, and sex. It cannot be avoided or changed, it is already bearing fruit.

Agami Karma - karma in the making - agami literally means "not come". It means karma that will take effect in the future; karma that is currently stored rather than bearing fruit. 

There is an analogy in Vedic literature of a bowman: one who has sent an arrow, is about to send another, and holds a quiver on his back. He has perfect control over the first two (Sanchita and Agami) but must work out his Prarabdha.

In another analogy, Sanchita karma is a granary, that for sale daily is prarabha, and that in storage is agami.

QUOTE BANK!!

Das: "The theory of karma harps on the Newtonian principle that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction."

Tulsidas: "Our destiny was shaped long before the body came into being."

BG: "As the embodied soul continually passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into a new body at death."

BG: "As a man casts of his worn-out clothes, and takes on other new ones, so does the embodied soul cast of his worn-out bodies, and enters others new."

Bhagavat Purana: "In proportion to the extent of one's religious or irreligious actions in this life, one must suffer the corresponding reactions of his karma in the next."

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "A goldsmith  takes an old ornament and fashions it into a new and more beautiful one. In the same way, the soul, as it leaves one body, looks for a new body which is more beautiful."

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "As people act so they become. if their actions are good, they become good; if their actions are bad, they become bad. Good deeds purify those who perform them; bad deeds pollute those who perform them."

Shirley: "only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust."

Chopra: "Karma is experience and experience creates memory and memory creates imagination and desire and desire creates karma again. if I buy a cup of coffee, that's karma. I now have the memory that might give me the potential desire for having cappuccino, and I walk into Starbucks, and there's karma all over again."

Al-Biruni: "Reincarnation is the shibboleth of the Hindu religion." Compares it toe Shahada.

Sahgal et al, 2021: Only 40% of Hindus believe in reincarnation at all.

Salzberg: "Things don't just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don't live in some kind of crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be."

Castro: "Karma is concerned not only with the relationship between actions and consequences, but also the moral reasons or intentions behind actions."

Castro: "If someone commits a good deed for the wrong reasons - making a charitable donation to impress a potential love interest, for example - the action could still be immoral and produce bad karma."

Castro: "Importantly, karma is wrapped up with the concept of reincarnation or rebirth, in which a person is born in a new human or non-human body after death."