HARMONY BY ACTION - SWAMI TATWANANDA

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Karma - Action and it's Nuances 4 (contd.)

 

 

Results of Actions - Seen and Unseen

 

The results of our volitional actions at physical and mental levels are also

referred to as karma. Here the means are pointed out as the end because

result is nothing but the modified form of action. Any action produces a

two-fold result. One is immediate and seen. It is known as "driystaphala."

The other aspect of the result, which is unseen is termed as "adriystaphala."

It fructifies in the movement of time and is not seen in its present form.

 

As an example of driysta and adriystaphala - the seen and unseen results -

let us take the example of blowing a trumpet. When we blow a trumpet the

immediate result is sound. This is the "seen" result of an action called

blowing the trumpet. The cause (action) and effect (result) relationship

based on the physical laws is available for our immediate understanding. But

how the produced sound travels as the sound waves and where it disappears

into the atmosphere is not "seen." Our sense organs cannot fathom to where

the sound waves travels, to what distance, and how they will merge and vanish.

 

Apart from the physical laws "seen and unseen" at work, there is another

aspect to that action. The intention (thought/will) behind the action - why

the trumpet was blown - and that brings in its own result at physiological

and psychological levels. Since there are laws within laws governing our

actions we have to accept that our actions produce other than visible

results. The "law" that governs the action and its two-fold results is called

as the "law of karma," It includes all the laws.

 

Thus we find our actions are capable of producing seen and unseen results.

The "karta, karmabhumi and karmakala" (doer, place and time) are inherent in

any action and capable of producing a two-fold result. One may foolishly

think that an action comes to an end at the time of being acted upon and may

not have any faith in its continuity as the cause for unseen results. The

truth however is otherwise. For instance, when an individual takes into

consideration the various events in his life he finds that for many an effect

(event) the cause remains unknown and invisible. As there cannot be an effect

without a cause, one has to accept causes of the past for the present events.

 

The Vedas as the authority for the unseen aspects, advocates and helps us to

understand and accept this strange aspect of actions - the adriystaphala - by

introducing the concept of merit and demerit, that is, "punya and papa" and

their causes as right and wrong - "dharma and adharma."

 

Cause and effect seem to manifest and disappear at different periods of time.

Although it appears so, time does not really separate the two. Cause and

effect are somewhat like the two sides of a coin, which cannot be seen

simultaneously, with one side of the coin as cause and the other side as

effect. For example when the seed is seen the tree is invisible and when the

tree is visible the seed is not seen.

 

When, where and how the karma will mature is not the karta's (doer's) choice.

It happens according to the "unseen laws" - the law of karma. The principles

involved in the fructification of action into result (karmaphala) remain

unknown. But the unseen results are transformed by the "laws" to be seen in

the physical order of time. Since the time for action to ripen can exceed a

life span, the effects of actions may necessitate one or more births for the

doer as these results do not "die down" when the doer dies.

 

Therefore as the author of action, the doer, is given "chances" (future

births) to exhaust the results of his own making. Thus we find that the

"sense of doer/enjoyer" brings in its wake the repeated cycle of birth and

death (to be contd).

 

(Excerpted from Swamiji's talks on Karma Yoga published as Harmony by

Action.1989).