What does karma really mean?

karma means action — and the principle that every intentional action shapes what comes back to us and who we become.

The Sanskrit word karma simply means “action”. As a teaching, it says that our intentional actions — of body, speech and mind — leave impressions (saṃskāras) and produce results, sooner or later, in this life or another. It is not a system of reward and punishment run by an angry judge; it is more like a law of cause and effect for the moral world.

Tradition divides karma into three: sañcita, the store of past actions not yet ripened; prārabdha, the portion that has begun to bear fruit in this life — our birth, body and many circumstances; and kriyamāṇa (or āgāmī), the new actions we are doing now. We cannot change what has already ripened, but we are always choosing the new.

The Gītā's famous teaching is to act well without being anxious about the fruit. Do your duty sincerely, offer the result to God, and karma becomes a path of freedom rather than a chain.

Source: Bhagavad Gītā 2.47 · Sañcita, prārabdha, kriyamāṇa

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