Daily Devotion - Feb 9 2026 (English)- The Science of Karma
A human being has been granted the right to perform actions. While you are free to perform actions, you are completely bound to experience their fruits. Whether your actions are good or bad, you must experience the results of every deed. God Himself is the Governor who bestows the fruits of karma.
There are three types of actions:
- Sanchit Karma - This is the infinite storehouse of actions accumulated over countless births. It consists of a complex mixture of both sin and virtue.
- Prārabdh Karma - This is a small portion of your accumulated karma, comparable to a single drop taken from the vast ocean, which is assigned to be experienced as the fruit in your present birth.
- Kriyamāṇ Karma - These are the actions you perform in the present moment. This is also called purushārtha, or self-effort, and it lies completely in your hands.
The good actions you performed in previous births - specifically your sādhanā - are inert. Therefore, they cannot produce results on their own. Out of great compassion, God maintains an account of your actions and automatically grants you the fruits in your next birth without you even asking.
The relationship between your past destiny and your present effort is significant. As a result of the sādhanā performed in previous births, God facilitates your devotional journey in the following ways:
- He grants you birth in a home that provides a virtuous environment.
- He creates circumstances through which you meet a true saint or spiritual master.
- He instills within you faith toward that saint.
Through the association of that saint, you then perform your kriyamāṇ karma. You accept his teachings and advance in your devotional practice. This progress is the direct fruit of good prārabdha.
Conversely, if your prārabdha is unfavorable, your thoughts may naturally become corrupted, and your tendencies become depraved. However, this condition is merely temporary, not permanent.
You receive the environment of this birth based on the karma of your previous lives, which also shapes your natural inclinations. This explains why four children born to the same father may possess different temperaments. While one may be interested in God, another may focus on the world, and a third may lean toward mischief. Whatever you take an interest in, you naturally prefer to inhabit that environment and advance in that direction.
Prārabdha is not a separate, independent entity. Your present actions themselves become your future prārabdha, just as the kriyamāṇ karma of a previous birth became the prārabdha of this life. While prārabdha provides the platform, your speed and how far you advance depend entirely on your kriyamāṇ karma, your present effort. Every human being possesses the right to perform kriyamāṇ karma. It is also seen that an aspirant sometimes makes progress but then stops after coming into bad company.
Three conditions of life arise according to prārabdha:
- A Level Road: This occurs when you perform your kriyamāṇ karma under normal circumstances. It is like riding a bicycle on a flat road with ordinary effort.
- An Uphill Climb: When unfavorable prārabdha arises, it creates obstacles in your present actions. Just as encountering a railway crossing hump causes your bicycle to stop, and encountering a steep slope requires greater effort to keep your bicycle moving forward, similarly, you must exert stronger will in your present actions to overcome difficult phases. If you do not lose courage, this period passes, and past sins are exhausted through the experience of their fruits.
- A Downhill Slope: This is the fruit of spiritual merit from a previous birth. Here, life moves smoothly without special effort, much like a bicycle moving effortlessly downhill while you merely hold the handlebars.
According to the scriptures and the Vedas, you should focus only on your present kriyamāṇ karma and continue moving forward. You should not pay attention to the uphill or downhill stretches. Since the soul cannot know its own prārabdha, you should not even contemplate it. When unfavorable circumstances arise, you may feel that you are making great effort yet achieving little success. At such a time, a wise person understands that prārabdha has become unfavorable and maintains full attention on present actions alone.
If you consider prārabdha to be the grace of God, the suffering caused by bad destiny is greatly reduced. Bad prārabdha often manifests as the absence of worldly possessions such as wealth, reputation, or relatives. While people call worldly prosperity "good fortune," God declares that He takes away worldly wealth from those upon whom He bestows His highest grace -
Tam bhraṃśayāmy sampadyo yasya ichchhāmi anugraha.
Worldly wealth brings two spiritual diseases:
i) Attachment to the material world develops.
ii) Pride increases significantly.
It is said in the Bible that a caravan of camels may even pass through the eye of a needle, but a wealthy person, a person of position, a person of prestige - that is, anyone endowed with material opulence - cannot remain free from pride. People surround a wealthy person from all sides. He cannot understand that they are surrounding him for selfish reasons. When pride sets in, it leads to destruction. A person intoxicated by wealth dares to insult even God and saints. By committing such offenses, he is ruined, and no one can save him.
This happened even during the descensions of God. Sugrīv promised Lord Rām that after attaining the kingdom, he would help Him in the search for Mother Sītā. However, once he obtained the kingdom, he forgot Lord Rām altogether. Only when Lakshman drew his arrow in anger did Sugrīv remember that there was someone called Rām from Ayodhyā. From eternity, this has been the nature of worldly splendor.
In truth, there is no greater misfortune than worldly opulence, because it turns one away from God. This is why Kuntī asked God for this boon:
"Maharaj, grant me the absence of worldly opulence, so that people of the world do not consider me their own and abandon me completely. When everyone abandons us, we gain the opportunity to realize that we have no one."
Bad prārabdha is actually beneficial because it leads to the remembrance of God. There is a rule:
Sukh ke māthe sil paṛo, jo nām hriday se jāy.
Balihāri va dukh ki, jo pal-pal nām ratāy.
When calamity strikes, one naturally remembers God. Conversely, when a person receives material prosperity, pride arises:
Nahi kou as janmā jag māhī, Prabhutā pāy jāhi mad nāhī.
Pride is subtle. It resides within and continues its work quietly. Every person takes pride in some form of beauty, wealth, position, or knowledge.
No one (bound by maya) is free from pride - whether one possesses a thousand rupees or a crore, whether one is unattractive or beautiful, whether one has passed high school or holds a PhD. There is always someone below and someone above. Looking at those below, one feels proud; looking at those above, one feels small.
There are only two types of actions:
- Good actions - Considering oneself as the soul and engaging the mind in the Supreme Soul- that is, when we practice devotion. These alone are truly good actions.
- Bad actions - Considering ourselves as the body and loving the world. Whether that love is for parents, siblings, or family, all are under the influence of maya.
Every human being will either fix their mind on God or on maya to which it has already been attached for countless births. Therefore, whichever personality you love, you receive the result of that very personality.
Whether your prārabdha is good or bad, it must be experienced. If you continually contemplate your destiny, you will blame it for your mistakes and fail to improve.
Therefore, you must place two principles before us:
- If you perform good actions related to the worship of God, consider them to be the grace of the Guru and the grace of God; This will prevent pride from arising.
- If you commit a mistake, consider it your own mistake. Only by accepting the mistake can you improve. Then make a resolve that you will not make this in the future, even if you must give up your life.
For example, if today in anger you said something, then make a resolve that I will not become angry again. Through such practice, the anger that arose ten times yesterday will arise times nine today, then eight times, and gradually it will be completely eliminated.
God said to Arjun:
Abhyāsen tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇ cha grihhyate.
Just as when a child is born, he does not even know how to turn over. Then, after months of great effort, he slowly learns to turn over and then to sit. Then, with great difficulty and months of practice, he learns to stand. He falls hundreds of times in a day, cries as well, and the delicate body gets injured - but he does not lose courage. Everyone has experienced this. Similarly, we must practice continuously with regard to God.
Because you have practised attachment to the world more, the mind becomes less attached to God. However, through practice, everything becomes possible.
Recommended books by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj related to this topic:
