Karma: its no one's fault

I write this inspired by Gadima's Paraadhina aahe jagati putra maanavaachaa cast to be sung by Rama for Bharata. The scene is when Rama is visited by Bharat in the former's forest dwelling and begged to return to Ayodhya to assume the Kingship. Rama explains that its no one's fault that he's ended in the forest, giving up the kingdom. Then he goes on to explain how his sanchita karma from previous lives is acting on its own.

Karma has its shares of debates from people who believe in free-will. All said and done, no one from this lot can explain results of some doing. An experiment always succeeds in that it always has some result or the other. But the expected result may not really turn up. Thats where karma comes in. Its nicely explained by an example I read about long back. Assume a big pot with a small opening at its base. Suppose you fill it at random with wheat and rice grains, using smaller pots. Now, decision is yours on whether to fill with rice or wheat. Consider rice as sukarma (good karma) and wheat as vikarma (bad karma). Depending on what was filled, in the same sequence, the opening throws out rice or wheat. Well, the story stops here.

I'd like to bring in more thoughts on this simple, easy-to-understand story. Before that, I'll try to describe the three different types of karma using the same borrowed story. These are sanchita, prarabdha and kriyamana karmas. Sanchita is the collection of all your karmas so far. Thats like the repository holdings in large pot. Prarabdha is the one thats acting in the current life that calculates all that there is in you, to do with you. eg, your body, mind, intelligence, where you're born, surroundings, your thinking, dealings, relatives, friends, enemies, etc. Its like those grains coming out (or have come out) of the small opening of the pot. Lastly, the kriyamana is the new addition one makes this life. Its akin to the additions of wheat/rice to the large pot.

Moving on, the accessibility of wheat and rice depends on lots of factors, that karma decides too! You can't stop by not filling the pot, your target idea being akarma (no karma). You have to keep filling. As long as you fill the pot, rice or wheat will come out. As long as this keeps coming, you've wheat and rice to fill again. You're trapped. :) One has to take births in this seemingly endless cycle of births and deaths as long as some karma exists.

Karma is basically, perfection. There's a way to beat all this. All in good time!