Pranaba Hansen

Ananda Village

Answer

Dear Sridhar,

It’s important to realize that karma is something that we need to overcome and release. It’s a burden in the sense that it prevents us from being who we really are – children of the divine light.

But karma, and its consequent suffering, is also that which pushes us to make the effort to transcend our ego and limitations, and reach to the heights of our highest potential in God. Even if we don’t understand the cause resulting in our karmic challenge, we have the incentive not to get pulled down by any further negative actions or thoughts.

Anandi Cornell

Ananda Village

Answer

Dear Subu,

Our souls are on a journey to realize our oneness with God. The law of karma was created to help us learn the pain in expressing selfishness, and the joy of expressing divine love — to speed us to Self-realization.

Our little brains are really not designed to understand much more of the law of Karma. We can say certain things intellectually, but God is so much greater than the intellect. The only way to know Him or to understand how He operates is through love.

Anandi Cornell

Ananda Village

Answer

Dear Sandy,

Karma simply means "action." Just as in the physical world we know of Newton’s law that every action brings an opposite and equal reaction, in the same way, the energy we put out into the world comes back to us.

The action itself is not as important as the intention behind the action. The same action if put out with hatred will reap one kind of karma; if put out to be helpful, it brings a different karma. For example, a doctor sometimes has to inflict pain, but he does it only to help the other person.

Pranaba Hansen

Ananda Village

Answer

Essentially, whatever tendencies or traits we have when we die will remain with us in the astral realm.

The key for us is to take the opportunity right now in this lifetime to release those tendencies that keep us bound to the ego.

If loneliness is something we are dealing with then we can work to overcome that by thinking less of ourselves, and more of others. Rather than feeling any lack of love we can shift the focus to giving love to others. In that offering, we expand our awareness and feel more of God’s presence and a sense of unity with others.

Pranaba Hansen

Ananda Village

Answer

For most people it usually isn’t that helpful to know about past incarnations. As Swami Sri Yukteswar said, “Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”

Savitri Simpson

Ananda Village

Answer

Dear Neelkanth,

Thank you for your question about the karma of your profession. I’ve never had any personal experience in “futures,” but I did look it up on Wikipedia; and from my newly-gained, though very limited understanding of it, I think that what you are doing would not incur bad karma unless you approach it from an attitude of personal greed.

Maria Warner

Ananda Village

Answer

The yogic teachings say that the world came into manifestation through the AUM vibration, brought forth from God’s consciousness.

In his poem Samadhi Yogananda refers to the sound of AUM as the "sound of the cosmic drum." All creation is riding on the waves of the outward-bound AUM.

Savitri Simpson

Ananda Village

Answer

Dear Sonia,

You have asked some very big questions which would take up too much space to answer in this format. Therefore, we will contact you directly via e-mail to set up a dialogue with you, with myself or another of our "Experts," concerning what you have asked.