What is karma? · Lesson 2 of 5
What we do comes back to us
Swami Vivekananda was a great Hindu teacher who traveled to America in 1893. He gave a series of talks called Karma-Yoga, and in them he explains karma very clearly.
He says every action we do comes back to us as a reaction. When people do mean things, they slowly become meaner. When people do good things, they slowly become better. Our actions don't only change the world. They change us.
You have probably seen this. Someone who gossips a lot starts to see the worst in everyone. Someone who helps a lot starts to notice who needs help.
He also says our actions affect other people, and theirs affect us. A smile at the start of the day can change someone's whole mood, and they might pass it on.
This is why karma is not something to be scared of. It is something to use. If what we do shapes us, then we can choose actions that shape us into the person we want to become.
Start with something small. One kind act a day, done on purpose, slowly changes the person doing it.
Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as reaction, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on us. Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact that when persons do evil actions, they become more and more evil, and when they begin to do good, they become stronger and stronger and learn to do good at all times. This intensification of the influence of action cannot be explained on any other ground than that we can act and react upon each other. To take an illustration from physical science, when I am doing a certain action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state of vibration; all minds which are in similar circumstances will have the tendency to be affected by my mind. If there are different musical instruments tuned alike in one room, all of you may have noticed that when one is struck, the others have the tendency to vibrate so as to give the same note. So all minds that have the same tension, so to say, will be equally affected by the same thought. Of course, this influence of thought on mind will vary according to distance and other causes, but the mind is always open to affection. Suppose I am doing an evil act, my mind is in a certain state of vibration, and all minds in the universe, which are in a similar state, have the possibility of being affected by the vibration of my mind.
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