Hare Krishna
Banks offer type of current account with an overdraft facility against security. The balance in this kind of account can become negative up to a certain prescribed limit depending on the value of the security. When the balance is already negative, further withdrawal will make the balance even more negative. However, if you deposit some money into that account, the negative balance will reduce. So long as the balance is negative, you are liable to the bank. But once the balance becomes zero, your liability is over.
Our Karmic account is similar to an overdraft account. We all come into this world with a negative balance in our karmic account due to our past lives. The actions that we perform with some underlying desire are like further withdrawals from our karmic overdraft account that increase our "liability" further. On the other hand, the actions that we perform without any desire are like deposits into the overdraft account that reduce the negative balance, eventually bringing it down to zero.
We do not know what kind of karmic overdraft we are born with. The law of karma is complex. Even if we perform a supposedly 'good' deed, we are, more often than not, likely to have some conscious or unconscious desire while performing that good deed. For example, when we drop a coin into a beggar's tin, we may have a hidden desire that the beggar's hunger will eventually be satisfied so that we are not required to give once again. All said and done, it is a worldly desire.
Even a conscious or subconscious feeling that 'I am doing a good deed and it will benefit me in some way in the future', is like withdrawing from the karmic account. A better way is to drop a coin into the beggar,s tin thinking that you are in a position to do so by the grace of god considering the beggar lord's son, that it is the right thing to do at that moment. All thoughts about future consequences of our actions should be shunned. Then the action will be like a deposit into the karmic account reducing the negative balance.
Consider every action or experience in the present moment as setting off a past karmic debt. In other words, do not regard your action or experience in the present moment as a cause of something that will happen in the future.
It is our normal tendency to link every action to a scenario, past or future, in a cause-effect relationship. That is the basis of the law of karma. Instead, we should regard each action s simply a duty appropriate in the present moment dedicating it to Krishna, which will nullify a part of the karmic debt. If we cannot manage to bring down the negative karmic balance to zero before we die, we must come back to this planet for another life. This has to repeat again and again until the karmic overdraft becomes zero.
Scriptures and spiritual writers use the metaphor of sowing live and roasted seeds. Desire less action is like a roasted seed -- it can never germinate. On the other hand, action with some conscious or unconscious desire is like a "live" seed that will sprout into a tree bearing fruits of karma that will, in turn, have further live seeds. Thus, the karmic cycle perpetuates due to desires.
That is why KRISHNA advises us in the Bhagwad Gita, verse 2:47 - 'KARMANYEWADHIKARASTE MA PHALESHU KADACHAN' - You have a right only to perform an action and not a right to its fruit.
II HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE, HARE RAM HARE RAM RAM RAM HARE HARE II
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