KARMA AND REINCARNATION by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

(January 1997 Santa Monica, California)
Every object in this universe is endowed with 4 characteristics. They are dharma, karma, prema and gyana.

Dharma means nature. Everything has a definite nature, animate or inanimate object. They have a nature. Monkeys have a nature, human beings have their nature. In the same way metals have their nature. Aluminum has its nature, copper has its nature. Nature is called dharma.

And then Karma. And there is certain activity, definite activity that is attributed or that comes out of each objects. Its easy to say object, it can include also living beings for the time being, for our understanding. Karma.

And then the 3rd is prema. Means love. There is love in every particle of this creation. Love is attraction. Love means absorbing, the viscosity, bringing togetherness. So many atoms, they come together so a molecule is made or an object is made. A type of molecules or atoms get together then you say oh this is metal, this is iron, this is copper. There is something that holds things together and this force of bringing things together, holding things together is called love or prema. Love is present in the entire creation, in every particle of this creation. There is love and that is how there is reproduction happening. There is love that is how the planets are moving in their orbits. There is love that is why the sun is shining, stars are shining. There is love in every atom that’s why the electron is moving around the charged particle. The charge of attraction, the charge in this entire creation is a power, is love. That’s called prema.

And gyana. Are you all listening to me now? You are listening right? Who is listening? Who is listening to what I’m saying? Who is ‘knowing’ what I’m saying? This something in your body? 6 feet/5 feet. What is ‘knowing’ in that body? It is the consciousness isn’t it? Are you listening, are you ‘knowing’ what is happening here? You think only the little mind or the consciousness in your little body alone can know? This knowingness is present also in every particle of creation. How do we know? Only through the head? Only through the senses? No. Our entire body has the ability to know. The mind is not just in the head, it is all over the body. Say suppose, in a dorm, all you are having a pajama party, several of you are sleeping in a room and someone calls James. Only James will wake up, when you’re all asleep, when your name is called and you wake up not other person. I mean if the shout is loud then everyone would jump out of the bed. But even in sleep we have an ability to know. And this ability to know is permeating in our entire consciousness and consciousness is present all over the body and beyond the body.

This is gyana, the knowingness of the intelligence. Or the intelligence in the existence. You might have seen the touch-me-not plant. When you go near it, it already closes. The plants can feel, they know. Same way animals have got their own degree of knowingness. Dog can sense, birds can sense something that is going to happen. If there is an earthquake you can hear the birds a few hours earlier making huge noises. Your dogs can feel much earlier than you could feel it. You might have experienced this isn’t it? There is a degree of knowingness present in the entire creation. It varies like the level of love also varies. See how much love a dog expresses, suppose you are out even a few hours and you come back home and the dog goes crazy. Jumps all over the place, jumps on you, it tries to pour out all its love on you. It doesn’t say I love you very much, doesn’t say I cant live without you but that moment it just flirts you with its innermost feeling of love. In the same way the plants/trees in your garden do emit love, they express love to you. You can do this, these are simple experiments at home. If you attend to one particular tree and just be with it. Don’t have to write a letter to it or say I love you or anything like that. Just be in that space near a tree and you will see that growth of a tree is much more. And if you just intend you know let the flowers blossom fast, you know they blossom. People sometimes get surprised when we have meditation and satsang and singing and all, the flowers sometimes stay for a whole month. People have reported. It’s nothing surprising. It’s the law of nature. Love is part of wholeness. It’s a nature. It’s a love that’s the subtlest energy that we all live on. Gyana… the knowingness or knowledge is the 4th characteristic of any object. Are you all listening?

