No one carries the whole warehouse into a single life. A portion is set aside and packed for this journey. The old teachers called it prarabdh karma. Prarabdh means already set in motion. It is the part of our karma given to us for this life.
The difference between the two is the difference between seed in a sack and seed already sprouting. Sanchit is waiting. Prarabdh has begun, and it must run its course. It is not a new kind of karma. It is the part of the old store that has started to ripen.
It holds what we did not choose. The family we are born into. The body we live in. The country and the language. Many of the large events that come to us, the gains and the losses. It is like a pack made up for a journey. Some things in it we are glad of. Some we wish were not there. It was packed for this journey and for no other.
The old teachers explained it with an archer. The arrows in her quiver are the warehouse, all that is stored. The arrow she has already loosed, now in flight, is prarabdh. She cannot call it back. It will strike where it strikes. The arrow in her hand, not yet drawn, is what she does now. That arrow is still hers.
Prarabdh is not a punishment. It is a situation. Two people may be handed the same pack. One spends the whole road complaining of its weight. The other shoulders it and walks.
The Gurus do not pretend that nothing is given. Guru Nanak wrote in Japji Sahib:
ਹੁਕਮੀ ਉਤਮੁ ਨੀਚੁ ਹੁਕਮਿ ਲਿਖਿ ਦੁਖ ਸੁਖ ਪਾਈਅਹਿ ॥
hukamī utam nīch hukam likh dukh sukh pāīah |
By that will one stands high and another low; by what that will has written, sorrow comes and comfort comes.
Japji Sahib, pauri 2
Hukam means God's will, the order that runs through all things. Some of what comes to us, sorrow and comfort alike, is already written. And again:
ਸੰਜੋਗੁ ਵਿਜੋਗੁ ਦੁਇ ਕਾਰ ਚਲਾਵਹਿ ਲੇਖੇ ਆਵਹਿ ਭਾਗ ॥
sañjog vijog dui kār chalāvah lekhe āvah bhāg |
Coming together and parting: these two keep the world's work moving, and each receives the share that is written.
Japji Sahib, pauri 29
How, then, is the pack to be carried? Not with complaint, and not with despair. Guru Arjan wrote two lines that are sung wherever Sikhs gather.
ਤੇਰਾ ਕੀਆ ਮੀਠਾ ਲਾਗੈ ॥
terā kīā mīṭhā lāgai |
Whatever You do feels sweet to me.
ਹਰਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਪਦਾਰਥੁ ਨਾਨਕੁ ਮਾਂਗੈ ॥
har nām padārath nānak māṅgai |
Nanak asks for one treasure: the Lord's Name.
Guru Arjan, Raag Asa, Ang 394
Sikhs remember these lines when they remember how Guru Arjan met the hardest days of his own life. He did not ask for a lighter load. He asked for the Name. He found even the bitter things sweet, because he saw the One in them.
There is a secret folded into this. When what is given is taken as God's will, and taken without bitterness, no new boxes go into the warehouse. Rain makes no karma. Resenting the rain does. Blaming the world for the rain does. Acceptance is the way to walk through old karma without sowing new.
Guru Arjan said it in another shabad.
ਜੋ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਕੀਨੋ ਸੋ ਭਲ ਮਾਨਿਓ ਏਹ ਸੁਮਤਿ ਸਾਧੂ ਤੇ ਪਾਈ ॥
jo prabh kīno so bhal mānio eh sumat sādhū te pāī |
Whatever God does, I take as good. This good sense I found from the holy.
Guru Arjan, Raag Kanra, Ang 1299