Book Title: Practice of Karma Yoga
Author(s): Swami Sivananda
Publisher: Divine Life Society

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Page 226
________________ PRACTICE OF KARMA YOGA prevents it knowing itself fully. There are many varieties of this force. The bondage of Karma arises on account of tendencies, and the most predominent of these determine the type of the body which the soul would make for itself in its future incarnation. The sum-total of these tendencies is what is called character, and this character contains in itself the well-digested and assimilated experience of the entire past of the soul. Now, if we would analyse the idea of tendency, we would not fail to observe that it is the modification of the mind in particular ways. The Jain books teach that the Karmic force is the product of a kind of matter, the particles of which have become combined with the soul This explains the nature of the force which prevents the soul from realizing its own blissful nature. It is obvious that all that the soul has to do is to get rid of the particles of matter which it has drawn to itself. As soon as this is accomplished the soul is freed from all kinds of bondage and acquires perfect knowledge and bliss Karma is an energy which an embodied being generates—be it vital, mental or moral and which keeps him in the mundane world, the Samsara. Karma, in short, is the whole Samsaric make-up of an embodied being It is perfectly divested of the idea of sacrifice Karmas which keep the individual in a backward condition are known as Papa, those which help him in advancement are Punya The Jain philosophy gives a detailed enumeration of Karmas, 222

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