Question: What is Theory of Karma?
Put simply, theory of Karma states that
1. Your thoughts become reality.
2. Inversely, your present reality is nothing but a cumulative manifestation of whatever thoughts you decided to think of till date. These include both the conscious and unconscious thoughts.
3. The purpose of this reality is to help you rise above sorrow and achieve bliss. And you can change your reality to higher bliss by changing your thoughts. Thus, life is not an unplanned random chemical reaction. Instead, life and world around is a well-planned system built to guide you towards bliss. And the way to use this system effectively is through directing the thoughts towards achievement of bliss.
Question: Does it mean happiness alone is goal of life?
Exactly. The only goal of life is to achieve happiness or bliss. And the way to achieve it is through proper understanding of the mechanism of the life system and directing our thoughts towards most optimal use of this system.
Question: What about those people who sacrifice their own happiness for sake of others?
They do not sacrifice their happiness, they merely sacrifice their short-term conveniences in pursuit of higher levels of happiness. The satisfaction derived from selflessness is way above the happiness derived from mundane activities. You can compare it with our own lives. As children, we enjoy many activities like eating soil. But as we grow up, we seek higher levels of pleasure and will never be eager to exchange these pleasures with many of the childish pleasures.
As you will realize, the way the world has been designed, we are all closely interdependent like various molecules of water in a pond. We cannot maximize our individual happiness without maximizing the happiness of the world. So smart people trade-off their short term conveniences for significantly higher levels of happiness derived from thinking about and acting for betterment of the world.
Question: Are thoughts everything? What about actions?
Thoughts are not everything. But they are the only starting point we have in our control. Everything else including our actions are next steps of the process that starts with each thought. All we do and achieve starts with a thought in the mind. Even the thought of ‘empty thinking without action’ is a thought we decide to accept that leads us to the resulting consequences as per Theory of Karma. And decision to act is also a thought we decide to accept. And as we would realize, thoughts that do not culminate into actions, in general, lead us away from bliss. In complete framework, three aspects of this thought should go hand in hand – Knowledge, Actions and Contemplation. A thought system that encompasses all the three is necessary.
Courtesy-Vedas A Divine Light
ANURADHA MAHESH 