Does past karma really work for our present and future life?

The seeds of karma which were sown in the past life, give their effects in this current life; and at that time, depending on one’s inner intent, good or bad, new seeds of karma are sown in this life, which shall give its effects in the future life.

Whatever actions we do or words we speak today, they are all a result of our past life’s karma. And while past karma works for our present life, our inner intent at the time when the past karma is unfolding creates our future life.
For example, if we are donating money, it is a result of our past karma working presently in our life. Now, if we are donating with a good intention in mind, it means we are binding new merit karma, which will work for our future life. But if we donate with some ill-intention, we could be binding demerit karma too, and that would work for our future life then. Such is the law of karma.

Thus, our entire current life is the result of our past life karma, while the present intention of ours determines our future life. This is the way we all living beings have been trapped in the perpetual cycle of birth and death.
The reason why we bind karma are:

-Ignorance of really who am I? Not knowing one’s real self is the root cause why, life after life, we continue to bind karma. We believe this is my body, this is my name. While we are relatively a daughter or a son, a husband or a wife, a mother or a father in this world, we wrongly believe ourselves to be really so, which gives rise to attachments.
-Ignorance of really who is the doer. The past karma, along with the other scientific circumstantial evidences, work for our present life, and thereby the acts get done naturally. But, owing to ignorance of our true Self, we wrongly believe that, ‘I did it’ and thus keep sowing new seeds of karma.

Until we continue to sow seeds of new karma, the cycle of present and future life can never end. It is only when we acquire the right knowledge of ‘Who am I’ and ‘which entity runs the world’ that we can stop binding new karma.

When we attain the right knowledge of, ‘I am a Pure Soul’ (Self-Realization), the wrong belief of ‘I am this body or name’ is fractured and the right understanding is established.The Pure Soul is made up of infinite knowledge and infinite vision. It is absolutely pure in nature and is free from all doership. Its only function is to ‘See and Know’ without any kind of attachment towards whatever it sees and knows.

To conclude: The sowing of new karmic seeds is caused due to our wrong beliefs regarding ‘who am I and who is the doer.’ After Self-Realization, whatever, good or bad, speech, thought or action happens, we are able to maintain the awareness that, ‘this is the effect of the past karma (causes), and I, as a Soul, am only the knower and Seer of it.’ Thereby, we do not bind any new karma. So, when the effects of all past karma are over, we become absolutely free; we attain ultimate liberation (Moksha).

To know more on how we can attai
Self-realisation, please visit https://www.dadabhagwan.org/self-realization/