22) Self Knowledge (Atmajnan) – On Karma (Part 4) Types of Karma

TALK 22 by Prabhuji  (11 APR 2016)

Let us contemplate on the different types of Karma.

There are four different types of Karma. They are
1. Sanchita Karma
2. Prarabhdha Karma
3. Agami Karma
4. Kiryamana Karma

‘Sanchita’ means ‘accumulated’. All the karma which you have accumulated has become a big pool. It is like a person having a bank account with hundreds of crores of rupees all his lifetime earnings from his business. Similarly it is the lifetimes of accumulated karma. Whatever you have done from all the past lives go to an account called Sanchita Karma.

There are some fixed deposits in that, something which can mature, let us say one fixed deposit of 5 lakhs is maturing out of hundreds of crores, so that matured amount you withdraw and start a new business. That part of ‘Sanchita Karma’ which is matured, you take that and start a new life, an initial seed funding for new life that is ‘Prarabhdha Karma’. Whatever you have to experience in this life is part of that seed funding called ‘Prarabhdha Karma’.
If he is a good business man with the 5 lakh initial funding, he will start doing good business every day, he may earn a fifty thousand rupees interest and all the interest or profit is in-turn deposited in the bank. Similarly with the ‘Prarabhdha Karma’ you start doing more karma and all the karma impression are stored in the ‘Sanchita Karma’, accumulating further. So the work which you are doing using the body ‘Prarabhdha Karma’ which you have taken is called ‘Kiryamana’ Karma. ‘Agami’ means Karma which has yet to mature or come in future.
These are the four different types of Karma.
Buddha used to say ‘I have born many life times, if you pile up all my backbones the back bones itself will pileup to be a mountain as big as Himalayas. And I have gone through so much sufferings in all those lives, that if you pool up it will become a mighty big river like Ganga’. So each one has big history not small. Lot of lifetimes you have gone through, 84 millions of lifeforms you have gone through, and multiple lifetimes in each form. This doesn’t include you life as stone and plants, that’s another set.

During your enlightenment you realise that ‘I am not the body-mind-intellect, I am the pure consciousness’. After enlightenment you realise that the karma which you said you have done doesn’t belong to you. So overnight, the moment you realise, all the Sanchita karma will vanish, Agami Karma will stop, but your Kiryamana what you are doing now will become purified and will become divine. Prarabhdha Karma will not stop, it is like arrow being shot, you cannot take back the shot arrow, it will continue. That’s how the karma operates.

Transcription by Atmajyothi Satyavathi