Karma implies, does it not, cause and effect - action based on cause, producing a certain effect; action born out of conditioning, producing further results. So karma implies cost and effect. And are cause and effect static, are cause and effect ever fixed? Does not effect become cause also? So there is no fixed cause or fixed effect. Today is a result of yesterday, is it not? Today is the outcome of yesterday, chronologically as well as psychologically; and today is the cause of tomorrow. So cause is effect, and effect becomes cause - it is one continuous movement... There is no fixed cause or fixed effect. If there were a fixed cause and a fixed effect, there would be specialisation; and is not specialisation death? Any species that specialises obviously comes to an end. The greatness of man is that he cannot specialise. He may specialise technically, but in structure he cannot specialise. An acorn seed is specialised - it can be anything but what it is. But the human being does not end completely. There is the possibility of constant renewal; he is not limited by specialisation. As long as we regard the cause, the background, the conditioning, as unrelated to the effect, there must be conflict between thought and the background. So the problem is much more complex than whether to believe in reincarnation or not, because the question is how to act, not whether you believe in reincarnation or karma. That is absolutely irrelevant.
This article has been written by by Jiddu Krishnamurti.