Karma Sutra: Is it possible to create our destiny?

There’s disparity all around us – disparity in terms of our social, economic, congenital, physical and mental state. To be born to it and live with it seems like an unfair deal in life.

And as is human nature, we look for someone to blame for the ‘state’ that we are in. Our obvious victims are our parents and yet when we look around, we find that there are people (orphans) who don’t even have their parents around them to pin the blame.

So, where does the blame lie? Who is responsible for the ‘state’ that we are in?

The answer to all the disparity that we have around us lies in ‘the Theory of Karma’.

Karma, which means ‘action’, is a play of energy. This energy works on a principle, which most simply put is – ‘As you sow, so shall ye reap’. It is the nature of energy, that when released, becomes the ‘cause’; and likewise when that energy returns, it becomes the ‘effect’. This cause and effect phenomenon is also known as the karmic syndrome. Hence, all the actions that we perform (cause) must return to us in the form of consequences (effect) because, ‘cause is effect concealed and effect is cause revealed’.

So, the actions that we perform in our lifetimes (cause) return to us as our current reality in the form of persons, situations and things (effect). This is to say that we are responsible for the ‘state’ we are in, in our lifetime. Prince or pauper, we are the cause, we have sown and we shall have to reap.

However, it is not possible for us to reap all that we have sown in one lifetime. Our actions can be grouped together and classified as follows-

1. Sanchita karma- This karma is the sum total of all our actions ‘heaped together’.
2. Prarabdha karma- This karma is that portion of sanchita karma (heaped together) which is allotted to us to be experienced in a particular lifetime. This portion which is ‘set-in-motion’ is also what we call ‘Fate’ or ‘Destiny’.
3. Kriyamana karma- or karma ‘being made’ in the present using our free-will. This is probably the most important karma because it allows us to create our future destiny.
4. Aagami karma- is the karma which is created using our free-will. It is also known as ‘arriving’ karma.

Wisdom lies in making peace with our ‘destiny’ (prarabdha karma) and using our free-will (kriyamana karma) to create our future destiny (aagami karma). Such is the magic of our actions.