Doctrine Of Karma

Author(s): Abhedananda Swami
Publisher: Ramkrishna Vedanta Math

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DOCTRINE OF KARMA
the form of gain or loss, prosperity or adversity, health or disease. The soul perceives the causal retribution, but the people call the change of external circumstances as retribution which comes after sometime. This law manifests itself in the soul long before the external changes appear. We have to pay the penalty for wrong doing, but not for good deeds. Virtue, wisdom, truth and love are real good; they proceed from God and therefore no one pays penalty for practising them. They are spiritual qualities; the more we practise them, the more they increase. He who seeks material good must pay taxes, but there is no tax on spiritual good. The law of Karma teaches that the virtuous reward themselves and the .sinners punish themselves by their own thoughts and deeds. Emerson says: "Every act rewards itself first in our own soul then in circumstance. People call the circumstance retribution."
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