So now what is karma? We’ll pick karma. Most used and often misunderstood word, karma. What is karma? Karma is action. Literal meaning of karma is action. The action could be latent, could be in the form of tendency, could be a future happening. So there are 3 types of karma. Prarabhdha – means the action, which is manifest now. You are listening. This is an action. This is manifest now. You wanted to hear this several hours ago. That was a latent karma, so you came back from your work and you said ok I’m going to Sheraton to listen to the talk. That thought which came brought you from your home to this place and this action for a future karma is called Sanchita karma. The collected karma, the present karma, which is running/in action, and then the future karma that would happen. After listening to what we are discussing here now, you’ll go back home and then you might remember or you may totally forget it. This is aghami karma. The future karma. So the impression in the mind is latent action. It is still action but it is latent. Just like the memory, a memory is functional now other memories are latent within us. You know the mathematical table, you have memorized it, when you need it, it just pops up. Are you getting what I’m saying? You might have studied Georgie-lit. Poem from George. And you know that. And when you want it, then it comes up. Or the national anthem. So certain impression, strong impression in the mind remains and they form the future karma. Every habit is a sort of karma. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Suppose you have been drinking coffee every morning and one day you don’t drink, you get a headache. This is coffee-karma. (laughter) Now how to eliminate coffee-karma either by drinking it, or by observing it. Ok everyday I’ve been drinking a coffee its no good for me. Let the headache come for a while. Take a Tylenol or do some breathing or meditate or jog. Being aware of a tendency in us will help us to overcome the tendency. Or experiencing the tendency will overcome the tendency. Here is a play of gyana. Knowledge. Awareness. Here knowledge means awareness. Sense of knowingness. When you increase the sense of knowingness in you, karma gets reduced. All the animals have got only prarabhdha karma. Means the karma of which they do not have any control. The nature runs them so they don’t accumulate a future karma. If you are like an animal totally you don’t get any karma. But as a human being this is impossible because our mind gets into that impression.

Now reincarnation, that’s another topic. Reincarnation means coming again into body. Our mind is energy and by the law of thermodynamics you know energy cannot be destroyed. 3rd law of thermodynamics. If mind is energy, what happens to this energy when someone dies? Now when someone dies what is happening? Death is almost like a sleep. What happens to you when you sleep? You know the most ironic thing is that we sleep everyday but we have never met our sleep. Every night we go into bed and sleep but you have never met your sleep. If you meet your sleep, if you happen to understand your sleep you will understand your death also. While sleeping your whole consciousness/attention/your mind, shrinks and shrinks and then one by one you are shut off from the outer experiences and move inward. Into a void, a space. And then how you wake up in the morning, the same energy, the same consciousness, which was shrunk, now starts expanding, which opens up and you wake up. And if you carefully observe the mechanism, the last thought that you get just before falling asleep, becomes the first thought when you wake up. This gives you a clue of your reincarnation. The mind, which is full of different impressions, leaves this body but the impressions remain with the mind like a balloon and waits for a proper situation for the same mind to come down. And when there is copulation, when there is a proper womb formation, then it just draws/pulls that mind into that womb. And then a child is born. A body is gained.

So it is the last thought which is most important. Whatever you do throughout your life at least in the last moment your mind should be free and happy. If you are happy the last moment then you get a better body next time. It is almost impossible to get animal body after human birth, its very rare but still it is possible. If someone in the last moment keeps thinking about chicken, they will be born in the poultry farm. (Laughter) (Paras note: Thank God I’m over hotwings!!!)

Coz the last impression will be the strongest impression and that impression in the mind will produce such circumstances, situations for the mind to take on the body. You might have heard this tradition in England, Asia, China, India, Africa often people would name their grandson or great grandson the same name as the grand father/father. George V and George VI. This is also true because when someone before dying, the strongest impression in their mind is of their children/grand children. And you find many cases that the grand children do exactly the same way as their grandfathers or fathers or somebody in the family were doing. If it was a very well knit family, situation. They would act and behave like them even though they were born several decades apart. Have you noticed? How many of you have experienced this? This is very common, because the children are the strongest impression in a mind of the grandparents. Often. Strong impression will create such a karma, because every impression is karma, but nothing to worry about, coz karma is not written on rock, it is fluid. And karma is always bound by time coz every action has only a limited reaction, not infinite. Suppose someone commits a crime they get imprisonment in jail with a time limit. Some time is kept. So every karma has only a limited sphere of its effect. Good or bad. See you do something good to people and they’ll come and thank you, they are grateful to you as long as they are experiencing that effect of it. Do you see what I’m saying?

