Thread by @poonamdut

What is karma?

The nature of karma is not in the action that you perform.

Karma means action, but this gathering of past karmas is not because of the actions you have performed.
#karmaisreal

It is the volition, the intention, the kind of mind that you carry. That is your karma.
There is a story that Ramakrishna used to tell. There were two friends who used to go visit a prostitute every Saturday evening.
#karmaisreal

One evening, while they were walking towards the prostitute’s house, there was someone giving a spiritual discourse. One friend decided not to visit the prostitute, saying he would prefer to hear the lecture on spiritual possibilities. The other man left him there.
#karmaisreal

Now the man sitting in lecture hall, his thoughts were full of the other man. He began thinking that the other man was having the time of his life while he was caught here. He thought the other man was wiser in choosing the prostitute’s place rather than a spiritual discourse.

Now the man who had gone to the prostitute’s house, his mind was full of the other man. He began to think that his friend had chosen the path to liberation by preferring the spiritual discourse to the prostitute’s place, while he got caught in this.
#karmaisreal

He suffers, not the other man. You don’t pay because you have gone to the prostitute; you pay because you are cunning about it.
#karmaisreal

You still want to go there, but you think by going to discourse you’ll be one step closer to heaven. This cunningness will take you to hell. That man with the prostitute knows it is worthless, and seeks something else; his is good karma. So it is not about action.
#karmaisreal

Right now, why you think in terms of right & wrong is because of social moral code. Its not your innate nature telling you about right & wrong. Just that society has some rules & they have always told you, right from childhood, that if you break them, you are a bad person.

So whenever you break these, you feel like a bad person. If you feel like one, you become one. If you are used to gambling, maybe gambling in front of your mother or your wife, or even to utter the word is sacrilege—but once you are in your gang, gambling is fine, isn’t it?

Among gamblers, one who does not gamble is not fit to live. It’s like this everywhere. If all of you are thieves, you are all fine, isn’t it? Among thieves, do they feel its bad to rob somebody? When you fail, they think you are a no-good thief. That is bad karma, isn’t it?

The question, this karmic thing, is just the way you feel about it. It is not about what you are doing.

It is just the way you are holding it in your mind.
#karmaisreal

Why we are talking about acceptance, acceptance, acceptance, is, if you are absolute acceptance, whatever life demands, you do. If you have to fight a battle, you go and fight, there is no karma.
#Karma

The karma is not made in physical action; it is made only by volition. It’s just that some fool has formed some rules & you expect every one to live by them. Society has its own ego, isn’t it? For every small thing, the whole society gets upset. It need not be wrong.
#Karma

Suppose its summer in the US. People are wearing little or maybe miniskirts & you are fully clothed. People will get upset: ‘Why is she all covered up?’ In India, if you don’t dress like that, they will get upset! So this is one kind of ego; that is another kind of ego.
#Karma

Its the social ego getting upset & your karma is becoming part of collective karma. Your idea of good & bad has been taught to you, ingrained from your social atmosphere. Karma is in your life's context, not in action itself; society needs such rules to maintain social ego.

Extract from: Flowers on the path