Talk:Karm Mīmāmsa or the Science of Karm:Karm and Intent

By Vishal Agarwal

May we be good hearted on all our days. Rigveda 6.52.5'

Some Karm-s ripen to yield fruit after death, others ripen in this very life, yet other Karm-s either in this life or the next; the determining factor (in what the fruit will be) is the intent (in the mind of the doer while acting- bhāva). Yājnavalkya Smriti 3.133

That karm which is ordained and is performed without attachment, without desire or hate, with no desire for its fruit, is said to be sāttvic. Gita 18.23

But that karm which is performed by one who wants to satisfy his desires, with great effort and with ego, is declared to be rājasic. Gita 18.24

That karm which is undertaken because of delusion, disregarding the consequences, loss or injury, without regard to one’s own ability, is termed as tāmasic. Gita 18.25

If one is free of evil intent, then he is not tainted by evil (through his actions). For example, the same man embraces his wife with one type of intent but embraces his daughter out of love with a different intent. Mahābhārata 13 chapter 43 (Southern recension).

Sometimes, a good action (like charity) has an unintended bad result (e.g., a beggar using the alms received to buy drugs). Conversely, a bad action (like murdering someone) has an unintended good result (e.g., the person murdered was himself a serial killer whose death was welcomed by many). Hindu tradition emphasizes that the intent of the doer must be considered while judging his actions -

“According to Hinduism work in itself is neither good nor bad. The mental attitude with which work is done determines if the work is good or bad. A surgeon performs surgery on a patient and the patient dies. Even though the patient dies at the hands of the surgeon, the doctor is not considered a criminal because he had a helping attitude toward the patient. He wanted the patient to be cured. In another case, an assassin who has killed someone is considered a criminal, because he had a harmful attitude. He deliberately wanted to harm his victim. The consequences of the action in these two externally similar cases will be diametrically opposite to each other – one good, the other bad.”

“What determines whether an action is spiritual or material? The consciousness, or intention, behind it. For example, a knife is good in the hands of a surgeon and bad in the hands of a murderer. Morphine is good in the hands of a hospice nurse and bad in the hands of a drug dealer. Everything in the material nature can be used for good or bad or, in a higher sense, for spiritual growth or material entanglement, and we choose how to use things based on what we want to gain from life.”

Intent is shaped by the purity of our mind and our knowledge/understanding. A person who is mentally pure will typically do his Karm with good intent. Having a pure mind is therefore essential for Karm to bear a proportionate fruit-

Just as a fruit tree yields plentiful fruit at the appropriate time, likewise karm done with a pure mind results in plentiful good results. Anugita 3.2

Likewise, bad karm done with an evil mind reaps plentiful bad results, because the soul performs its karm only with the assistance of the mind. Anugita 3.3

A contemporary scholar provides an interesting example to demonstrate how our good or evil intent can determine the kārmic consequences of our actions-

“Let us imagine that two men are standing on a street corner. One man has a hole in his pocket and out of that hole slips out a ten-dollar bill, which falls upon the pavement. The other man, standing beside him, notices that the ten-dollar bill has slipped out of that person’s pocket and he puts his foot over it, thus deliberately concealing it.

When the other man moves off, the second man picks up the ten-dollar bill and pockets it…. …On the street corner, two more men also stand. One man has a hole in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill slips out of his pocket, unbeknown to him. Now that the man who has lost the ten dollar bill looks down and sees the money on the ground. He looks at the other person and assumes that it is the other man’s ten dollar bill, so he slips his foot over it and when the other person has gone, he steals it, now knowing that he has stolen it from himself…. …Both the above examples will accrue Agami Karm because the attitude was the same in both cases. Both men were outright thieves, and although one man stole from himself, he still suffers from Karm.”

If intent is what gives the moral value to an act, can we say that intent alone is supreme? The answer is in the negative-

“….though right intentions are indeed necessary for building character, they are not sufficient. Frequent reference is made to a stage of the path to liberation where the person has the right knowledge and intention, but lacks sufficient spiritual strength to carry out the intention. If the intention is not implemented sufficiently, this will affect the intentions of the agent, for he will begin to question whether he should bother to form the intention since he regularly fails to act on it. Persistent right intentions without implementation lead to regression; it is not a stage at which one can remain. It is like the traditional making of New Year’s resolutions. After a while, if there is no serious attempt to keep the resolutions, the making of the resolutions is either foregone, or it becomes a ritualistic game with no moral significance for the maker….”

In other words, good intent must translate into good actions.