Karma is that which propels reincarnation. Stronger the impression, the nature of next life could be that, predicted by that. There is one thing that can erase the karma that is awareness. Knowledge. Self-awareness, if you are aware of yourself, if you are in total love, then you are free from karma. When you are in total knowledge, total awareness, that is what the Buddha and other rishis have said. Coming out of the cycle of birth and death. That is you have a choice, if you want to come you can come, ok let me go there, play for sometime and come back. That you are not bound by an impression, you are free. See a jailor and a prisoner could be the best example here. A prisoner is in the jail and the jailor is also in the jail. But the jailor has the freedom to go in and out and what he wants but not the prisoner. And what gives you that freedom is your awareness. Do you see what I’m saying? Like addictions are nothing but very very strong impression in the consciousness. Weather it is alcohol, sex or drugs, anything, any addiction is like compulsion, compulsive behaviours. All this is part of karma and karma is infinite. You know because creation is not linear function, it is multidimensional. Truth is not linear its multidimensional. It’s like spherical, you know, in a sphere every point is connected with so many other points. If it is just a straight line, one point is connected with only 2 points one back one front. But in a sphere a point is connected 360 degrees from all sides. So Krishna has said in the Gita ‘gahana kamrma… some something’ means unfathomable are the ways of karma.

There are many types of karma, individual karma, immediate family karma, societal karma and the time has a karma of its own too. You know when a plane accident happens, people of all those same karma, on the same day will be on the same day. And if some are not in that, they will escape, walk out of the plane though the plane has burnt down. Have you heard of these stories? See because there was something strong, they had that karma yet their life was not finished, they walk out of that place. Survivors. And it is almost impossible to pin down which karma brings what effect at the deep level. So it is enormous. Of the 3 different karmas. (Sanchita) That karma which we have brought, (prarabhdha) the karma which is reaping fruits and (aghami) the karma which we may incur in the future. Our sanchita, the karma, which we have as a storage/tendency, can be burnt off. We can remove that, eliminate them. All the spiritual practices, services, prayers, loving people around us, nature, meditation, all this aid in erasing the karma, which we have acquired. Which we have brought with us. The praraphdha karma which is already yielding result will have to be experienced. It’s already done, on the run.

Its like you’re on the car, you’re on the way, you have to pull to the side to stop right? You have a choice of changing the lanes but you have no choice of exit when you have missed the exit. Do you see that? There is a freedom yet there is no freedom. When you are on the freeway suppose you have missed an exit. Now you have to go to the next exit. You have to be on the freeway. But you can change the lanes. Fast lane/slow lane. So with the praraphdha karma there is some freedom and there is no freedom. We have to experience those things, whoever it is. And then there is aghami karma, which we might meet in the future. Suppose you violate some laws of nature today and in future you have to experience the consequence. Suppose you fast for 3 days and the 4th day you go and have French fries and 4 days of French fries is good enough for you to fall sick. So this is aghami karma, you know if you do this you are going to experience that. Knowingly or unknowingly that future karma we do and we have to experience the consequence of it, which could be stopped. If you steal today, you cannot say oh I have stolen today but tomorrow no one will catch me. The police can catch you tomorrow. You cannot say oh I didn’t not steal today, it was yesterday. (Laughter) You cannot say oh I live in the present moment (One of the tools of AOL). You cannot say oh that was a different person I changed, I didn’t do it. So this is aghami karma, yield in the future.

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Some people ask why bad things happen to good people. You’re good today, today you’re very nice, you don’t know what you did yesterday. As you sow, so shall you reap. So those things give result in the future, now today’s karma if you take care of it, then tomorrow it will not bother us. And every karma has a limited span of its results, mainly 5 things come to us in life from the sanchita karma. From the karma you acquired in the previous time. 5 aspects. Birth and the place of birth, the parents you are born of, your education and line of education, how much you acquire knowledge. And then the wealth and source of wealth. Your longevity and mode of death. These 5 things come from sanchita karma. Acquired karma. Now how rich we become, how much we can grow in our awareness, our marriage, children, social work, all this is aghami karma. Future karma. And the future karma you can associate with now. What you gain now becomes your future karma. So you have certain degree of freedom to act now and acquire more karma. And you have certain fate or call it certain destiny that you are provided with that you cannot change. Do you see, do you have any control over where you were born? No. This has already happened and it is yielding the result to us. Generally we can understand them like this yet I’m saying there is always a possibility open, it’s never a closed possibility. And what makes it an open possibility is the presence of dharma, our nature. The human nature, which has freedom in it.

