We don't have karma; we are our karma

If we follow Meher Baba, ordinarily we think of ourselves as a person first, who has acquired specific karma in previous lives that we must play out. But really, if we think about it, we don't just have karma, but are our karma.  

Let me give an analogy to clarify what I mean. We’ll use the analogy of a first person computer game.  

Consider the popular computer game Red Dead Redemption 2. The game takes about 70 hours to complete its main missions and most people become extremely immersed in its story. In such a game a player not only becomes immersed in the story but even identifies with the character they are playing. If you watch reaction videos of the game you will see players refer to the main character Arthur in first person. Of course we all know that Arthur is really just the visual representation of scripted computer code. 

Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2

Arthur is not a character who simply has a code added to him that determines his physique and actions. He is none-other than that code. Arthur is that code.

This gives us a good analogy by which to explain our relationship with our karma, as well as the sanskaras we have gathered that determines that karma. 

Let me give an example of how events in the game are predetermined by the script embedded in its code. A main turn in the story is when Arthur visits a man named Thomas Downes and contracts Tuberculosis from him. People have asked if they can avoid this occurring. This is what ChatGPT had to say:

You can't put off visiting Thomas Downes indefinitely in Red Dead Redemption 2; the game forces the mission after a certain amount of time, usually when you try to rest or trigger another event, making it mandatory to progress and ultimately leading to Arthur contracting tuberculosis. Trying to avoid it too long results in Strauss intervening, locking you into the mission, and skipping it leads directly to the inevitable cough. 

Now of course, the player playing the game is not controlled by such code. The player, like the soul of a man, is not really in the illusion of the game. He or she are simply observing it and identifying with Arthur.

Using this as an analogy, we can compare the scripted story to Arthur's karma. And the code in which that story is embedded can be compared to Arthur's sanskaras or impressions.

So the analogy goes like this:

• The player is the soul, the conscious witness. He or she is not in the game, but immersed in it, and identifies his or her self as Arthur and feels the full emotional impact of the story.
• The story is Arthur's karma.
• The code that determines the events in the story can be compared to sanskaras.

Playable characters like Arthur don't have code. They are code. They don't exist and then someone adds code to them. They are that code. A person is his karma.

Everything about our lives, including the shape and look of our body and even the moment we will die is determined by our karma. Our body does not have consciousness. You who identify with your body and its actions have consciousness. And you are really a transcendent soul.

Clearly, Meher Baba says that we are not really our bodies or our actions, but are really the Oversoul, the witness. But those qualities we take ourselves to be before God-Realization, along with our life and all that occurs in it, is simply code. Sanskaric code. 

So, though one’s real self is God, all that one currently takes himself to be, i.e. his body, his thoughts, the story of his life, are an illusion determined by his sanskaras.

A cinema operator who is cranking the projector with his own hand and is at the same time deeply absorbed in watching the images on the screen. He becomes so deeply absorbed that he forgets that it is his own hand which is cranking the machine, out of which is being projected all of this which he sees on the screen. He laughs and weeps according to the scenes presented on the screen. In the process he forgets the unreality and non existing state of the scenes on the screen. (Meher Baba, Intelligence Notebooks, Second Notebook, p. 32)