Impressions on the Mind

In the glossary of Sultan Bahu karma is defined as follows:

Action; the law of action and reaction; the fruit or result of past thoughts, words and deeds; also new actions. Karmas are not only isolated acts beginning and ending in themselves, but form a stream of causation, each one being at once an effect and a cause. This stream leads to an unending cycle of births and deaths.

The law of karma is integral to the mind. Consequently the effects of karma are felt in all the regions of the creation where mind rules and is dominant. We generally equate this powerful force with the biblical law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, but this exacting principle is not necessarily a spiritual law; rather it was used to explain the law of retribution, where a person who had injured another person could be similarly injured in return.

Karma is not simply retaliation and retribution. It is more subtle and far-reaching than physical compensation alone, for it must also satisfy our sanskaras − the more binding aspects of our interactions. This is why Maharaj Charan Singh tells us that it is not the things themselves, but the reaction they produce on us that really matters. It is this reaction that creates the far-reaching and undetectable effects of karma that bind us to the creation and its inhabitants.

Sanskaras are the impressions or imprints left on the mind by experiences in previous lives. These impressions are accumulated and carried forward from life to life, and they determine the identity and quality of this life. When we look through a lens, everything we see is conditioned by the quality and function of the lens. Similarly, our sanskaras are the impressions that shape our current life; they are the lens through which we view the world around us, because they determine our nature, responses and states of mind. Everything we do or perceive is conditioned by these impressions. Simplistically put, two people will give very different accounts of what happened when witnessing the same event, because their individual sanskaras cause them to interpret aspects of the event in different ways.

Our actions and reactions, even our thinking and desires are constantly being conditioned and manipulated by our sanskaras, so that we react in a particular manner, or in a given situation we expect a certain result. It is such a subtle part of our thought process that we are not even aware of this mental conditioning. Maharaj Charan Singh explains that sanskaras are tendencies resulting from past karmas.

Every experience and perception in life starts with a thought. Our thoughts, conditioned by our sanskaras, have a very powerful effect on us. Continually thinking in a particular way causes a deep groove in the mind, which we know as a habit. When we constantly mull over events, we embed the impression of those events into our minds.

The one-sided mental conversations we repeat ad nauseam are merely fabrications of our imagination, as are the imagined actions we repeat over and over to ourselves. The mental grooves formed by these fabrications leave new imprints on the subconscious mind. This is clearly explained by Maharaj Charan Singh when he says:

The subconscious mind consists of whatever memory we have in this life – all our impressions that we have collected in this span of life. … It is not about past lives. But the mind is carrying all the past karmas, all the sinchit karmas.
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However, with right thinking, the correct use of simran and adopting the right lifestyle, we can and should clear many of these current impressions in this life.

These impressions and sanskaras are so subtle that we are unaware of them. We tend to view karma in terms of the physical aspects of our lives, such as our relationships, homes, careers and environment − the world we perceive through our five senses. We can relate to, emotionalize about, and feel these physical aspects of our existence, and we imagine that due to the strength of some of these associations, we are able to determine some kind of karmic pattern. But at this level we cannot know the outcome of past relationships, or the factors which may determine the seeds for future lives − if any! Karma is not simply our physical attractions and the literal explanation of the concept of ‘an eye for an eye’. Maharaj Charan Singh clearly explains that it is the lasting and deeply engrained impressions on the mind that are far more binding. He tells us:

Individual karmas do not determine our future. It is the accumulated effect of those karmas that we have to go through. Not in the same way and not in the same kind. For example, if you have killed a thousand chickens in one life, you do not have to come back a thousand times to be killed by them. In one life, you can have a thousand pricks, painful pricks. And that will account for the killing of those chickens. So it can be cleared in many ways.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

By focusing on the physical, tangible side of karma, we often forget that our thoughts and desires are as binding as the physical aspects of our lives. The real far-reaching effects of karma are the impressions that lie beyond our physical interactions, as explained by Maharaj Charan Singh:

Sanskaras are deep impressions on the mind; karmas are actual actions that we have done. The desires we create in our mind − our wishes − they create deep impressions on our mind, and then actually they become karma for the next birth.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

We need to be far more conscious of our thinking because this habit, this deep groove of repetitive thinking, becomes the basis of our desires, and our desires create our suffering. We are familiar with this because it is something we experience in this life. We may not know the original seed that sprouted the desire, but we are certainly aware of the effect − whether it is joy or suffering − that results from it. Maharaj Charan Singh writes:

All these desires are nothing but strong thoughts. These strong desires − even if no action follows − they are all grooves on our mind. And those grooves pull us back.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

The mind is not looking only for satisfaction. It is very effectively performing its duty of making us act according to the impressions and tendencies created for this life. In this respect it is truly a faithful servant, dissipating all its energies outwardly. It doesn’t think about its own source unless the impression is there, and that is the purpose of our simran and our meditation – to create the spiritual impressions that pull the mind inward. The Master gives us the opportunity, but it is up to us whether we use it or not. In Mysticism, The Spiritual Path, the author, in his definition of kriyaman karma, clearly indicates that we have this choice:

This is that action which a person performs by his free will. When it is left to him to determine what he will do, and what course of action he will adopt, when it is within his control to decide one way or another, then it is known as Kriyaman karma.

This means that within the scope of our limited free will, we can choose to either sow impressions of spirituality or to continue sowing worldly impressions. An understanding of the subtle aspects of karma should make us conscious of this and of the incredible gift the Master gives us when he initiates us and gives us our simran.

When done correctly, simran nullifies our worldly thinking. It eases out the deep grooves already created on the mind by not reinforcing them, and they lose their effect. Simran also changes what we think about. By turning our thinking toward spirituality, we think less about the world and our desires, thus creating fewer worldly impressions that would need to be satisfied. The Masters tell us that the effects of these impressions can be cleared by our meditation. The power of simran is that it changes our desires by changing our thought processes. To explain how simran cleans our thoughts, Baba Ji uses the example of red ink dropped into a glass of water: if we keep adding clean water to the glass the water will eventually become clear.

It’s up to us whether we do simran during the day or not. If we forget to do our simran, we cannot blame the Master. After all it is we who create the binding impressions. It is our choice. It would be to our advantage to follow the Master’s advice and use our simran to change the impressions we embed in the mind. Simran directs us to spirituality, and these spiritual impressions lead us to the Master.