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for five years. Or in reference to its mass, one may be heavy, another may be light. Or fifthly we may study how the karma is generated and how it manifests itself when ripe, how it can be worked out before its natural time, and incidentally though very important, how we can stop from the very beginning the inflow of karma. Prevention is better than cure.
From this point of view there are eight heads Karma in re- under which it may be classified. It ference to its
ts can be classified into eight classes. nature, its action.
Karma is always a foreign matter, it is always an obscuring element obscuring some quality of the soul; and the sooner it is worked out the better. When the karma is worked out, then the quality of the soul which was obscured, appears and becomes actual.
The most important karma refers to the very essence of the soul or individual (and that very essence is knowledge, consciousness, cognization.) So that the first kind of karma is that which obscures the knowledge. Classifications Class 1. Knowledge obscuring of the Karmas into 8 kinds. karma. (alatuta.]
Class 2. is that karma which obscures cognition in an undifferentiated way. Cognition in an undifferentiated way, that is a general cognition (of a horse for instance); it is the first stage of all consciousness ; if this first activity does
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