In this small guide, I will talk about the meaning of Karma and “What are the 12 laws of karma?”.
The meaning of karma: In simple language, Karma means “action“. Karma is a Sanskrit word and the 12 laws that govern the working of your action and reaction are called the Laws of Karma. Another phrase that best defines the meaning of the laws of karma apart from action and reaction is cause and effect. Laws of karma is like the science (not limited to spiritual explanation) of doing things in life and expecting things in return.
Above was a short introduction about Karma. You will better understand it once you will learn the 12 Laws of Karma mentioned in the list below.
Table of Contents
12 Laws of karma
1. The Great Law (First of 12 Laws of Karma):
The first law is based on the popular quote and belief of “As you sow, so shall you reap”. Meaning, your action decides your outcomes. For positive outcomes, you need to think and act positively. You get a negative outcome when you think and act in a negative manner.
It is very straight forward and nothing complicated, you can think of this law as “Cause and Effect” or “Action and Reaction”. Here every action is a result of the previous actions forming a chain of “actions and reaction” or “cause and effect”.
This law specifically focuses on the nature of action and reactions. Positive action will result in positive outcomes. Likewise, a negative outcome is the result of negative action. You can not expect a positive outcome when your thoughts, actions, and influence are oriented in a negative manner.
2. The Law of Creation:
Behind every creation, there is a creator. This is the central message of the second law of Karma, the law of creation. Whatever is happening around you is the creation of your previous action or participation. Things do not happen on its own and one had taken active participation in the past for the thing that is happening around him/her currently (current environment).
Those who take positive participation ( thought and action) creates a positive environment for himself/herself. Likewise, those who take negative participation make up a negative environment. The way we think and behave (inner world of our body and mind) creates our outer world (the surroundings).
The second law teaches us that if you want to reach your goal, always think and orient your action towards your dream and destination. This way you create a supportive environment for yourself that will help you reach your destiny. Here environment means, type of people around you, the kinds of work you do, the time you invest in doing things, your source of motivation, and everything else around you.
3. The Law of Humility:
Someone rightly said success is a series of failures. Those who learn from the mistakes are the candidates for success. And to learn from your mistakes, you have to accept them first. And, this is where this law focuses on.
It is easy for most people to blame others for his/her own mistakes. Most find it easy to deny from the harsh reality of their mistakes and failures. When you do so, you are actually deviating yourself from the precious lessons that every mistake of yours has to teach you, resulting in more failures.
You have to be very humble and faithful to your deeds and most importantly yourself. When you are faithful enough to accept your mistakes, you make yourself ready to learn from your mistakes to succeed in life.
So, remember the important lesson from the third law of karma, be humble enough to accept your mistakes first to learn the precious lessons of your failures. This is how one can succeed in life.
4. The Law of Growth:
You can not change the world around you when you are not ready to change yourself first. And, this is the central message of this fourth karmic law.
Change begins with you and if you want to grow then start with the growth inside you. The remote control of your outer world lies within you. So, to see the change around you, learn how to change the inner world inside you.
Remember the important lesson from this fourth law, develop yourself to see the development around you.
5. The Law of Responsibility:
As we have seen in the above two laws of creation and humility that we are the ones who created the world around us and we need to be humble enough to accept our mistakes.
The fifth Karmic law, the law of responsibility says that you are the one responsible for the things you had created for yourself and accepted, positive or negative. Whatever is happening to you is because of your previous acceptance and action, and you are responsible for the bad or good things around you.
Fifth law teaches us that be responsible for the things you created, mistakes you committed, and the world you create for yourself. One who takes responsibility can understand his/her outer world in a much better way and in hard times can fix the issues to succeed in life.
6. The Law of Connection:
You might have guessed it right. Yes, the sixth law of Karma talks about connection and how your actions are interlinked for your current situation, good or bad.
Your past is connected to your present and your present actions will decide your future outcomes and this is how this law works. In simple words, whatever you did in the past showing your current situation.
You see success now because you have worked for success in the past and yes, you see failure because you have worked for it. You are responsible for your success and failure, your environment, and everything that had constituted to your current world.
Thanks to the sixth law of karma for telling us to take the desired action today to see the desired output in the future.
7. The Law of Focus (#7 of 12 Laws of Karma):
Have you seen how the rays of the sun when concentrated through a convex lens burns a piece of paper? This happens because of the power of focus or concentration. When you concentrate the rays of the sun and allow it to pass through the lens as a concentrated single ray, burns the piece of the sheet under it.
