The different types of karma
There are four dimensions, two of which are not relevant right now. For understanding, we can talk about the other two. One is sanchita karma. This is the warehouse of karma which goes right back to a single-celled animal and even inanimate substances from where life evolved. All the information is there. If you close your eyes, become aware enough and look into yourself, you will know the nature of the universe – not because you are looking at it through your head, but simply because this information is present in the making of the body. There is a warehouse of information going back into creation. That is your sanchita karma. But you cannot take your warehouse and do retail business. You need to have a shop to do retail. That “retail shop,” which is for this life, is called prarabdha.
Prarabdha karma is a certain amount of information allotted for this life. Depending upon the vibrancy of your life, life allots for itself how much information it can take on. The creation is very compassionate. If it gives you the whole lot of karma that you have, you will be dead. Right now, many people are tortured by the simple memories from the 30-40 years of this lifetime. If they are given a hundred times that memory, they wouldn’t survive it. So, nature allots prarabdha, an allotted memory that you could handle.
What is karma and its role in a seeker’s life?
Once you enter the spiritual path, you are making a statement, “I am in a hurry to get to my ultimate destination.” You don’t want to take one hundred lifetimes. And in the process of this one hundred lifetimes you may gather enough karma to last out for another thousand lifetimes. You want to hurry it up. So, once a spiritual process begins, if initiations are done in a certain way, it opens up dimensions which would not have opened up otherwise. You would have lived a more peaceful life if you were not spiritual, but a more lifeless life too, closer to death than life. Without anything fundamental being shaken within you, maybe you just passed comfortably.
So does this mean all negative things happen to you once you are on the spiritual path? That’s not how it is. It is just that when life moves at a tremendous pace – a pace much faster pace than that of people around you – you think some tragedy is happening to you. No tragedy is happening to you. It is just that they are going at normal speed but your life is rolling on fast-forward.
Many people have this wrong notion that once you enter a spiritual path, you will become peaceful and everything will be clear. If you take on a convenient belief system and become a single-track mind, then everything seems to be clear. But if you are genuinely on the spiritual path, nothing will be clear. Everything will be a blur. The faster you travel the more of a blur it becomes.
If you are in a hurry to reach your destination, you gas it. You see nothing. You are just going. The spiritual path is like this. If you are really on the spiritual path, everything is in turmoil all around you. But you are still going, so it’s okay. Is this alright? If it’s not alright, you can go at the evolutionary pace. Maybe it will take a million years and you will get there.
For those who are in a hurry, there is one kind of path. For those who are not in a hurry, there is another kind of path. You must be clear what the hell you want. If you get onto the fast track and try to go slow, you will be run over. If you are on the slow path and try to go fast, you will get a ticket. Every seeker must always decide – does he want to just enjoy the road or does he want to get to the destination quick?
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