________________
PRACTICE OF KARMA YOGA
desires to accomplish Sooner or later he is sure to succeed in his well-directed efforts. In Nature nothing is lost. Again, as Bacon said. Nature is conquered by obedience.' By Nature he meant natural laws
"If once we understand the law that guides our life and action, we shall be able to act in such a manner as to make this law our ally and help-
mate rather than our adversary. So long as the conditions laid down by the law are meticulously fulfilled and observed, we have fullest certainty of our success in any direction.
"The three aspects of the Law of Karma should be grasped clearly. The first is the Sanchita Karma, the sum total and storehouse of all our actions, good or bad, in the innumerable past lives that we have left behind or from the time we began to discriminate right from wrong and thus started acting on our own responsibility and with our own initiative. The whole of it is recorded and preserved: how could it be otherwise when we live under the reign of an immutable law? The second is Prarabdha--the inevitable Karma—that portion of our Karma which is assigned to us to be worked out in a single life in relation to men and things we met and experienced in previous lives This is also called ripe Karma, because it is a debt which is overdue and it is time that it should be paid in the form of sorrow and suffering, gain and loss, to the uttermost farthing, whether we like it or not. The third form is that of Kriyaman, that
88