This is what this law of Karma is trying to teach us, the ultimate power of focus. It is very difficult to reach your goal when your journey is not focused on. A focused mind has tremendous power to help you reach your goal. When you think and act in a focused manner, you reach your destination effortlessly and with joy.
An unfocused mind is like the devil always trying you to deviate from the path of success. More you try to switch to the correct path, more this devil will take you away to an undesired path. A focused mind on the other hand can explore the right path to success in a much better way effectively.
I highly recommend you read the below articles if you are finding it difficult to concentrate on your work and looking for a way to work on it.
8. The Law of Giving & Hospitality:
You must have heard this popular phrase, people often use, “Walk the talk”. The meaning of this phrase is, to commit to your words and not just make false promises. The 8th law of karma is well suited to this phrase, you thought and inner conviction must be aligned to your action.
Your action must speak your words. Most people often fail to put their words into action. They believe in either taking different actions or no action to what they speak. If you think in-depth, you will find people are fooling themselves making false promises to themselves.
This law tells us about belief and practice. You have to prove your faith in things you believe in practicing. Donating money to the poor must comes from your inner belief in helping them and not just getting some words of appreciation from people around you.
9. The Law of Here & Now:
What you have in your hands is your present, I mean your current time. Thinking about the past and regretting your mistake will not make your future bright.
Concentrate what you have in present and work towards things you have currently with you to plan for the future. Keep in mind, you can only plan for the future and work for it. You do not have control over your future. So, over-thinking about the future is not the thing you should be doing according to this law of karma.
In a nutshell, do not regret your past actions, neither overthink your future. You should always learn from your past mistakes (not regret) and, plan and take actions (not overstress yourself) for your future staying completely in your present time (present actions).
Please keep in mind, you can never be in the present time (Real world) when your mind still wandering in the past or future (Virtual world).
I strongly recommend you read the below article on mindfulness. It will help you learn how to be present in your current time and always feel motivated.
How to practice Mindfulness: A guide
10. The Law of Change:
You can not expect a change in your life until you are willing and putting efforts to change it. Simply thinking about past and regretting it will never gonna bring you a change in your current time. This is the primary message of the 10th law of 12 laws of Karma.
A change will only happen if you have actually changed it to learn from your past mistake and work effectively on it. If you still not learn the lesson you are allowing your history to repeat.
If you think your past was not good, neither your present time. Then look for the solution from your past mistakes, or mistakes you are doing currently.
The solution will only come to you when you know your problems. And to solve the problems you need to take appropriate action, doing something different in the right direction to make necessary adjustments or changes in your life.
11. The Law of Patience & Reward:
Bigger the goal is more patience you require to achieve it and greater will be your satisfaction and joy. This the central note of the 11th law of karma.
Long term goals need more effort and energy. And to achieve this you need to put more time and sacrifice. The more you sacrifice and show your patience the bigger will be your reward. Simply put, the reward is directly proportional to patience and time invested.
12. The Law of Significance & Inspiration (Last of 12 Laws of Karma):
You must have got the idea of the 12th and last law of karma by reading the headline itself, the Law of Significance & Inspiration.
This law states that to achieve something in life, you need to direct your inspiration and intent into it. This is only the way you make changes to the surrounding world to make things work for you as you desire.
Without a motivational boost, you can get the true or real value of something. And, when you put your personal motivational boost into your action, your every action brings you close to your destination by letting around you to helping you achieve it.
Final Thought: Laws of Karma
Every law mentioned above are closely related and it may look to you quite similar. The reason is, all laws are connected to each other in some or other way to teach you the sole message of Karma. If you go in-depth and try to understand each and every law, you will find every law is unique in itself and has a lot of things to learn from. They are interlinked because the whole cycle of your karma is interlinked.
Make sure you understand it in the right way and most importantly, a thing is best understood when you apply and see the results in real-time. Wisdom will not bring any change in your life until you apply it. Books are the reference, actions are in your hand. If you are not acting on the wisdom you gained from the books or Gurus, their knowledge will have no significant effect on your life.
Always, remember to apply them and the most important thing, share with people around. More you share with people more you get yourself ready to walk the talk. I hope, you loved this article on 12 laws of karma and gained some knowledge. I wish you achieve great success in life. Have a great time! 🙂