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CLASSIFICATION OF KARMA
In giving the doctrine of karma, the first thing to do is to classify the phenomena and then give the theory explaining the phenomena.
The function, nature, or action of each class of karma is quite different.
It can be classified into eight classes. Karma is always a foreign matter, it is always an obscuring element obscuring some quality of the soul; and the sooner it is worked out the better. When the karma is worked out, then the quality of the soul which was obscured, appears and becomes actual.
The most important karma refers to the very essence of the soul or individual; and that very essence is knowledge, consciousness, cognization. So that the first kind of karma is that which obscures the knowledge.
Class 1. Knowledge-obscuring karma (jñānāvaraṇīya karma). It is that karma the function of which is to obscure the knowing faculty, or to retard the development of the knowing faculty. There are words and thoughts, the tendency of which is to retard knowing. Karma is a peculiar force which we generate and the result of which ultimately acts on our individuality. In Sanskrit, this class of karma is called jñānāvaraṇīya karma.
Class 2. is that karma which obscures cognition in an undifferentiated way. Cognition in an undifferentiated way, that is a general cognition (of a horse for instance); it is the first stage of all consciousness; if this first activity does not take place, the soul does not know. You see a picture, for instance, but you do not go into the details of it; you just know in a general way that it is a picture. The Sanskrit for this general cognition is 'darśana'. Thus darśana is the state where there is
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