The Law of Karma
From The Hindu Way of Awakening
by Swami Kriyananda

Karma is a law that determines a person’s natural level of evolutional development, and also his actual position in society. Karma is a universal law, and the companion to the law of reincarnation. Karma is not, and is wrongly understood to be, a teaching of divine punishment for the wrongs one commits. It is, rather, simply the law of cause and effect on levels far subtler than that on which the laws of physics operate, though it includes these laws also. Karma embraces every action, every thought, every feeling in the universe. Karma attracts to us whatever vibrations of energy we ourselves project.

Modern physics has made us aware of karmic principles as they apply to the material level: that like attracts like, for instance, and that every action attracts an equal and opposite reaction. Karma is also the magnetism generated by whatever type of energy we entertain.

Because our every deed and desire is tied to ego-consciousness, the energy they generate rotates, like a vortex, around the thought, “I am: I want; I am the doer; I am the owner; I’m the one who is affected.” This vortex of energy settles in the spine at its own level of “specific gravity,” according to whether it is grossly materialistic, or generous, or spiritually elevating. As the opportunity arises for fulfilling a desire, or for the boomerang completion of a deed, the energy in that vortex is released, and attracts to the ego its own natural consequences.

People don’t “work out” their karma, as many imagine, by mere activity. The shopkeeper who tries to excuse his lack of spiritual focus with the explanation, “I’m a karma yogi” (a seeker of enlightenment by the path of selfless service) is only deluding himself. What he really is, simply, is a “karmi” (one who is immersed in ego-motivated activity). Karma is worked out by right action, and even better by offering the impulses buried in the subconscious up to the liberating influence of superconsciousness. While most people cannot accomplish this end deliberately, since they know nothing of their own subconscious impulses, it can be accomplished by generating a flow of energy and devotion up the spine to the brain, and by asking for, and receiving, the downward flow of grace from above. . . .

Karma determines a person’s circumstances in life. According to the energy generated by his way of life in the past, he attracts good or bad “luck,” as he may choose to call it: squalor or riches, good or ill health, disruptive or harmonious surroundings. Karmic attraction may cause him to be born into a lowly peasant’s hovel, or into the mansion of a moneyed but selfish merchant, or into the palace of a benign ruler, or into the simple residence of sincere spiritual aspirants. He himself has ordained these outer circumstances. But the process is by no means simple and clear. Birth into the merchant’s home, for instance, may be due to a shared love of peaceful surroundings, and not to the fact that he himself is mercantile by nature.

We ourselves, whatever our birth in this life, determine to some extent what we shall make of this life. The young peasant may, by hard work, become a farmer. If karma — his own and others’ — permits, he may even become a ruler, or a saint and yogi. But if past karma clouds his will, he may feel no desire even to rise to that first level of farmer.

Mankind, alone among earth’s inhabitants, has the free will to rise spiritually by self-effort. This is the reason why the Hindu teachings give paramount importance to personal initiative.

(The Hindu Way of Awakening, Crystal Clarity Publishers;
soon to be released in Italian by Ananda Edizioni.)

For information and reservations:
info@ananda.it   Tel: +39 0742-81.36.20   Fax: +39 0742-81.35.36

Ananda is located in the tranquil hills of Umbria, Italy on “Strada Statale 444” between Assisi and Gualdo Tadino. It is the largest retreat center in Europe for Yogananda’s teachings.

Travel Directions

Ananda Newsletters
If you would like to receive news from Ananda by email, with program updates and details, inspiring articles, and some of Yogananda and Kriyananda’s original writings, please visit our subscription page.

Ananda Associazione • Via Montecchio, 61 • I-06025 Nocera Umbra (PG) • ITALY