Iyengar: The accumulated imprints of past lives, rooted in afflictions, will be experienced in present and future lives.
Taimni: The reservoir of Karmas which are rooted in the Klesas brings all kinds of experiences in the present and future lives.
Carrera: The womb of karmas has its roots in these obstacles, and the karmas bring experiences in the seen (present) or in the unseen (future) births.
I have some notes from this sutra from my classes with Edwin Bryant. In the margin it says: “Before I act, should I consider how the effect of this action my influence the level and quality of my existence?”
Karma is the universal law of cause and effect. Iyengar says that our actions are the “seed of future sorrows and pleasures which we experience both in this life and in lives to come.”
Sri Hariharinanda (another translator of the sutras) says “ one’s reservoir of karma is analogous to a seed; desire, greed and lust are shoots from the field; life is the plant and life’s pain and pleasure are the flowers and fruits.”
Taimni says “Each thought, desire, emotion and action produces its corresponding result with mathematical exactitude and this result is recorded naturally and automatically in our life’s ledge”. I read a book a few years ago called Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert that describes the phenomenon from a biochemical point of view. Everything we do, every thought we have, has a biochemical reaction in the body. I have put this into practice in a simple way - I have made a promise to myself that I will speak the truth. This means not telling those white lies to make things more convenient for me. It is sometimes very hard for me to do this. For example, I won’t tell the kids some white lie so they will do what I need them to do. If I have an acquaintance that did something to offend me and they ask me about it, I’ll tell them in a way that is clear and un-hurtful. You get the idea. I can tell you this has made a difference in my quality of life.
Carrera compares karma to the concept of sin in the Bible. “A man reaps what he sows” (Galations 6.7). He points out that the concept of karma can be unsettling – it is not some outside force causing your suffering but your past actions. He says “all experiences of pleasure and pain are and have always been in our own hands”.
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