The saying goes: Fight fire with fire. So let us chant Hare Krishna and burn off our karma, burn off the illusion of this bodily existence, and remember always Krishna, the all-attractive one.

Losing Karma

Burning off karma

Just as this woman's karma is pursuing her in this very lifetime wherever she goes, we also have to endure the reactions to our actions from our previous life, and in acting upon them or trying to counteract them, we incure new reactions which will carry over to our next life.

shariram yad avapnoti
yach chapy utkramatishvarah
grihitvaitani samyati
vayur gandhan ivashayat

The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas.

PURPORT
Here the living entity is described as ishvara, the controller of his own body. If he likes, he can change his body to a higher grade, and if he likes he can move to a lower class. Minute independence is there. The change his body undergoes depends upon him. At the time of death, the consciousness he has created will carry him on to the next type of body. If he has made his consciousness like that of a cat or dog, he is sure to change to a cat's or dog's body. And, if he has fixed his consciousness on godly qualities, he will change into the form of a demigod. And, if he is in Krishna consciousness, he will be transferred to Krishnaloka in the spiritual world and will associate with Krishna. It is a false claim that after the annihilation of this body everything is finished. The individual soul is transmigrating from one body to another, and his present body and present activities are the background of his next body. One gets a different body according to karma, and he has to quit this body in due course. It is stated here that the subtle body, which carries the conception of the next body, develops another body in the next life. This process of transmigrating from one body to another and struggling while in the body is called karshati or struggle for existence. (Bhagavad-gita As It Is 15.8, text & purport)

If we are really serious about shaking off our karmic reactions and getting free from the cycle of repeated birth and death, Bhagavad-gita recommends:

yathaidhamsi samiddho 'gnir
bhasma-sat kurute 'rjuna
jñanagnih sarva-karmani
bhasma-sat kurute tatha

As the blazing fire turns firewood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge burn to ashes all reactions to material activities.

PURPORT
Perfect knowledge of self and Superself and of their relationship is compared herein to fire. This fire not only burns up all reactions to impious activities, but also all reactions to pious activities, turning them to ashes. There are many stages of reaction: reaction in the making, reaction fructifying, reaction already achieved, and reaction a priori. But knowledge of the constitutional position of the living entity burns everything to ashes. When one is in complete knowledge, all reactious, both a priori and a posteriori, are consumed. In the Vedas it is stated: ubhe uhaivaisha ete taraty amritah sadhv-asadhuni: "One overcomes both the pious and impious interactions of work." Bhagavad-gita As It Is 4.37, text & purport)

The idea is this: when we understand that we are spirit, not matter, and that we are part and parcel of the Supreme Spirit Soul, Krishna, and resume our eternal relationship in our constitutional position, the false identification with this body and the temporeal existence built upon the bodily platform will be cast off as merely an illusion.

A person does not actually take birth out of the seed of past activities, nor, being immortal, does he die. By illusion the living being appears to be born and to die, just as fire in connection with firewood appears to begin and then cease to exist.

PURPORT
The element fire exists perpetually within the material creation, but in connection with a particular piece of wood fire apparently comes into existence and ceases to exist. Similarly, the living entity is eternal, but in connection with a particular body apparently takes birth and dies. The reactions of karma thus impose an illusory suffering or enjoyment upon the living entity, but they do not cause the entity himself to change his eternal nature. In other words, karma represents a cycle of illusion in which each illusory activity produces another. Krishna consciousness stops this cycle of karma by engaging the living being in spiritual activities in the loving service of the Lord. By such Krishna consciousness one can escape the illusory chain of fruitive reactions. (Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.22.46, text & purport)

Who we are, who God is and what exactly is our relationship to God is explained very thoroughly in the Vedic literatures, especially Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, which have been carefully preserved and handed down by the Acharyas, and have been re-presented by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, known to his disciples and followers as "Srila Prabhupada", for the present age in which we are now living. The published works of Srila Prabhupada number more than 160, among them major Sanskrit and Vaishnava texts such as the two we have pointed out above, Bhagavad-gita As It Is and Srimad-Bhagavatam, as well as Ishopanishad, Chaitanya-charitamrita, and many others besides (see list of Srila Prabhupada's works, including lectures, conversations and letters, and academicians worldwide have praised his books, acknowledging Srila Prabhupada's scholarship and devotional insight.

Yet while Srila Prabhupada endeavoured to introduce these great works of philosophy to the world outside India, on the practical side, he boiled this spiritual science down to a scientific, step-by-step practical methodology, beginning and concluding with the chanting of the holy names of God, as in the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. This one activity of chanting and hearing the holy names simultaneously awakens our dormant attraction to Krishna and dissipates the spell of illusion that binds us to our karmic existence. The saying goes: Fight fire with fire. So let us chant Hare Krishna and burn off our karma, burn off the illusion of this bodily existence, and remember always Krishna, the all-attractive one.