Sadhguru,
In your new book Karma,
You explain that karma just means action,
That there is no such thing as a system of rewards and punishments for your good deeds and your bad deeds after you die,
That there is no such thing as a divine ledger in the sky where all of your accounts are being kept as to how angry God or the gods are at you.
Do you think that the belief that karma is a system of rewards and punishments,
A misunderstanding that's been going on for millennia,
Do you think that that continues to thrive because there's a gang of unemployed souls on the other side who just think it's a really fun role to play,
To be divinely engaged royal accountants taking care of all those ledgers?
Thanks.
Namaskaram,
George.
I know you're talking about those privileged unemployed people.
Unemployment is a curse at one stage of life.
But once they get employed,
Everybody is looking how to get unemployed because everybody is looking forward for a vacation which is unemployment,
A weekend which is unemployment because they are not interested in what they are doing,
They are only interested in what they will get out of it.
So thank God it's Friday,
You know.
So about karma,
Karma is not definitely about reward and punishment.
So those who are in a better economic condition or social condition,
They would like to believe they've done good karma elsewhere,
So they're enjoying everything here now.
No.
You must understand karma is not necessarily about the past,
It is about now.
So one's experience of life is entirely decided by one's karma.
One's situation in which one exists may not be entirely determined by one's karma.
Because situation is of the times of geography,
Like thousand years ago if we were here,
We wouldn't be in this kind of situation.
Does it mean to say we had bad karma then and now we have good karma?
No.
So let us not judge karma by one's situations.
Yes,
There also it is involved,
But situation is more of a collective karma than of individual karma.
Individual karma is definitely there,
But collective karma is there because the time and the place where you are determines a lot of things.
But internally,
In terms of human experience,
How joyful you are,
How peaceful you are,
How loving you are,
How wonderful is your experience of life,
This is entirely your karma because the pleasantness of the body,
The pleasantness of the body,
The pleasantness of the mind,
The pleasantness of our life energies and our emotions are one hundred percent in our hands.
Human experience happens from within.
That means it's entirely our karma.
We can make it the way we want.
If we make our human experience very pleasant in.
.
.
On all these four levels,
In body we are healthy and exuberant,
In mind we are peaceful and joyful,
In emotion we are loving and compassionate,
In our life energies we are blissful and edging on ecstasy.
Now outside situations will not determine the nature of our experience.
Outside situations we can strive to improve,
We can try.
.
.
Strive to change,
But as I said,
In the outside situation there are many pieces,
All those pieces don't belong to us.
We also are one piece,
Depending upon one's skill,
Intelligence,
Capability and willingness to strive,
That peace can be enhanced,
But it is never one hundred percent yours or mine,
The outside situation.
It is also the times in which we exist which determines what kind of situations we are in.
But human experience is entirely our karma and we must take charge of that first.
If we take charge of this,
Our ability to create external situations also the way we want it is greatly,
Greatly enhanced.
So karma is not about punishment and reward.
Karma is not a book written by a person,
It is not a book written somewhere,
Some ledger that somebody is looking at and punishing you or rewarding you.
This gift culture from heaven must go because for all the things that you do very easily,
You can pass this off as God's will.
Many terrible things men have done have always been passed off as divine will,
All right.
So it's very important that we move.
.
.
Move from religious beliefs to a responsible existence here because this is a brief life.
If we want to make something out of this,
This must be our making.
This is our karma.
This is what karma means.
Karma means when I say my life is my karma,
It means that my life is my making.
If I am doing well,
It's me.
If I am not doing well,
It's me.
If I have a fantastic experience here,
It's me.
If I have a miserable experience,
It's me.
This much straightness of life everybody must get that you are straight enough to admit that both your success and failure,
Your joy and misery,
Especially the inner things of joy and misery,
Peacefulness and turmoil,
These things are one hundred percent you are making.
This is what karma means.
Karma is not a ledger up there.
This body,
This mind,
This energy is our ledger.
Here it is and it plays out in so many ways.
If we perform this moment's karma consciously,
Whatever our past karma,
There is a way to transcend that.
