Talk:Reducing Bad Karm and Adding Good Karm:Augmenting Good Karm

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Vishal Agarwal

[1] Several external and internal methods are prescribed in śāstrā for augmenting one’s good karm –

  1. Pilgrimage
  2. Charity
  3. Performance of ritual worship
  4. Selfless Service
  5. Self–Disciplinary acts, Vows, Fasts etc.
  6. Meditation
  7. Prayer
  8. Japa
  9. Pursuing Spiritual Wisdom, Understanding the Nature of the Self
  10. Devotion to Bhagavān
  11. Self-Surrender

Some summary scriptural passages might be cited in this regard –

Time, fire, karm, clay, wind, mind, knowledge, austerity, water, repentance and fasting – these are all means of purification. Yājñavalkya Smṛti 3.31

Living with a teacher, wisdom in Vedas and other scriptures, practice of duties and rites prescribed in these scriptures, keeping company with the virtuous, speaking polite and beneficial words,

forsaking the sight and touch of women, seeing all creatures as one’s own self, non-accumulation of material goods, using old saffron garments, preventing the sense organs from indulging (excessively) in speech and touch etc., not sleeping (excessively), not being lazy, reflection on the defects of the body, realizing that all activities of life involve an element of hurt to other creatures, giving up rajas and tamas, and purifying one’s mind with sattva, absence of the desire to overtake others and disciplining one’s mind – one who has been purified by all these and is saturated with sattva alone attains liberation. Yājñavalkya Smṛti 3.156–159

By the daily recitation of portions of the Vedas, by undertaking vows (e.g. I will not eat meat), by offering oblations (during Vedic religious ceremonies), by learning and recitation all the three Vedas, [2] by procreation of children, performance of the five great daily yajñas, making offerings (to ṛṣis, devas, pitṛs) and by performing the Vedic ceremonies (śrauta yajñas), this body becomes fit for (union with) Brahman, i.e., the individual becomes fit for mokṣa. Manusmṛti 2.28

The Bhagavad Gītā mentions 12 types of yajñas that take one to the very doorstep of Brahman –

Kṛṣṇa said:

Some yogīs offer yajñas to the devas alone, whereas others offer yajña by yajña itself in the fire of Brahman. Gītā 4.25

Some offer hearing and other senses into the fires of restraint; others offer sound and other objects of senses into the fires of the senses. Gītā 4.26

And others offer all actions of the senses and all actions of the prāṇas into the fire of the yog of restraint on the ātmā, kindled by knowledge. Gītā 4.27

Likewise, some offer in yajña their material possessions, or others their austerities and still others their practice of yog; while other striving individuals who have undertaken stringent vows offer their study of scriptures and knowledge as yajña. Gītā 4.28

Others offer inhalation (prāṇa) into exhalation (apāna) and others exhalation into inhalation having restrained the course of inhalation and exhalation, and intent on the control of the vital breaths. Gītā 4.29

Others who have regulated their diets, offer life breaths into life breaths. All these are knowers of yajñas, and their evils have been destroyed through yajñas. Gītā 4.30

Thus, there are many types of yajñas spread out in the face (or mouth) of Brahman (brahmaṇo mukhe). Know them all to be born of karm. Knowing thus, you shall be released. Gītā 4.32

Let us focus on some prominent ways of augmenting religious merit, keeping the discussion to a bare minimum.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Johnsen, Linda. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hinduism. Alpha Books, 2002, pp. 94–95.
  2. ↑ The four Vedas have three types of mantras – Verse, prose and melodies. For this reason, they word ‘trayī’ is often used to denote the four Vedas.
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