And the second prema, the love that we are. As I said love is the common factor of the entire creation. If you see anything animate/inanimate, there is love permeating in the whole creation. And your connectedness with that love takes you beyond birth and beyond death. You know usually we say don’t hate anybody. You know why? When you hate someone their impression becomes so strong in you, you become like them. Not for their sake, not to be compassionate to them. So your hatred makes you like them, so often you become like the person whom you hate and also you become like the person whom you love. Coz love and hate in fact are the same, one standing upside down. Love is straight and hatred is the same thing upside down. Distortion of love is hate. And to get beyond love and hatred is through knowledge, through awareness. See there is only one thing. This is another dimension to look at the reality. Like one thing is to see how many people are sitting here? 8-900? And each head is coming with some thoughts like some coca-cola bottle. Bubbles come out of them. So each body is emitting bubbles of thought from it. But there is only one coca-cola, maybe with a different flavour or brand. It’s the same drink. Can you see that? How many billion people on this planet? 8-9 Billion? 6 Billion are living on this planet, 6 billion heads, 6 billion thoughts every second. In this wholeconsciousness. Every second, its not staying there. They come and go another set of 6 billion thoughts, some are in Chinese some in English, some French, etc. all different emotions, all different colors, its all happening in this moment.

This moment has a mind of its own. And so many thoughts come in this moment and they vanish just like the waves in the ocean. So give so much importance to what someone says? Including what I’m saying now? So we go beyond the concept to a reality, which is beyond thought, which is beyond words, which is beyond the opposite of love and hate. That is real love. That something that’s beyond hatred is true love. This is knowledge, this is gyana. And all the karmas they dissolve in gyana, in knowledge, in awareness. Awareness has the strength to dissolve and destroy any karma. That frees you, brings the freedom in you coz you’re one with that divinity. One with that totality of existence, and you live every moment in that. Anyway you’re doing it!

People normally ask questions after the knowledge sessions and Guruji answers aptly.

Between incarnations are you aware of everything or you come back to learn more?
– Both possibilities are there, you don’t learn anything there. In between incarnation there is no learning. There is only resting.

I was wondering when you mentioned last thought being so important to the next incarnation. What happens to people when they are taken violently? Like in war?
– See I said it is not linear it is very complex. Of course the last thought deeper impression is there. But there could be deeper impression. Its not that all those who are killed in war have the same type of life. All different.

I had cancer and death with my possible death. I was quite frightened by the Tibetan book of the dead. There was freighting things that were happening in the transition. I was scared it would happen to me and so didn’t finish the book. But then I hear things from other people, people dying on the operating table and they have a wonderful experience and don’t want to come back. Could you help me with that?
– I have to tell you I have not read the book. I don’t read books first of all. What is in that book? Demons and things came? Don’t worry about that, no such thing. No you wont be fried like chicken, not possible. (Laughter) Death is not any freighting thing it is deep rest and it’s a loving space you are in. The only discomfort or uncomfortable souls are those who commit suicides. Coz when a person commits suicide, they are doing something very foolish. Suppose one has an anguish and they don’t know how to resolve the anguish in the mind so they destroy the body. By destroying the body the anguish in the mind does not get destroyed, they are left with more anguish. For that prayer, meditation and just singing and being in love, these things will help. Anyway that will not stay forever either. For some longer period of time that will stay. Its like you’re feeling cold and you’re taking your jacket off. But otherwise nothing to worry.

My sister was killed by a car which walking across the street while she was drunk. She was alcoholic. Her son died the same way in a car accident, but he was driving. I was wondering when a person passes over and they are drunk, is it harder for them?
– See I cannot say, all possibilities are there. It’s an individual case. But you know one thing. There is nothing hard in life. And if you think something is hard, there will also be a love and strength that will come and help you. Its always there, the divine protection to you is always always there in every situation. That’s why I said the universe has not just karma it has prema also, love also. There is a relief home.

Do you think there’s a time you work out all your karma and you don’t come back, you have ultimate awareness?
– Then you have the freedom to come back and come back. (Guruji laughs)

And if you choose not to come back?
– You know why and when you will choose not to come back? When you are scared about the world. When you know it’s just a playfield ok let me go help out many people there, you’d like to come back.

