What is Karma? Does the subconscious exist? || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Questioner: What is karma? Does the subconscious exist?
Acharya Prashant: Yes, they exist. They play their own game. You are talking about karma. The ball goes up, the ball comes down. But when the ball goes up, you are still free; and when the ball comes down, you are equally free. The ball is coming down because it went up. The whole cause and effect chain is playing out. That is the law of karma. But does it make any difference to you whether the ball goes up or comes down?
Everything that is material, everything that can be conceptualized, is bound to follow a cause-effect chain. Let the material follow that. You are not material. If you exercised hard yesterday or ran around a lot, today you will experience some pain in the body. You are getting the fruits of your karma. But let the body ache. You must not become sick.
You retain your inner health in the middle of all aches and sicknesses. Let the fruits of karma be for the one who was the doer of the karma. Let the doer experience the fruits of the doing. You are neither the doer, nor are you obliged to experience and bear the results of the doing.
*Na karta, na bhokta*—Neither was I the one who was doing it nor am I the one who will take the consequences.
When it was being done, I was there, but not as the doer. And when its results are showing up in time, I am still there but not as the experiencer of results. Let the mind bear the results, let the body bear the results, let the inner universe bear the results, I am free of all that, I relax.
