Fire and Seed

The old teachers said there are two kinds of action.

One kind breeds karma. They called it karma vriddhi. It rises from old memory, from strong liking and strong disliking, from I want and look at me. It plants a new seed, and the warehouse grows fuller.

The other kind destroys karma. They called it karma nashana. It does not rise from old memory. It comes from inclusion, from a whole heart given to what is in front of it, from tera instead of mera. Yours instead of mine. It plants nothing new. It acts like fire, and it burns away something of what is already stored.

This is the point most often missed. Vriddhi and nashana are not other names for bad deeds and good deeds. A good deed can breed karma. Charity given in order to be praised is a good deed, and it plants a seed of wanting praise, which will grow. A plain task, washing a pot, can burn karma, if it is done with the whole heart and nothing is claimed. The line between the two kinds does not run between good and bad. It runs between grasping and not grasping.

So the question to ask of any act is not only whether it is good or bad. It is where the act comes from. Two people do the same kind thing. One does it to be seen. The other does it because someone needed help. The act is the same. The result within is the opposite. The first plants a seed, and the seed will grow. The second plants nothing. It burns.

Guru Nanak lived this as a young man. He worked in the government storehouse at Sultanpur, weighing out grain for the people. It is told that one day, counting out the measures aloud, he reached thirteen. In Punjabi thirteen is tera, and tera also means yours. He stopped there and said it again, and kept pouring. Tera. Tera. Yours, Lord. Yours. He forgot to count. Word went round that he was giving the stores away, and the storehouse was checked. Nothing was missing. What is given as tera leaves no hole anywhere.

Memory itself is not the enemy. We need it to read, to find our way home, to know the faces of our friends. A good cook uses memory, and so does a good musician. The trouble is not in having memory. It is in being driven by it, when the old path picks the next step for us. Memory makes a fine servant and a poor master.

In Sukhmani Sahib, Guru Arjan wrote of the one who acts and plants nothing.

Sukhmani Sahib, ashtpadi 9

Nihkaram means action with no karma in it. It does not mean doing nothing. He is doing, and his doing leaves no mark, because he is not grasping. A Vaishnav is one who loves God, and the Guru is saying what such a person truly looks like.

At the close of Japji Sahib, Guru Nanak sets the Name and honest labour in a single breath.

Japji Sahib, closing salok

These are not two duties. They are one life. The Name held in the heart is what turns the work from mera into tera. Work with the Name inside it is fire. Work without it is more seed.