Karma and Now: Two Sides of the Same Coin
How to transform your relationship with karma and the present moment
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Words: 1465 | Normal Reading: 7 minutes | Slow Reading: 14 minutes
Every Person and Situation Is Tailor-Made for You
What if the people in your life, the events unfolding before you, and even your deepest challenges were not coincidences, punishments, or randomness?
What if they were... the exact shape that present moment must take for your freedom?
Life is not happening to you; it is happening for you.
Let me offer you a deeper understanding of why life behaves this way through you by explaining karmas.
1. Sanchita Karma—Accumulated Karma (The Karmic Storehouse)
Sanchita Karma (accumulated Karma) is the sum of one’s past karmas—the fruits of all actions, good and bad, from one’s past lives. It’s a kind of vast storehouse where all our fruits of past life karma are heaped and accumulated. It is the energetic residue of countless actions and intentions carried across lifetimes.
But here’s the key: It is dormant.
It doesn't affect your present birth or the present moment.
So, which karma shapes your present life?
From this storehouse a portion is chosen by divine for your present birth. It is known as Prārabdha karma (allocated karma).
2. Prārabdha karma—Allocated Karma (Destiny in Motion)
In the yogic and Vedantic traditions, Prārabdha karma (allocated karma) refers to the portion of your past actions (karma) from previous births that is already bearing fruit in this present birth. Allocated karma refers to the predetermined life situations and people you are meant to encounter in your current birth. It can be good or bad! It’s like an arrow that’s been shot—you can't stop it mid-air.
Allocated karma is for your body, and it cannot be avoided or changed; these fruits can only be exhausted by experiencing them. When your allocated karma is finished, the body will fall away like a garment no longer worn.
Externally your allocated karma includes everything the universe has given you: your family, neighborhood, country, spouse, children, people, situations, and so on. (While reading this, your mind is telling you that everything given to you by destiny is very “unfair.” Feel the resistance of the mind.)
It is allocated to you.
Internally, your allocated karma refers to your habits, mental tendencies, and inclinations that you exhibit in your current life.
Allocated karma does not mean a fixed destiny binds your life. It simply means the mind cannot know what is to come. And in that not-knowing, there is great freedom. Life unfolds not according to personal will, but through a deeper intelligence. Even what the mind labels as ‘bad’ is part of the whole, inseparable from the greater good.
Kriyaman Karma—Current Karma (The Karma of Choice and Creation)
Kriyaman karma is the karma you are creating right now, through your current thoughts, words, and actions. It is the karma of free will, the living choices you make from moment to moment.
While Sanchita karma is the stored past, and Prarabdha karma is the portion playing out in this birth, Kriyaman karma is your response to this moment. It is the space where the possibility of awakening exists.
If you act unconsciously, from ego, fear, or reaction, you create more karmic patterns that will eventually need to be lived through and exhausted. However, if you act from stillness, awareness, and surrender, no karma is generated, and you no longer bind yourself to the consequences of your actions. In this way, no additional karma accumulates in the storehouse to be exhausted in future lives.
Kriyaman karma is not merely action; it is creative power. It represents the space where you can step out of the cycle of karma completely by acting without identification, free from an “I am the doer” mentality and devoid of ego.
Karma In Simpler Terms:
Karma encompasses your thoughts, actions, and words. Your thoughts represent your greatest karma, as actions follow thoughts.
Accumulated-Sanchita: The storehouse (past karmas)
Allocated-Prarabdha: The portion playing out now (your present destiny)
Current-Kriyaman: What you’re choosing now (Your response. Your freedom)
Remember, you will never be able to distinguish between your allocated karma and your current karma. Your purpose is to rest in Being and allow whatever comes to unfold.
Freedom from Allocated Karma
When you meet your allocated karma with conscious Current karma — rooted in awareness rather than ego — karma dissolves.
