Page 90 - Hinduism
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consequences. He may succeed or fail, derive pleasure or suffer from pain; he should not care for them.
Karma has three meanings. In the scientific sense, every karma is an effect and it follows from a cause or set of causes. It also determines the future action. In this way it becomes a continuous series; and the theory may lead to fatalism. No man can escape his past and he is the slave of destiny. In a higher or moral sense, karma is the action of a kartā and the kartā is morally free: he has the will to shape his future, according to his conviction. But when once the action is done, he cannot escape its consequences. What a man sows, that he reaps and the moral law of retribution works with mathematical precision. Good deeds are never lost, so also bad deeds, and it is the deeds that determine a man’s character. But if karma is done by him as niṣkāma karma, he is free as he does not care for the fruits. The law of kāmya karma does not bind him. Virtue is its own reward; it has its own intrinsic values and character shines by itself. In a still higher sense, namely, the religious sense, every karma is the worship of God and then karma is done as kaiṅkarya or work dedicated to Him. The karmayogin now says: “Not I, but Thou, O Lord" and does his work as worship of God, “sarvam Kṛṣṇārpaṇam”. Īśvara is the real kartā or actor in individual and social life. No doubt, the body, the senses, the mind and the soul more than all
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