Recent Changes - Search:
Eng /

Karma

Karma is a word originating from the vedic culture. Literally it means activity, work, or labor. Everyone is according the vedic vision born with karma and therefore nobody can be called unemployed or jobless in this vision. In practical reality though speaks one usually of karma as the consequence of one's actions that is attached to one's person, that one takes along in one's life, and even along from one life to another. Karma is a burden, work load, one needs to rid oneself of with dharma when one wants to reach the enlightenment in desirelessness and the liberation of being engaged in devotional service to (the person of) God. More practical is karma also, in vedic rhetoric, often understood as one's profit minded work or fruitive activity, the wantonness in service, the ulterior motive, that motive which together with the ignorance and the illusion associated with it constitutes the basis for all misery in the world.

Vedically one speaks of three kinds of karma:

-Karma: fruitive labor, to work for the money, to desire results, profit minded work. The ignoramus thinks naively about the concept of fruitive actions and even strives for it with organizing political parties for the purpose. Ignorant, materialistic man is always talking about the money and the sensual pleasures. The conscious human being knows that to work for the good cause is the true form of labor, and that working for the money in fact is the true unemployment with which the good cause is not served. In the Bhagavad Gîtâ is stated about this (B.G. 4.18): "One who sees labor for profit as inactivity and who sees work as a sacrifice as labor is intelligent in human affairs; he, although engaged in all sorts of action is of the transcendental."
-Akarma: devotional service, voluntarism, religious activities, activities free from reactions, pure servitude, selfless, desiresless servitude. Akarma forms the basis of the dharma, the religion, the way to God, the consciousness of God and a stable sense of community and peace on the basis of righteousness. In heaven one finds oneself on the basis of akarma. On earth one sojourns on the basis of one's karma.
-Vikarma: unwanted labor, unwanted enterprising, or self-organisation, illegal activity, crime. Vikarma is the way to a hellish society characterized by lust, greed and anger as the basic qualities of the perverted human being who estranged from the soul has no faith in his fellow man anymore nor any faith in himself having lost his belief in God.

Karma must with penance be undone in akarma with the elimination of vikarma. That is the purport of the wisdom concerning the concept of labor.

Vedic reference:

  • The first six chapters of the Bhagavad Gîtâ are held representative for the contemplation on the consequences of fruitive activities, the karma one has. The rest of the twelve chapters deal with the devotional service in uniting one's consciousness and the knowledge, the wisdom of uniting one's consciousness which is the yoga.
  • karman: in the M.W.- lexicon: %{a} n. (%{A} m. L.) , (%{kR} Un2. iv , 144) , act , action , performance , business RV. AV. S3Br?. MBh?. &c. ; office , special duty , occupation , obligation (frequently ifc. , the first member of the compound being either the person who performs the action [e.g. %{vaNik-k-}] or the person or thing for or towards whom the action is performed [e.g. %{rAja-k-} , %{pazu-k-}] or a specification of the action [e.g. %{zaurya-k-} , %{prIti-k-}]) S3Br?. Mn. Bhartr2. &c. ; any religious act or rite (as sacrifice , oblation &c. , esp. as originating in the hope of future recompense and as opposed to speculative religion or knowledge of spirit) RV. AV. VS. Ragh. &c. ; work , labour , activity (as opposed to rest , %{prazAnti}) Hit. RPra1t?. &c. ; physicking , medical attendance Car. ; action consisting in motion (as the third among the seven categories of the Nya1ya philosophy ; of these motions there are five , viz. %{ut-kSepaNa} , %{ava-kSepaNa} , %{A-kuJcana} , %{prasAraNa} , and %{gamana} , qq. vv.) Bha1sha1p. Tarkas. ; calculation Su1ryas. ; product , result , effect Mn. xii , 98 Sus3r. ; organ of sense S3Br?. xiv (or of action see %{karme7ndriya}) ; (in Gr.) the object (it stands either in the acc. [in active construction] , or in the nom. [in passive construction] , or in the gen. [in connection with a noun of action] ; opposed to %{kartR} the subject) Pa1n2. 1-4 , 49 ff. (it is of four kinds , viz. a. %{nirvartya} , when anything new is produced e.g. %{kaTaM@karoti} , `" he makes a mat "' [258,3] ; %{putraM@prasUte} , `" she bears a son "' ; b. %{vikArya} , when change is implied either of the substance and form e.g. %{kASThaM@bhasma@karoti} , `" he reduces fuel to ashes "' ; or of the form only e.g. %{suvarNaM@kuNDalaM@karoti} , `" he fashions gold into an ear-ring "' ; c. %{prApya} , when any desired object is attained e.g. %{grAmaM@gacchati} , `" he goes to the village "' ; %{candraM@pazyati} , `" he sees the moon "' ; d. %{anIpsita} , when an undesired object is abandoned e.g. %{pApaM@tyajati} , `" he leaves the wicked "') ; former act as leading to inevitable results , fate (as the certain consequence of acts in a previous life) Pan5cat. Hit. Buddh. , (cf. %{karma-pAka} and %{-vipAka}) ; the tenth lunar mansion VarBr2S?. &c.

See also:

External Link

  • The Filognostic Manifesto - Work and Unemployment This filognostic manifesto, a manifest on the love for knowledge or filognosy, elaborates on the themes of The Order Of Time with the subject of work and unemployment as its lead to answer the fundamental questions of war and peace. The purpose is to arrive at a clear lead for the politics of state in relation to the cultural and natural order of time and timemanagement.

Category: English | Definitions


Page views for this page since March 3, 2008: