Introduction to Jainism

Author(s): Rudi Jansma, Sneh Rani Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 80

Karma
Introduction
All that we are is the result of our thinking
Mahāvīra, ca. 500 BC
Karma is the universal law of cause and effect. That law applies to all regions and levels of the cosmos, the material as well as the conscious and spiritual side of nature. In fact, all laws of physics and chemistry are part of that universal law of karma as well. Experts in these fields, just like ourselves in so many things of daily life, know many of these lawful regularities of nature from their own experience and we blindly rely on them. Nobody expects that you get cauliflower by cooking squash or that by mixing soda and hydrochloric acid you get sugar. Only salt and carbon dioxide gas will be produced. By sowing wheat no one can get peas.
But karma embraces much more than this. The Sanskrit word karma literally means “work” and work can only be done by conscious creatures. Every action is preceded by an impulse of the mind or feelings and emotions, and it requires the energy of will power. Thus, karma always originates in the soul of a living being, i.e. that part of a living being that is conscious, that perceives, that can make choices - and that consciousness may be very limited by our standards, or very large. Even a one-celled organism has it.