Astrology and the operation of Law of Karma

– Part 2 

By A. S. Fernando
In the previous article carried in the Jyotisha page under the above title we said that the Vedic Astrology rests on the Law of Karma and explained the five laws of nature that make up the Law of Karma as enunciated in Vedic philosophy.

Three categories of Karma 
Karma which means action in a wider sense is the sum total of deeds good or bad done by an individual during his life-time. It is the totality of a man’s actions that becomes the cause for the circle of birth and death. It is our past Karma that determines our present existence and both our past Karma and the Karma we accumulate now determine our future existence.  In Vedic philosophy Karma is classified under three categories as follows: 

• Sanchita or accumulated Karma
• Prarabdha or fructiferous Karma and
• Kriyamana or Agami Karma

natal Chart, the imprint of Prarabdha
Sanchita Karma is the sum total of our actions good or bad in our past births. Sanchita Karma determines our future births and part of it our present birth. It is that part of Sanchita Karma called Prarabdha which we are reaping in this birth or responsible for what we are in this birth. It is Prarabdha we are experiencing in this birth as sorrow and happiness, misery and comfort, gain and loss etc. The Natal Chart or the birth horoscope is the imprint of Prarabdha which we have brought forward to this birth or we have inherited in this birth.

 Our actions continue giving rise to more Karma while we are experiencing our past Karma or Prarabdha. This Karma in the making continuously is described as Kriyamana Karma. This means Sanchita Karma at any point of time is the sum total of Kriyamana Karma of our many past births.

The soul – the storehouse of Karma
How does the Law of Karma operate? It presupposes the existence of a bank where the accumulated result of our thoughts and deeds are stored with cloak-wise accuracy and precision and it should be something non-destructible, a force or energy capable of surviving the death of an individual for moving into his next birth. According to Vedic philosophy, this non-destructible force that carries our Karmic program or Prarabdha from one birth to another is the soul of the individual. 

How could one unravel the Karmic program that an individual’s soul carries from one existence to another?

Mechanism for unravelling Karmic program
The ancient Indian sages through insight developed through meditation had been able to perceive some intelligent design in operation throughout the universe and a positive correlation between cosmic phenomena and the terrestrial life and events. 

They had also discerned a relationship between a destiny pattern or a karmic life-plan programmed in the soul of an individual and the celestial configuration at the time of his birth. 

This appears to have led them to evolve a formula or a mechanism based on the dynamics of planets in the Solar system and the light years-distant stars ever in motion to unravel and unfold the karmic life-plan called Prarabdha embedded in the soul of the individual. 

Dasa systems
If the accumulated results of the deeds and thoughts of our previous births are to manifest in a pre-determined sequence by way of events good or bad in the lifetime of the individual, it is of vital importance to know as to when such events are to occur. The ancient seers have evolved the Dasa systems to provide this time factor – to determine as to when a certain event in the life of an individual would take place.