By the time you go back, what will happen? Your karma bank balance would have increased by the number of your agamya karma! Say you came down with ten karmas, you did not exhaust these ten karmas with which you came, but you collected 00 more! What will happen the next time you take the body? Your sanchita is now 000 added to the 00 new agamya karmas you collected now. You now have 00 karmas more than in your last birth. Again you take ten out of that collection and come down with another body. But you only collect more and go back. This becomes a vicious circle. This is what we call janma marana chakra, life-and-death cycle, continuously taking a body and dying, again and again. Instead, while you are living, if somebody gives you the knowledge that you are not just the body or the mind and it is karma that is influencing you, then the influence of that karma over you will begin to come down.

You will then start exhausting the prarabdha karma that you came down with. Let us say you brought ten prarabdha karmas with you when you took this body and came down. Suppose in these ten prarabdha karmas, you have three samskaras or three engrams that have the power to put you into depression. If you continue to obey those engrams and fall into depression, they will not remain just three, but will probably become ten. The additional seven karmas are the agamya karmas. If instead of exhausting your prarabdha you decide to remain with them, you collect agamya. If on the other hand, whenever these three engrams put you in depression you have learned some technique to come out of the depression, then these three will start losing their power over you.

So, over time, of the ten karmas, three will leave you. Whenever you reduce the influence of prarabdha on yourself, not only will the prarabdha get burnt, but the chances of accumulating new karma, the agamya karma, will also come down. You stop collecting agamya when the prarabdha loses its influence over you. When the influence of these ten prarabdha engrams over you stops, the agamya collection will also stop because it is these ten engrams that are responsible for the collection of further engrams or karma. Now let us come to the sanchita karma. Understand, you can't do anything directly with your sanchita karma bank. For sanchita to burn out, only Guru Krupa, grace of the master, will work. Only the master's grace can do anything to burn out your sanchita.

Only intention matters A beautiful story from the devotional vedic scripture Bhagavatam* : Krishna reached the banks of river Yamuna* with the gopis*, his milkmaid friends. They wanted to cross the river but there was no way to cross. Krishna declared, If I am true brahmachari* (celibate), then let the Yamuna* part and let us go across. The Yamuna* parted. Outwardly, it may seem that Krishna was with the girls like other ordinary men. But Krishna was beyond the body-mind. His actions did not carry the intention of an ordinary man. It is the intention of any act that matters, not the act itself. Intention is the baggage, the karma, not the action. If action creates intention, it becomes the baggage. Pure action with no end objective is not karma.

Bhagavatam - The foremost epic of Hindu religion describing the incarnations of Vishnu, especially his incarnation as Krishna. It was written by Vyasa, who was also the author of the itihasa or epic Mahabharata Yamuna - A holy Indian river associated with enlightened master Krishna. Gopis - Women who tended cows who were devotees of enlightened master Krishna. Brahmachari - A vedic student, usually referring to a young celibate monk. Action without intention is living enlightenment. Master's presence affects the intention See, whatever you are doing in the presence of the master, you are doing for the master. You know it is in no way going to build your name or fame. So, the action happens without intention. There is no intention. The intention is the master's.

The action is yours. Intention is in the being of the person who has no intentions! You see, the total sanchita karma can be yours or mine. Mine is divine play. Yours is suffering. When it started, your total sanchita karma also started as a divine play. But, after gathering more and more gathered agamya karma, it became dirty. Because I have no karma, when you flow with me you will also act without intention. Action without intention is living enlightenment. Action without intention is free from karma If a person has committed ten murders, the quantity of murders will not be recorded. But the intensity of the murderer will be recorded. It is the quality, the mindset, and the attitude, that carries the karmic burden.

That is why Krishna says again and again in the Bhagavad Gita that intention is much more important than action. That is the message of the whole Gita. He says, When you are without intention I will take care. Action does not get recorded. Only intention gets recorded. The Mahabharata* tells us the beautiful story of a courtesan and a monk. There was a monk who lived across a courtesan's house. He used to keep a count of the men coming to her house and used to imagine all kinds of things about her lifestyle. The woman spent all her free time praying to Krishna to redeem her from her miserable life. One day, they both died at the same time. Both reached the court of Yama*, the god of death.

Yama* looked at the record of their lives and gave the decision: the monk should go to hell and the woman should go to heaven. The monk was shocked and started protesting, I lived such a pious life while she lived such an immoral life! How can I be sent to hell and she to heaven! Yama* replied, In my court of judgment, your actions are of no value, only your intent matters. You wore a monk's robes and lived a good life outwardly but your inner space was filled with lust. So in the outer world, your body is now being buried with honor but you have to suffer hell. The woman's heart was forever with Krishna even while her body was Mahabharata - The Hindu itihasa or epic whose central characters are the five Pandava princes, their hundred Kaurava cousins and enlightened master Krishna.

Yama - Hindu god of death and justice. sold to men. So her body doesn't have anybody to even do the last rites but she is going to heaven. It is the intention and attitude that counts. An enlightened being, an incarnation, is one with Existence. An enlightened being can only operate in tune with Existence. He can never be out of tune. The actions of an enlightened master can never be without awareness and compassion. Since we do not have the consciousness or awareness, we cannot justify our actions by saying they are similar to those of an enlightened being. Be very clear, the action may look similar outwardly but the intention, the inner space, the attitude, is completely different.