The Karmic Remedy

“The three degrees of karmic intensity which may apply to one, many, or all areas of a person’s life are:

1. Dridha (fixed) Karma
2. Dridha-Adridha (fixed/non-fixed) Karma
3. Adridha (non-fixed) Karma

Dridha Karmas give fixed results because they are so difficult to change that they are practically non-changeable. These karmas, pleasurable or painful, are destined to be experienced because of the intensity of their causes.

Dridha-Adridha Karmas, good OR bad, can be changed through the concentrated application of creative will, though considerable effort is required.

Adridha Karmas are said to give non-fixed results because they are easily altered.

Upaya (Sanskrit for ‘method’ or ‘remedy’) refers to future and current actions that remedy adverse Karmas (that is, that remedy the adverse results of previous actions). When the karma is non-fixed, one may expect immediate change on commencement of an upaya. If the karmas are fixed/non-fixed, results are anticipated after some concentrated efforts, often after a period of forty days. But even for those who do persevere, transformation of fixed karmas may not necessarily be expected during this lifetime, though a slight modification of results will perhaps be secretly anticipated. So long as the upayas are patiently and consistently resorted to over the course of this incarnation, however, they will act as well-planted seeds whose crop of desired results will be reaped during a future incarnation.

Remedies are designed to prevent or to correct undesirable results of previous actions. Often the best remedy of all is to worship an ishta devata, one’s chosen deity. An ishta devata makes it easier to live a life in which you act of your own volition, instead of being perpetually driven by your karmas, or by the karmas of others, to act in frequently undesirable ways. When you worship an ishta devata, your focus restrains the fluctuations of your mind, which permits a little spark of Reality to flow from your deity to you. It is this spark that appears in your awareness as intuition. Though the worship of an ishta devata may seem to some an exercise in idolatry, the deities are really representatives of the One Reality. When you worship a personal deity, you indirectly worship the Absolute One, the Singularity who manifests as the personal deity. The personal relationship you cultivate with an ishta devata plugs you in to a personal relationship with the One Reality, the source of all questions and all answers.

-- Hard de Fouw and Robert Svoboda. Light on Life: An Introduction to the Astrology of India. Twin Lakes, Wisconsin: Lotus Press, 2003. 24-36. [Some editing included.]