If allocated karma is your assigned destiny in this present birth, then Resting in Being, that is, surrendering your mind to your inner Being, is your only powerful free will. Make Resting in Being your Current karma all the time. This exclusive free will is also the divine will. Once you surrender your mind to the inner Being, the divine will activate, and now the universe will use your mind-body to fulfill its purpose.
It sounds almost paradoxical. Resting in Being and Free will. Let me explain. Your Free will is to be conscious and act from your Being. Whenever you surrender and act from being, God is taking charge of you, and all the allocated karma dissolves, and with that, all your mind’s reaction stops. Hence, by Resting in Being, you surrender your will to God.
Resting in Being is also called “Non-Doership.” Your mind is not the doer, but divinity is the doer through your mind-body.
Doership is simply acting from egoic consciousness. Non-doership is acting from Being consciousness.
Transform Your Relationship With Allocated Karma
While the allocated karma are fixed, your relationship to them is not.
If you resist, complain, or identify with the pain and pleasure, the karma persists. But if you meet it fully — in deep acceptance, in stillness — the karma begins to dissolve, not by fighting it, but by surrendering it.
Allocated karma cannot touch the unconditioned space of awareness that you are. And from this space, even what seems destined becomes a doorway to freedom.
When action arises from pure awareness, untouched by craving or resistance, karma has nothing to bind to. Without identification, without the residue of 'me' and 'mine', allocated karma has nothing to cling to. In the stillness of Being, allocated karma dissolves—quietly, completely.
When you see allocated karma as the present moment set in motion, your resistance dissolves. You stop trying to redirect the river and instead learn how to float.
Acceptance of the Present Moment Dissolves Karma
To resist the present moment is to fight your allocated karma. But allocated karma, by its nature, is non-negotiable. You cannot undo it with willpower or spiritual techniques. You can only awaken by experiencing it consiously.
This is why the ancient sages did not preach resistance, but surrender. They knew: life is not personal. Your allocated karma is neither a punishment nor a reward. It is simply the karmic momentum to awaken you in this birth.
The same karma that would repeat itself across lifetimes…burns itself out in the fire of your awareness.
How Change Happens Through Surrender
When you no longer resist your allocated karma — the life circumstances already unfolding — and allow the present moment, miracles start to happen.
Not because you try to change life, but because you no longer stand in its way.
In this stillness, life moves differently. Synchronicities and right situations arise. Graceful coincidences unfold, as if guided by the divine power. Clarity replaces striving. What once felt heavy begins to dissolve on its own.
Transformation is not the result of effort, but of surrender—when you no longer act from will, but allow the deeper intelligence to act through you.
A Real-World Example: Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela’s 27 years in prison were not merely a political sentence; they represented an expression of his allocated karma —the life circumstances he was meant to experience in this life.
Though the situation was painful and unjust, he could not change it. What he could change was his relationship to the present moment.
Instead of resisting, he accepted this life situations. In that prison cell, through deep inner surrender, his karma began to lose its hold.
He emerged from captivity not with bitterness but as a vessel of grace, guiding a fractured nation toward unity and peace. What seemed like punishment became his sacred purification, preparing him for divine purpose.
Through inner surrender and outer acceptance, he stopped resisting the present moment. And in doing so, karma lost its power to bind.
The struggle and suffering that might have destroyed him became the very gateway to his greatness and a service to the collective.
Mandela later said:
"There is nothing like returning to a place (or circumstances) that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."
It reflects a silent miracle: Freedom not from circumstances, but from identifying with them. He achieved this state by transcending allocated karma and surrendering to the present moment.
🪷 Be here now. This moment is your liberation
My dear Aby,
You describe karma as if it is known fact. Has someone been to the other side of the veil and returned to this side with these facts? Belief is one thing, but factual evidence is another. I’m currently quite content with waiting to hopefully find out more, when I get to the other side. My beliefs are amazingly aligned with yours so far and your teachings have been like music to my ears.
thank you !