Ramana Maharshi on Karma

“Until realisation there will be Karma, that is action and reaction. After realisation there will be no Karma and no world.”

“If the agent, upon whom the Karma depends, namely the ego, which has come into existence between the body and the Self, merges in its source and loses its form, how can the Karma, which depends upon it, survive? When there is no ‘I’ there is no Karma.”

“The essence of Karma is to know the truth of oneself by inquiring ‘Who am I, the doer, who begins to do Karmas?’ Unless the doer of Karmas, the ego, is annihilated through inquiry, the perfect peace of supreme bliss, which is the result of Karma Yoga, cannot be achieved.”

“If one mistake is rectified there yet remains the whole Sanchita Karma from former births which is going to give you innumerable births. So that is not the procedure. The more you prune a plant, the more vigorously it grows. The more you rectify your Karma, the more it accumulates. Find the root of Karma and cut it off.”

“If you are not the body and do not have the idea ‘I am the doer’, the consequences of your good or bad actions will not affect you. Why do you say about the actions the body performs ‘I do this’ or ‘I did that’? As long as you identify yourself with the body like that you are affected by the consequences of the actions, that is to say, while you identify with the body you accumulate good and bad Karma.”

“Every act must have its consequences. If anything comes your way by reason of Prarabdha, you can’t help it. If you take what comes, without any special attachment, and without any desire for more of it or for a repetition of it, it will not harm you by leading to further births. On the other hand, if you enjoy it with great attachment and naturally desire for more of it, it is bound to lead to more and more births.”

“Individuals have to suffer their Karmas but Iswara manages to make the best of their Karmas for his purpose. God manipulates the fruits of Karma but he does not add or take away from it. The subconscious of man is a warehouse of good and bad Karma. Iswara chooses from this warehouse what he sees will best suit the spiritual evolution at the time of each man, whether pleasant or painful. Thus there is nothing arbitrary.”

“The law of Karma is a manifestation of God’s will. [He said] that prior to Self-realisation there is a personal God, Iswara, who controls each person’s destiny. It is Iswara who has ordained that everyone must suffer the consequences of his actions and it is Iswara who selects the sequences of activities that each person must undergo in each lifetime. One cannot escape from Iswara’s jurisdiction while one still identifies with the activities of the body. The only way to become free of his authority is to transcend Karma completely by realising the Self.”

“... Karta (God) means Iswara. He is the one who distributes the fruits of actions to each person according to his Karma. That means that he is the manifest Brahman. The real Brahman is unmanifest and without motion. It is only the manifest Brahman that is named as Iswara. He gives the fruit to each person according to his actions (Karma). That means that Iswara is only an agent and that he gives wages according to the labour done. That is all. Without this Sakti (power) of Iswara, this Karma would not take place. That is why Karma is said to be on its own, inert.”

“...some schools of philosophy say that there is no God other than Karma of the previous birth, that is Karma done in the present birth in accordance with the scriptures is known as Purushkara (human effort), that the previous and present Karmas meet for a head-on fight like rams and that the one that is weaker gets eliminated. That is why these people say that one should strengthen Purushkara. If you ask such people what the origin of Karma is, they say that such a question is not to be raised as it is like the eternal question, ‘Which is earlier, the seed or the tree?'”

“Prarabdha Karma is of three categories, Ichha, Anichha and Parechha (personally desired, without desire and due to others' desire). For the one who has realised the Self, there is no Ichha-Prarabdha but the two others, Anichha and Parechha, remain. Whatever a Jnani (Self-realised) does is for others only. If there are things to be done by him for others, he does them but the results do not affect him. Whatever be the actions that such people do, there is no Punya and no Papa attached to them. But they do only what is proper according to the accepted standard of the world – nothing else.”

“A man might have performed many Karmas in his previous births. A few of these alone will be chosen for this birth and he will have to enjoy their fruits in this birth. It is something like a slide show where the projectionist picks a few slides to be exhibited at a performance; the remaining slides being reserved for another performance. All this Karma can be destroyed by acquiring knowledge of the Self. The different Karmas are the slides, Karmas being the result of past experiences, and the mind is the projector. The projector must be destroyed so that there will be no further reflection and no further births and no deaths.”