Karma the Mechanism

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

Page 89

KARMA - THE MECHANISM
SUTRAS
In stage 7, 8, 9 and 10 carelessness is removed. Still active are subtle forms of negative emotions and the three types of activities.
In stage 11, 12 and 13 only the three types of activities are active. In the fourteenth stage of development karma ceases to bind us.
SUTRA 2
सकषायत्वाज्जीवःकर्मणोयोग्यान्पदलानादत्ते स बन्धः ॥२॥ Sakasayatajjivah karmano yogyanpudgalanadatte sa bandah (2) When we give in to strong negative emotions like anger, pride, the intention to deceive others or greed, we attract subtle matter that attaches karmic mechanisms to our consciousness. This process causes 'karmic bonds' (bandha). (2)
Karma is subtle matter. This sutra rejects all suggestions that karma may be an inaccessible, mystic force that in an inexplicable way controls the fate of living beings. Karma is nothing more than subtle matter (ajiva). Though it may influence our life - as do all other forms of matter as well - it is fundamentally different from our basic nature - consciousness (jiva).
Our very own activities and our emotional attachments to these activities attract this subtle matter that exists everywhere throughout this cosmos to our consciousness. Karmic matter is actually the agent that enables us (our consciousness) to act within the material context of this universe in the first place. - Activity attracts karmic matter to our consciousness. - Ignorance, error, skepticism, negative emotions, laziness, compla
cency etc. produce bonds between our consciousness and karmic matter.