Karma the Mechanism

Author(s): Hermann Kuhn
Publisher: Crosswind Publishing Germany

Page 88

SUTRAS
THE NATURE OF KARMIC BONDS
87
These four main negative emotions selfishly focus all our strength on our personal field of experience only. They confine us to the limits of our present situation and thus prevent us from expanding our scope of life. As long as we are unwilling to stop these tendencies, we block all inner growth. The activities of our body, speech and mind and their effect on karma are described in the initial sutras of 'ATTRACTION TO KARMA'.
All our actions confront us with karmic mechanisms. Karma is actually the factor that enables us to act within the context of the material world in the first place. Whether this confrontation is only shortlived or will cause deeper and longer-lasting attachments to particular themes of life, depends entirely on our behavior, intention and emotional attitude at the time of action: - all action caused or influenced by intense negative emotions like
rage (anger), arrogance (pride), the intention to deceive others or greed deepen our immersion into the chain of incarnations - all actions not influenced by intense emotions have only transient,
short-lived effects on us. These five factors bind karma to our consciousness. Each factor can cause this attachment by itself. The strength of the bond, its duration, its dissolution, and how karma will manifest when it activates, is the theme of this chapter.
As long as we remain in the first stage of development (gunasthana) all five factors are active.
In stage 2 and 3 our misunderstanding how this world functions becomes inactive for a short time.
In stage 4 all misunderstanding how the world functions is dissolved. Only the other four factors remain active.
In stage 5 and 6 our tendency to remain in a state of delusion is removed. Still active are carelessness, mild forms of negative emotions and the three types of activities of body, speech and mind.