The arrow in flight cannot be changed. The arrow in the hand can. It is the only place new karma is ever made, and it is made now.
The old teachers had two more names here, and they mark a real difference. Kriyaman karma means what is being done. It is the act of this moment, together with whatever it brings at once: the word spoken, and the look on the listener's face. Agami karma means what is coming. It is the part of today's act that does not ripen today. It is laid by, to ripen later, next week or next year or in a life to come. Until it ripens it waits in the warehouse, and the store grows by that much.
The archer can hold all four in one picture. The quiver on her back is sanchit, everything stored. The arrow already in flight is prarabdh, loosed long ago, and it will strike where it strikes. The drawing of the bow, right now, is kriyaman. And whatever this shot will later bring back to her, the new arrows it lays in the quiver, is agami.
Side by side:
- Sanchit: all that is stored and waiting. It can still be burned.
- Prarabdh: the stored part already ripening in this life. It must be lived through.
- Kriyaman: what is being done now. It is ours to choose.
- Agami: what today's doing lays by for later. It follows from what we choose.
Only one of the four is in our hands, and it is the one happening now.
Teachers draw the line between these two in different places. The main point does not move. The past is given. The present is ours. The pack was made up for us. The next step was not.
This is why the Gurus never told anyone to sit still because everything is written. What is in flight is written. What is in the hand is not.
The arrow in the hand is almost always a small one. Late at night someone posts a cruel photo of a classmate in the group chat, and the laughing emojis pile up beneath it. One girl in the chat holds her thumb above the screen. It would cost nothing to add one more. Instead she puts the phone face down. No one will ever know. But that is where karma is made, in moments no larger than a thumb, one after another, for the whole of a life.
Guru Ram Das wrote a salok about people who carry gossip. It might have been written for our own age.
ਜਿਸੁ ਅੰਦਰਿ ਚੁਗਲੀ ਚੁਗਲੋ ਵਜੈ ਕੀਤਾ ਕਰਤਿਆ ਓਸ ਦਾ ਸਭੁ ਗਇਆ ॥
jis andar chugalī chugalo vajai kītā karatiā os dā sabh gaiā |
Whoever carries gossip inside is known as a gossip, and all the good they did is lost.
ਕਰਮ ਧਰਤੀ ਸਰੀਰੁ ਕਲਿਜੁਗ ਵਿਚਿ ਜੇਹਾ ਕੋ ਬੀਜੇ ਤੇਹਾ ਕੋ ਖਾਏ ॥
karam dharatī sarīr kalijug vich jehā ko bīje tehā ko khāe |
In this dark age, the body is the field where deeds are planted. As a person plants, so that person eats.
Guru Ram Das, salok in Gauri Ki Vaar, Ang 308
The body is the field. Not the stars. Not the family's past. Not the warehouse. The body, now. The planting goes on every minute.
Guru Arjan said the same in his song of the twelve months.
ਜੇਹਾ ਬੀਜੈ ਸੋ ਲੁਣੈ ਕਰਮਾ ਸੰਦੜਾ ਖੇਤੁ ॥
jehā bījai so luṇai karamā sandaṛā khet |
Whatever one sows, one reaps. This is the field of deeds.
Guru Arjan, Barah Maha, Ang 134
Where, then, does the fault lie when things go wrong within us? Guru Nanak answered in a poem made from the Gurmukhi alphabet, one verse for each letter. For the letter ਦ, dadda, he wrote:
ਦਦੈ ਦੋਸੁ ਨ ਦੇਊ ਕਿਸੈ ਦੋਸੁ ਕਰੰਮਾ ਆਪਣਿਆ ॥
dadai dos na deū kisai dos karammā āpaṇiā |
Dadda: I blame no one else. The fault lies in my own deeds.
Guru Nanak, Asa Patti, Ang 433
This is not a heavy line. It is a freeing one. If the fault lies in my own deeds, the remedy lies there too.
ਆਪਣ ਹਥੀ ਆਪਣਾ ਆਪੇ ਹੀ ਕਾਜੁ ਸਵਾਰੀਐ ॥
āpaṇ hathī āpaṇā āpe hī kāj savārīai |
With your own hands, set your own work right.
Asa Ki Vaar, Ang 474