Karma and

Reincarnation
AN INSPIRED TALK BY SATGURU SIVAYA SUBRAMUNIYASWAMI

2
 Karma and Reincarnation

The twin beliefs of karma and reincarnation are among Hinduism’s many jewels of knowledge.
Others include dharma or our pattern of religious conduct, worshipful communion with God and
Gods, the necessary guidance of the Sat Guru, and finally enlightenment through personal
realization of our identity in and with God. So the strong-shouldered and keen-minded rishis
knew and stated in the Vedas.

And these are not mere assumptions of probing, brilliant minds. They are laws of the cosmos.
As God’s force of gravity shapes cosmic order, karma shapes experiential order. Our long
sequence of lives is a tapestry of creating and resolving karmas-positive, negative and an
amalgam of the two. During the succession of a soul’s lives-through the mysteries of our higher
chakras and God’s and Guru’s Grace-no karmic situation will arise that exceeds an individual’s
ability to resolve it in love and understanding.

Many people are very curious about their past lives and expend great time, effort and money to
explore them. Actually, this curious probing into past lives is unnecessary. Indeed it is a natural
protection from reliving past trauma or becoming infatuated more with our past lives that our
present life that the inner recesses of the muladhara memory chakra are not easily accessed.
For, as we exist now is a sum total of all our past lives. In our present moment, our mind and
body state is the cumulative result of the entire spectrum of our past lives. So, no matter how
great the intellectual knowing of these two key principles, it is how we currently live that
positively shapes karma and unfolds us spiritually. Knowing the laws, we are responsible to
resolve blossoming karmas from past lives and create karma that, projected into the future, will
advance, not hinder, us.

Karma literally means “deed or act,” but more broadly describes the principle of cause and
effect. Simply stated, karma is the law of action and reaction which governs consciousness. In
physics-the study of energy and matter-Sir Isaac Newton postulated that for every action there
is an equal and opposite reaction. Push against a wall. Its material is molecularly pushing back
with a force exactly equal to yours. In metaphysics, karma is the law that states that every
mental, emotional and physical act, no matter how insignificant, is projected out into the
psychic mind substance and eventually returns to the individual with equal impact.

The akashic memory in our higher chakras faithfully records the soul’s impressions during its
series of earthly lives, and in the astral/mental worlds in-between earth existences. Ancient
yogis, in psychically studying the time line of cause/effect, assigned three categories to karma.
The first is sanchita, the sum total of past karma yet to be resolved. The second category is
prarabdha, that portion of sanchita karma being experienced in the present life. Kriyamana, the
third type, is karma you are presently creating. However, it must be understood that your past
negative karma can be altered into a smoother, easier state through the loving, heart-chakra
nature, through dharma and sadhana. That is the key of karmic wisdom. Live religiously well

3
and you will create positive karma for the future and soften negative karma of the past. Truths
and Myths About Karma

Karma operates not only individually, but also in ever-enlarging circles of group karma where
we participate in the sum karma of multiple souls. This includes family, community, nation, race
and religion, even planetary group karma. So if we, individually or collectively, unconditionally
love and give, we will be loved and given to. The individuals or groups who act soulfully or
maliciously toward us are the vehicle of our own karmic creation. The people who manifest
your karma are also living through past karma and simultaneously creating future karma. For
example, if their karmic pattern did not include miserliness, they would not be involved in your
karma of selfishness. Another person may express some generosity toward you, fulfilling the
gifting karma of your past experience. Imagine how intricately interconnected all the cycles of
karma are for our planet’s life forms.

Many people believe in the principle of karma, but don’t apply its laws to their daily life or even
to life’s peak experiences. There is a tendency to cry during times of personal crisis, “Why has
God done this to me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” While God is the creator and
sustainer of the cosmic law of karma, He does not dispense individual karma. He does not
produce cancer in one person’s body and develop Olympic athletic prowess in another’s. We
create our own experiences. It is really an exercising of our soul’s powers of creation. Karma,
then, is our best spiritual teacher. We spiritually learn and grow as our actions return to us to be
resolved and dissolved. In this highest sense, there is no good and bad karma; there is self-
created experience that presents opportunities for spiritual advancement. If we can't draw
lessons from the karma, then we resist and/or resent it, lashing out with mental, emotional or
physical force. The original substance of that karmic event is spent and no longer exists, but
the current reaction creates a new condition of harsh karma.

Responsibility resolving karma is among the most important reasons that a Sat Guru is
necessary in a sincere seeker’s life. The Guru helps the devotee to hold his mind in focus, to
become pointedly conscious of thought, word and deed. Without the guidance and grace of the
Guru, the devotee’s mind will be splintered between instinctive and intellectual forces, making
it very difficult to resolve karma. Only when karma is wisely harnessed can the mind become
still enough to experience its own superconscious depths.