What are the concepts of hell and heaven?
– Hell is all unpleasant impressions in the mind, its painful impressions in the consciousness. Hell hmmm? Heaven is all the pleasant impression in the mind, in the consciousness. There is not a place out there beyond the moon or somewhere where you will be taken in and chopped off and fried. There is no such place. Hell is created by our own mind, the pain and those impressions. And heaven our own conscious brings heaven, our own conscious brings hell.

Do incarnations take place other dimensions besides earth?
– Earth is enough to deal with us now. (Guruji jokes) Possible maybe we don’t know.

You said humans rarely reincarnate as animals but do animals reincarnate as humans?
– Yes yes, animals do incarnate as human beings. Definitely. If you see, especially if you observe the tribals in most remote parts of this world. Tribals, very innocent people, you will see they have no lines in their hand. One or two lines, very few lines, and very innocent. They don’t have anger, jealousy, greed you know. It’s amazing, their quality of consciousness, mind is very different. They are like the fresh lives immediately from the animal kingdom. Again, the fear in the animal is responsible for its next birth. Like a rat is always incarnated as cat. (Laughter) Coz the rat is afraid of the cat. And if a cat is afraid of something, what ever the fear is, like a snake incarnates as a mongoose. Coz the fear forms its greatest, deepest impression so it takes onto that body. Same way suppose a beast is killed by a lion or tiger, its scared by it, then it incarnates as that animal. That’s why you would see often a tiger goes and jumps from the back. A lion or tiger never attacks a beast from the front. Now a beast is killed but it doesn’t know who killed it. That’s why those so many beast are being killed, tigers don’t increase so many. It’s an interesting topic huh? (Laughter)

I feel so very good in your presence. How does one maintain that awareness? Sometimes in real life gets really hard. Can you perhaps tell me what would be a good thing to be aware of and what to do?
– There is a story in India, which is given as a caution to everybody, that you have to be cautious about your alertness. You cannot say oh I have alertness and slip from alertness to unconsciousness. So the there is a story. A saint, enlightened being was sitting on a bank of a river. I was very pious, free, totally free. Then he saw a deer and he got attached to it. Deer was injured and so he took it and took care of the deer. It is said the next life he became a deer. Said his compassion, attachment became so much that it is only one case, that only once it has happened. That an enlightened person became a deer. So there’s a story of jada bharata, very famous, its used as the last word of advice/caution that also this is possible.

People around me suffer from fear and hatred want to get beyond it, to love, but don’t have the tools or ability. Could you talk about some of the simple things we can do to get to real love?
– See negative emotion is bound to rise. In life this happens unless you’re so strong to see everybody as bubbles. But in your day-to-day life, feeling of fear hatred jealousy these things arise, when they arise we do not know what to do about it. How to overcome it, how to get rid of it. You feel nasty inside and you wait for time to release you off that feeling. Sometimes it becomes more and over a period of time it definitely reduces. Time definitely decreases any negative emotion. But neither at school or home nobody taught us how to get rid of those feelings. Here comes the secret of the breath. If you breath through it, you will see how in 10 minutes you can get rid of it. That’s no. 1. This the most power tool.
Second is through the knowledge, deep meditation. Third is knowing this entire creation is made up of love and only love. And all these things are just ripples of emotions they come and go. This awareness. But all this can happen when we work through our breath.

Is it possible to be physical immortal and not to die?
– First if you want to talk about physical immortality you cannot just talk on air. You need solid proof. Buddha has died, Krishna has died and all the people who spoke about physical immortality also died. (Laughter) There is no point in talking something, which is not in our experience, which is not concrete in our experience. You can guess oh maybe there is a possibility.
But this only creates a hallucination in the mind, it’s a concept. But I can tell you it is possible to live long, 2-300 years. I have met people who have lived 300 years, 400-year-old gentleman, but he also passed away recently 4-5 years ago. There was a man who was nearly 400 years old coz the grandfather of the town where he was staying, he had seen that person the same way and his grandfather also told him that this man was there. This was a swami in South of India in a village called Bullachi/Kurrachi? We also have a video of him. This man is very old, he was speaking a language, which was very old, no one would understand him even. People considered him as a very holy man, take his blessings, very old man but he passed away too so the proof is not that.

