TRIKARMA

In the Bhagavad Ghita, when Arjuna leads the war against his cousins the Kauravas (see Mahabharata), he faces many doubts, and seeks right action in a very contradictory and difficult context.

Krishna (the 8th avatar of Vishnu) guides and advises him, and explains to him in particular how right action can be carried out if one is in line with his dharma (his mission, his personal legend).

But to act "justly" it is preferable to understand how the law of karma or the law of causes and effects works.

Indeed, who acts? And at what level should we act? Is the action action or re-action?

Are external events really external?

Man (jivatman) is a cluster of energies (particles and waves) underpinned by functions of common manifestations (gunas), and therefore participates at his level in the law of causal manifestation (karma).

It is therefore from the particular angle of the relationship of man (individual) to the law of karma (general law of causes and effects) that Krishna will address Arjuna and explain to him the three "karmas", or rather, the three states of karma (tri-karma)

•   sanchita karma

•   prarabdha karma

•   agami karma

We assume in this anthropomorphized approach to the concept of karma that the observer (the individual) is the support of the karmic process, and we will therefore illustrate it according to the temporal flow of his life.

• Sanchita karma represents everything that has been programmed in the past and which has not yet manifested its fruits,
• Prarabdha karma is the harvest, which is coming now. We will see that there are three kinds of prarabdha karma
• Agami (or kriyamana) karma is that which we sow either in reaction to prarabdha karma or ex nihilo.

It is during the maturity (therefore of prarabdha karma) that the being has the "choice" in its action: pure, just (appropriate) action, in full consciousness, not conditioned by past programming, or "re- action" conditioned, dictated by principles, prejudices, fears, neuroses, programs, vasanas, kleshas, etc...

Pure action - conscious, unpolluted, free - being right (appropriate), does not produce additional individual karma (agami karma). This is the essence of dharma.

On the other hand, reactive, emotional, conditioned, projective action revives a memory and strengthens it.

It is this renewal of memories (vasanas) for a next time which then takes the name of agami karma, where the creation of another impression (samskara) will be stored in the chitta which is the "substance" of manomayakosha

NB: manomayakosha is one of the 5 constituent layers of the human compound (jivatman), and one of the three elements of the subtle body - sukshmasharira - composed of pranamayakosha - energy, manomayakosha - mental - and vijnanamayakosha - higher intellect ).

We recreate, we re-fabricate consequences linked to our individual history.

By thus feeding what we could call "the karma pump", we do not risk leaving the cycle of "rebirths", samsara, nor reaching deliverance (moksha) in this life... 

To sum up, the only way to alleviate our dependence on the endless cycle of samsara, that is to say the repetition of the conditions which have formatted our individuation, is to achieve moksha, and this can only be done by reducing the strength of the mechanisms of dependence on the cyclical process, and it is only on prarabdha karma that it is possible to do anything, since sanchita belongs to the past and agami to the future.

It is therefore in the mastery of prarabdha karma that the key to the an-agami state is found (an = no, without, private), facilitator of access to liberation, moksha)

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