There are a number of Tantras. Normally it is said that there are 64 tantras. Tantras are in the form of verses which have been told to Goddess Parvathi by Lord Shiva. Most of the tantras talk about rituals. A few of the tantric texts talk about Karmas. Now let us understand about “Karmas”. Karma in literal sense means action. No body in this universe can live without karma. Even somebody choose to ignore karma, he cannot and he will be overpowered by karma. Karma can be good or bad. Happiness and sufferings are due to karma only. If the karmas are bad, it gives only miseries. That is why; religious practices and spiritual exercises are prescribed which gives a positive impact on the weak minded men and clean their wicked tendencies. It is not that people suffer from miseries because of their bad deeds over several births; those who do good deeds with a desire to reap the benefits of the karma also suffer.

Therefore, if a person wants to acquire good karmas, he should never do anything for the benefit of his self. He should always perform good deeds and surrender the benefits to God. As long as a man does not acquire true knowledge, so long he does not attain emancipation; even if he does good deeds he also undergoes miseries. One, a man has to be very pure in his mind and second he should identify himself with God. He has to understand the difference between maya and Brahman. According to Vedantists everything in this universe is maya and only the Brahman is real. A person may do a number of poojas, japas, homas, fastings, etc but all these do not lead to emancipation. If a man understands the great spiritual truth that Atman is without second and is the God, only then he attains liberation. Newton’s third law states that for every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. Same is the principle applied to the law of karmas. Karmas are divided to four categories. They are Sanchitam, Prarabdham, Kriyamanam and Agamyam. Sanchitha karmas refer to our previous actions. We do not know about the actions done in our previous births.

Prarabdha karma is a portion of the Sanchitha karma which will explode in our present life. These two karmas are to be experienced by us at any cost. There is only one exception to this rule. If our Kriyamana karmas (the karmas we do in this life) are exceptionally good and our vision of our Agamya karams should be positive. The Agamya karma is arrived thus. Sanchita karmas + or- Prarabdha karmas + or – kriyamana karmas = agamya karmas. Agamya karma is for our future births. Depending upon the first three, agamya karma may be zero also. This means, there will no rebirth. There is a definite path by which karmas are stored, to manifest in the subsequent janmas. This is again based on the good or bad deeds we performed in the earlier janmas. These are stored as samskaras. Samskaras are the traces of net karams of earlier births. These samskaras produce vasanas or impressions. These vasanas if bad create more and more karmas which in turn lead to more and more births to enable us to undergo the sufferings. If vasanas are good, rebirth will not take place and we merge with God. So, it is to be remembered that our sufferings or otherwise purely depends on the acts we do, in this birth.