Question:

When it comes to moving from karma to akarma, What is the difference between indifference and dispassion? If karma is not about right and wrong action but rather forming an attachment towards an action, shouldn’t a murderer who does not care about somebody else’s life and moves on without remorse for his actions from killing one person to the other have no karma since he is not attached to his action?
What is the difference between akarma of ignorance, because they don’t know any better and akarma of dispassion from knowing it all? How does ‘karma’ differentiate between the two kinds of action?

Answer:

Karma does not have to distinguish between these two kind of actions because there cannot be an ‘akarma of ignorance’ action at all. Because in ignorance, there has to be an attachment. And Akarma means being devoid of attachment. Your basic understanding of attachment is not clear dear. That’s why such a question came to you. Let’s understand Attachment first.

What is attachment?

Attachment means Craving or Aversion.

What is craving? How does craving arise?

• 1. You come in contact with an object of sense for e.g, the object is a “thought to murder” somebody. It doesn’t matter if it is your own thought or somebody else gives you money to murder.
  2. The thought of imagining someone dead gives you a sensation of ‘sukha’either because he/she is your enemy or because you will get money.[Sukha = pleasant]
  3. This sensation of sukha is what you get addicted to. You keep imagining the same because you like to experience the ‘sukha sensation’.
  4. This ‘wanting of repetition of the sukha sensation’ is craving.
  5. That ‘sukha sensation’ may make you commit the action or not, that doesn’t matter.

The addiction to the ‘sensation of sukha’ is attachment. It can be applied to all your habit patterns of ‘compulsive shopping’, ‘eating extra food knowing you are putting on weight’, ‘craving for sex’, ‘running after power, wealth, name, fame, position’, ‘face book/twitter compulsiveness’, ‘my husband/wife/child should listen to me stubbornness’, etc. These are all addiction to ‘sukha sensations’ and not the object like face book, sex, power, money, name, family, etc.

What is aversion? How does aversion arise?

• 1. You come into contact with an object of sense for e.g. criticism by your friend.
  2. The criticism evokes a ‘sensation of dukha‘ in you. [Dukha =unpleasant].
  3. Your immediate reaction to this ‘sensation of dukha’ is aversion. Immediately, you have a ‘deal with aversion plan‘, for e.g. you start thinking how you will ‘respond to that criticism and show that person his/her place’, etc.
  4. This ‘deal with aversion plan‘ evokes a ‘sensation of sukha’ in you.
  5. This sensation of sukha is what you get addicted to. You keep imagining the same because you like to experience the ‘sukha sensation’.
  6. This ‘wanting of repetition of the sukha sensation in response to dukha sensation’ is craving.
  7. That ‘sukha sensation in response to dukha sensation’ may make you commit the action or not, that doesn’t matter.

That addiction to ‘sukha sensation in response to dukha sensation’ is attachment. This can be applied to your habit patterns like ‘getting angry again and again’,’aversion to discipline’, ‘aversion to certain people because of what they said’, ‘aversion to working hard’, ‘aversion to meditation’, ‘aversion to exercising at the gym’, etc. These are all aversion to ‘dukha sensation’ in reality and not the object like person, exercise, discipline, meditation, etc.

So if you look at it objectively, one cannot commit such a heinous crime as murder, without an attachment. It’s not possible! Thus you cannot be in ignorance without attachment. In fact Ignorance = Attachment.

One who transcends ignorance, transcends attachment. He is a Yogi. All his actions are without attachment. The actions without attachment are spontaneous and natural actions on account of nature. A few examples of spontaneous actions that even an evil man does are drinking a glass of water, answering nature’s call, saving a falling child out of compassion. These actions are without the attachment of craving or aversion.

Spontaneous actions are done with this understanding that ‘LIFE is just a play of karma’ and only fools invest themselves in ‘diseases of attachment’.

All actions that a Yogi does out of his nature in accordance with the flow of Karma are spontaneous actions. These actions are ‘Akarma’. Got it?