Question 1 – Who made God?
Question 2 – (cant hear)
– Ok I’ll answer this question if you answer where did a sphere begin. Where did a ball begin? The ball never begins anywhere not end anywhere. Just exists. If God was created then it’s no God. What is God? G-O-D. The generator, operator and destroyer. And what is this G-O-D? That which is permeating everywhere, a power that is permeating. Like space, which is beginingless and endless. Where does the space end? Where does the sky end? Do you know? Children ask what is beyond sky? They think it’s a blue curtain. Or something must be there. Where does the sky end? You know in the Upanishads.. Upanishads are the most valuable knowledge on this. What is God? Beautifully said… The space is God. Everything is born in the space, they remain in the space, they dissolve back into the space. Said there are 4 characteristic of God. Satyam – It is true, truth means energy. The power. Gyanam – It is knowingness, there is knowingness in the infinity. Anantam – It is infinite. Don’t ask me where is the end of infinity. If it has an end it is not… infinity. That which is infinite, that which has knowledge and that which is truth and energy. That is God. And that is what you are made up of too. Your body is limited but your consciousness, close your eyes and see, its infinity. There is no end to your mind. Your mind does not begin here or end here. Its beginingless, endless.

When you meditate you’re not supposed to think right? How do you get the knowledge and awareness if you don’t think and its just blank space? How do you get it?
-How did I get it? You know everything comes out of blank space. If it’s already filled with so many things no knowledge would come up. Got it? (Laughter)

You’ve been saying something about tendencies, being aware about tendencies. Example smoking, ok? How do you quit the habit by being aware of that tendency? How does that work? What’s what I didn’t get?
– How do you get over tendency of smoking for example, is that the question. Now the easiest thing would be, we want to do easiest things we don’t want to do anything difficult right? (Laughter) Though it is difficult to get rid of, we want to do easiest thing. Now easiest thing is take a vow of a definite period of time. Don’t think I’ll never smoke for all my life, say ok 40 days I’m not going to smoke, come what may. Promise to God. Ok God I’m not going to smoke for 40 days, if I do it… do me! (Laughter) Finish me! When you take such a vow then it becomes easier. So you’ll wait, and then you’ll see oh I feel so fine 40 days nothing doing. Then if you really want to smoke, smoke for a week and then again take another 40 days. This is the way to get rid of it, taking limited period of vow. Second, a lady came to me, Guruji you have to help me I’m still smoking, I cannot do this. I told her ok, you have a choice between cigarette and me. If you smoke, forget it, don’t talk to me, don’t listen to my talks, don’t come and meditate. Drop kriya, everything. And because she had so much love for the knowledge, kriya, all this, she just dropped smoking. Though she was crying for a day or two. She found it so cruel that Panditji (Guruji) would ask me to make such a choice. But after a week she was so happy that I said it so strong and harsh. Like there’s someone who is very close to you, think that it’s a choice, either you like your husband/wife or you like cigarette. Take a challenge. Coz love can carry you through all habits. Love has such a power. 3 things are there, one is practice, if you do practice/discipline you can get through any habits you don’t want to have. Second fear, fear can get you through any habits, fear of a disease or death or whatever.. God getting angry at you. The 3rd is love, I don’t know any other. Maybe the 4th you can tell me.

What’s the concept on understanding angels and our relationship to angels?
– Just look at the chandeliers. Do you see all the colors of the chandeliers. See there is only one color of light in there but when light passes through the crystals there’s so many colors coming out right. 7 colors, just like the rainbow. Rainbow colors are contained in the white light, but white light you don’t see any colors, but when they pass through it and they appear to be different colors. The spirit/divine consciousness is only one. But it has many attributes, many qualities and some qualities/attributes you can call them as angels. They are part of one whole, and I tell you, you are part of the light and all angels are part of you, they serve you. This could be a whole topic by itself, but some other time. Such confusion about angels, somewhere out there. It is the projection of our own consciousness, our own life force.

There’s the expression old soul, new soul. Does a new soul mean, just boom and there? Could you explain it?
– Just like wine, old wine, new wine. (Guruji laughs) Older the wine more expensive the wine. It’s all relative, don’t have to worry about that. Just float into the meditation.