Karma is also misunderstand as fate, an unchangeable destiny decreed long ago by agencies
or forces external to us such as the planet and stars, or Gods. Karma is neither fate nor
predetermination. Each soul has absolute free will Its only boundary is karma. God and Gods
do not dictate the experiential events of our lives, nor do they test us. And there is no cosmic
force that molds our life. Indeed, when beseeched through deep prayer and worship, the
Supreme Being and His great Gods may intercede within our karma, lightening its impact or
shifting its location in time to a period when we are better prepared to resolve it. Hindu
astrology, or Jyotisha, details a real relation between ourselves and the geography of the solar
system and certain star clusters, but it is not a cause-effect relation. Planets and stars don't
cause or dictate karma. Their orbital relationships establish proper conditions for karmas to
activate and a particular type of personality nature to develop. Jyotisha describes a relation of
revealment: it reveals prarabdha karmic patterns for a given birth and how we will generally

4
react to them (kriyamana karma). This is like a pattern of different colored windows allowing
sunlight in to reveal and color a house’s arrangement of furniture. With astrological knowledge
we are aware of our life’s karmic pattern and can thereby anticipate it wisely. Reincarnation: A
Soul’s Path to Godness

The soul dwells as the inmost body of light and superconscious, universal mind of a series of
nested bodies, each more refined than the next: physical, pranic, astral, mental. In our
conscious mind we think and feel ourselves to be a physical body with some intangible spirit
within it. Yet, right now our real identity is the soul that is sensing through its multiple bodies
physical, emotional and mental experience. Recognizing this as reality, we powerfully know
that life doesn't end with the death of the biological body. The soul continues to occupy the
astral body, a subtle, luminous duplicate of the physical body. This subtle body is made of
higher-energy astral matter and dwells in a dimension called the astral plane. If the soul body
itself is highly evolved, it will occupy the astral/mental bodies on a very refined plane of the
astral known as the Devaloka, “the world of light-shining beings.” At death, the soul slowly
becomes totally aware in its astral/mental bodies and it predominantly lives through those
bodies in the astral dimension.

The soul functions with complete continuity in its astral/mental bodies. It is with these sensitive
vehicles that we experience dream or “astral” worlds during sleep every night. The astral world
is equally as solid and beautiful, as varied and comprehensive as the earth dimension-if not
much more so. Spiritual growth, psychic development, guidance in matters of governance and
commerce, artistic cultivation, inventions and discoveries of medicine, science and technology
all continue by astral people who are “in-between” earthly lives. Many of the Veda hymns
entreat the assistance of devas: advanced astral or mental people. Yet, also in the grey, lower
regions of this vast, invisible dimension exist astral people whose present pursuits are base,
selfish, even sadistic. Where the person goes in the astral plane at sleep or death is dependent
upon his earthly pursuits and the quality of his mind.

Because certain seed karmas can only be resolved in earth consciousness and because the
soul’s initial realizations of Absolute Reality are only achieved in a physical body, our soul
joyously enters another biological body. At the right time, it is reborn into a flesh body that will
best fulfill its karmic pattern. In this process, the current astral body-which is a duplicate of the
last physical form-is sluffed off as a lifeless shell that in due course disintegrates, and a new
astral body develops as the new physical body grows. This entering into another body is called
reincarnation: “re-occupying the flesh."

During our thousands of earth lives, a remarkable variety of life patterns are experienced. We
exist as male and female, often switching back and forth from life to life as the nature becomes
more harmonized into a person exhibiting both feminine nurturing and masculine intrepidness.
We come to earth as princesses and presidents, as paupers and pirates, as tribals and
scientists, as murderers and healers, as atheists and, ultimately, God-Realized sages. We take
bodies of every race and live the many religions, faiths and philosophies as the soul gains
more knowledge and evolutionary experience.

Therefore, the Hindu knows that the belief in a single life on earth, followed by eternal joy or

5
pain is utterly wrong and causes great anxiety, confusion and fear. Hindus know that all souls
reincarnate, take one body and then another, evolving through experience over long periods of
time. Like the caterpillar’s metamorphosis into the butterfly, death doesn't end our existence but
frees us to pursue an even greater development.

Understanding the laws of the death process, the Hindu is vigilant of his thoughts and mental
loyalties. He knows that the contents of his mind at the point of death in large part dictate where
he will function in the astral plane and the quality of his next birth. Secret questionings and
doubt of Hindu belief, and associations with other belief systems will automatically place him
among like-minded people whose beliefs are alien to Hinduism. A nominal Hindu on earth
could be a selfish materialist in the astral world. The Hindu also knows that death must come
naturally, in its own course, and that suicide only accelerates the intensity of one’s karma,
bringing a series of immediate lesser births and requiring several lives for the soul to return to
the exact evolutionary point that existed at the moment of suicide, at which time the still-existing
karmic entanglements must again be faced and resolved.

