Sooner or later every thoughtful person asks the plain question. If each life adds boxes to the warehouse, and the life before it added boxes, and the one before that, then who put in the first box? How did karma begin?
It is an old question. Kings have asked it, and philosophers, and saints. Each deed comes from an older memory, and each memory from an older deed. It looks like a chain with no first link. Some teachers say it has no beginning. Others tell long stories of how it began.
The Gurus do something different. They do not name a date. They do not tell of a first mistake. They take us back to before there was any doing at all, and they ask us to look around.
In Sukhmani Sahib, Guru Arjan wrote:
ਜਬ ਅਕਾਰੁ ਇਹੁ ਕਛੁ ਨ ਦ੍ਰਿਸਟੇਤਾ ॥
jab akār ihu kachh na drisaṭetā |
When this world had not yet appeared in any form,
ਪਾਪ ਪੁੰਨ ਤਬ ਕਹ ਤੇ ਹੋਤਾ ॥
pāp punn tab kah te hotā |
who then was there to sin or to do good?
ਜਬ ਧਾਰੀ ਆਪਨ ਸੁੰਨ ਸਮਾਧਿ ॥
jab dhārī āpan sunn samādh |
When He Himself held Himself in the deep silent absorption,
ਤਬ ਬੈਰ ਬਿਰੋਧ ਕਿਸੁ ਸੰਗਿ ਕਮਾਤਿ ॥
tab bair birodh kis saṅg kamāt |
against whom was there hatred or strife?
ਜਬ ਇਸ ਕਾ ਬਰਨੁ ਚਿਹਨੁ ਨ ਜਾਪਤ ॥
jab is kā baran chihan na jāpat |
When there was no colour or shape to be seen,
ਤਬ ਹਰਖ ਸੋਗ ਕਹੁ ਕਿਸਹਿ ਬਿਆਪਤ ॥
tab harakh sog kahu kisah biāpat |
who then was touched by joy or sorrow?
ਆਪਨ ਖੇਲੁ ਆਪਿ ਵਰਤੀਜਾ ॥
āpan khel āp varatījā |
He Himself has set His own play in motion;
ਨਾਨਕ ਕਰਨੈਹਾਰੁ ਨ ਦੂਜਾ ॥੧॥
nānak karanaihār na dūjā |1|
O Nanak, there is no other Creator.
Sukhmani Sahib, ashtpadi 21
And a few lines later:
ਜਬ ਹੋਵਤ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਕੇਵਲ ਧਨੀ ॥
jab hovat prabh keval dhanī |
When there was only God the Master,
ਤਬ ਬੰਧ ਮੁਕਤਿ ਕਹੁ ਕਿਸ ਕਉ ਗਨੀ ॥
tab bandh mukat kahu kis kau ganī |
who then was counted bound or free?
Sukhmani Sahib, ashtpadi 21
He does not say what the first karma was. He shows that before the world took shape there was no one to do karma, no one to be bound by it, and no one to be freed from it. There was the One alone. Deeds and their fruit came into being with the play. So did liking and disliking. So did bondage and freedom. And the play belongs to the One who began it.
In Japji Sahib, Guru Nanak answered more simply still.
ਜਾ ਕਰਤਾ ਸਿਰਠੀ ਕਉ ਸਾਜੇ ਆਪੇ ਜਾਣੈ ਸੋਈ ॥
jā karatā siraṭhī kau sāje āpe jāṇai soī |
The Creator who shaped this creation, He alone knows.
Japji Sahib, pauri 21
This is not a refusal to answer. It is an answer of a different size. It says the warehouse is not the whole of what is real. Before the warehouse there was the One. Under all the boxes, the ground on which the building stands is not karma. It is God. That is why the warehouse can be cleared. It was never the foundation. It is only what has been stored on it.