IndiaPost.com - Only action intentionally done produces a result

What is karma? Karma means action. Here karma is action that is deliberately performed by a human being with a sense of doership. Any action that is deliberately performed by us is an action that brings about a result. It is an action for which we are accountable.

An involuntary action like breathing etc. does not produce any result because there is no sense of doership involved in it. That is why if somebody who is fast asleep kicks his neighbor we do not hold him accountable for it because he did not intend to do it.

Even in a court of law, if it can be proven that some crime was committed by a person when he was not in his right mind he may either not be punished or get reduced punishment. That is why the defense lawyer will also try to prove that his client was provoked, or did not intend to commit a crime, or something or the other like that.

The idea is that only an action intentionally done makes one accountable and produces a result. An action that is in keeping with dharma or righteousness produces what we call punya or virtue. If that action is in violation of dharma, it creates the opposite.

Therefore, punya and päpa, virtue and vice, are the results of actions that are either righteous or otherwise. As human beings, we are constantly performing these deliberate actions. One of the main reasons why actions are performed is the fulfillment of desires.

We are born with all kinds of needs. We are born needy and most people also die needy. As these needs arise in the mind, the mind is prompted or sometimes compelled to perform the action to fulfill the needs or desires. Therefore, actions are usually performed as motivated by desires, by needs, or by expectations or demands. Since there is no end to desires, the fulfillment of one desire brings in its wake another desire.

That being the case, human beings are continuously performing actions from birth to death. And, therefore, we keep on accumulating the fruits of these actions. The one who has a sense of doership and has performed the action is accountable for experiencing the results. The next question is, "When will these actions give rise to results?"

That depends upon the kind of action that has been performed. It is like asking when a given seed will result in fruit. That depends upon the kind of seed it is. Certain seeds bring forth fruits in about a year or two. Other seeds take a few years longer, perhaps five years or even ten. It depends entirely upon the seed.

For instance, it may take a mango tree five years of growing before you get mangoes, while it takes a banana or plantain about two years to produce fruit; some seeds fructify soon and some take time. Similarly, there is no rule that an action that is performed now will produce results immediately. Some actions do give immediate results. Eating food appeases hunger as an immediate result.

But when I perform an action of charity, service, or worship, it will produce results only in its own time. By the same token, if I hurt somebody, steal something or cheat somebody those actions will also bring about results in their own time.

Therefore, of the number of actions that we perform during this lifetime, there are many that yield results in this lifetime itself, while there are many others that will perhaps not fructify during this lifetime. One may ask what happens to those actions, which do not fructify in terms of results during this lifetime?

They are stored in an 'account' for us to experience their outcome in the future. And, therefore, those results will be experienced in a future lifetime. It can be the following lifetime or a future lifetime; we do not know. We call them accumulated results or accumulated actions. The accumulated actions, which are waiting to fructify in the future, are called 'sanchita-karma'. Sanchita means that which is accumulated.

A Sanchita - is a collection. Sanchita is that which is collected or accumulated. Now, there is no beginning to this creation. Therefore, each one of us must have gone through countless human births and, therefore, performed countless actions. It is therefore possible that there are countless actions in our 'account' that are waiting to fructify.

Theoretically, this can result in countless births; there is no end to the process of exhausting the results of the actions we have performed because we do not know how many they are. Not only that, but in the very process of experiencing the result of an action, I perform some more actions.