Two other karmically sensitive processes are: 1) artificially sustaining life in a wholly
incapacitated physical body through mechanical devices, drugs or intravenous feeding; and 2)
euthanasia, “mercy killing.” There is a critical timing in the death transition. The dying process
can involve long suffering or be peaceful or painfully sudden: all dependent on the karma
involved. To keep a person on life support with the sole intent of continuing the body’s
biological functions nullifies the natural timing of death. It also keeps the person’s astral body
earthbound, tethered to a lower astral region rather than being released into higher astral
levels.

An important lesson to learn here is that karma is conditioned by intent. When the medical staff
receives a dangerously ill or injured person and they place him on life support as part of an
immediate life-saving procedure, their intent is pure healing. If their attempts are unsuccessful,
then the life-support devices are turned off, the person dies naturally and there is no karma
involved and it does not constitute euthanasia. However, if the doctors, family or patient decide
to continue life support indefinitely to prolong biological processes, (usually motivated by a
Western belief of a single life) then the intent carries full karmic consequences. When a person
is put on long-term life support, he must be left on it until some natural biological or
environmental event brings death. If he is killed through euthanasia, this again further disturbs
the timing of the death. As a result, the timing of future births would be drastically altered.

Euthanasia, the willful destruction of a physical body, is a very serious karma. This applies to
all cases including someone experiencing long-term, intolerable pain. Even such difficult life
experiences must be allowed to resolve themselves naturally. Dying may be painful, but death
itself is not. All those involved (directly or indirectly) in euthanasia will proportionately take on
the remaining prarabdha karma of the dying person. And the euthanasia participants will, to
the degree contributed, face a similar karmic situation in this or a future life.

Finally, there is exercising wisdom-which is knowing and using divine law-in the overall
context of any situation For example, a vegetative person in a coma is on long-term life support
in a hospital when a patient is brought in for emergency treatment requiring that same life

6
support equipment. Weighing the two karmas, a doctor could dharmically unplug the comatose
patient in order to save the other’s life. Moksha: Freedom From Rebirth

Life’s real attainment is not money, not material luxury, not sexual or eating pleasure, not
intellectual, business or political power, or any other of the instinctive or intellectual needs.
These are natural pursuits, to be sure, but our divine purpose on this earth is to personally
realize our identity in and with God. This is now called by many names: enlightenment, Self-
Realization, God-Realization and Nirvikalpa Samadhi. After many lifetimes of wisely controlling
the creation of karma and resolving past karmas when they return, the soul is fully matured in
the knowledge of these divine laws and the highest use of them. Through the practice of yoga,
the Hindu bursts into God’s superconscious Mind, the experience of bliss, all-knowingness,
perfect silence. His intellect is transmuted, and he soars into the Absolute Reality of God. He is
a jnani, a knower of the Known. When the jnani is stable in repeating his realization of the
Absolute, there is no longer a need for physical birth, for all lessons have been learned, all
karmas fulfilled and Godness is his natural mind state. That individual soul is then naturally
liberated, freed from the cycle of birth, death & rebirth on this planet. After Moksha, our soul
continues its evolution in the inner worlds, eventually to merge back into its origin: God, the
Primal Soul.

Every Hindu expects to seek for and attain moksha. But he or she does not expect that it will
necessarily come in this present life. Hindus know this and do not delude themselves that this
life is the last. Seeking and attaining profound spiritual relizations, they nevertheless know that
there is much to be accomplished on earth and that only mature, God-Realized souls attain
Moksha.

God may seem distant and remote as the experience of our self-created karmas cloud our
mind. Yet, in reality, the Supreme Being is always closer to you than the beat of your heart. His
Mind pervades the totality of your karmic experience and lifetimes. As karma is God’s cosmic
law of cause and effect, dharma is God’s law of Being, including the pattern of Hindu
religiousness. Through following dharma and controlling thought, word and deed, karma is
harnessed and wisely created. You become the master, the knowing creator, not a helpless
victim. Through being consistent in our religiousness, following the yamas and niyamas (Hindu
restraints and observances), performing the pancha nitya karmas (five constant duties), seeing
God everywhere and in everyone, our past karma will soften. We may experience the karma
indirectly through seeing someone else going through a situation that we intuitively know was
a karma we also were to face. But because of devout religiousness, we may experience it
vicariously or in lesser intensity. For example, a physical karma may manifest as a mental
experience or a realistic dream; an emotional karmic storm may just barely touch our mind
before dying out.

The belief in karma and reincarnation brings to each Hindu inner peace and self-assurance.
The Hindu knows that the maturing of the soul takes many lives, and that if the soul is immature
in the present birth, then there is hope, for there will be many opportunities for learning and
growing in future lives. Yes, these beliefs and the attitudes they produce eliminate anxiety,
giving the serene perception that everything is all right as it is. And, there is also a keen insight
into the human condition and appreciation for people in all stages of spiritual unfoldment.