Is Karma Related to Religion?

The connection between karma and religion positively exists.
As one’s religious understanding changes, so do their karmas respectively.
The role of religion is to give the understanding that makes us rise spiritually higher by guiding us on the path that takes us from bad to good. When you change your intention from bad to good, it impacts your charging of karmas accordingly. While your intentions were not so good, you were sowing demerit (bad) karmas, the consequence of which was, you experienced difficulties in worldly life and you went lower in your religious development. And now, when you have the religious understanding through your faith, and you have altered your intentions, you bind merit (good) karmas which will bring you happiness in worldly life and will take you higher up in your religious development too.

Without religion, it is difficult to distinguish between what is beneficial and what is harmful to you in life. For this reason, religion plays an extremely integral part in one’s life. Religion helps by guiding you towards leaving bad deeds and steering you in the direction of good deeds. So, one comes back from bad conduct and begins their journey in the direction of good conduct. Regardless, one is still charging karmas, even if they are good, the consequences of which is a future birth, although a good one.

Is there a method in this world whereby one does not charge any karmas?
Yes. There are 2 aspects which one needs to understand:
1. The knowledge of the Self, and
2. Comprehend which element is the doer.

1. The knowledge of the Self
Spiritual Science does not ask you to leave the bad or the good conduct; it asks you to come towards the reality of ‘Who am I’ and come into your true Self.

On reading religious scriptures and listening to religious discourses, we gather good intellectual understanding of how ‘I’ and the body are separate, they are not one! But since we do not have the experiential knowledge of the Self, in our belief, we continue to understand our body and name as our self only. And therefore we always remain partial to the interest of our body and our name that we consider as ‘I’, and also to our thoughts, speech, actions, our mind, intellect and ego that we consider as ‘my’; as a result of which in any interaction we are always on the side of everything that we consider ‘I’ and ‘my’.

No matter how many religious slokas we may have memorised and the number of scriptures we may have grasped intellectually, until the ignorance of really ‘Who am I?’ prevails, we continue to bind new karmas all the time.

2. Comprehend which element is the doer
When we seriously take the path of religion, we remain very regular in performing all religious rites and rituals, and very sincerely try to follow the prescribed religious practices too. However, since the ignorance of our real Self persists, we believe ourselves to be the doer of every action that we do in life.

We think we are the ones who are doing penance, puja, meditation, chanting mantra, fasting, reading, going to temple, etc. As a result of this, we continue to create new karmas, be it good or bad, for our next life; and experience the consequences, be it good or bad, of our past life’s karmas simultaneously.
No matter how many religious rituals we may have performed and how many religious practices we follow in our daily life, Nature’s law states that: until the ignorance of ‘who the real doer is’ prevails, one continues to bind new karmas.

“If humans could understand the principle of karma, they would understand the principle of liberation.”
The essence of the pure Soul is absolute bliss. And this is who we really are. Yet we are trapped in the perpetual cycle of birth and rebirth.
Once Self-realisation is attained, one recognises ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Who is the doer?’. And then as the spiritual science takes hold within, and the right understanding deepens into the day-to-day application, karmas seize to charge. One then advances towards final liberation, which means getting totally free of all discharge karmas as well and attain the bodiless state. Who are you in reality? Find out here

The path of travelling towards the ultimate liberation stems from adhering to a religious faith, and from there one elevates higher up on the spiritual path, through the medium of right understanding. In the process, a lot of merit karmas are amassed. Eventually, when there is an abundant accumulation of merit karma, one becomes fortunate to be able to meet a fully enlightened being (a Gnani), who has the spiritual power for those who are seeking ultimate liberation to be free.

Until one meets Gnani and attains the knowledge of the Self ( Self-Realization ) from Him, one must keep pursuing it as the prime goal of life; only then will the cycle of birth and rebirth actually end.

Authored by: Dada Bhagwan