Karma in Tantra — Action, Freedom, and Liberation
The Tantric understanding of karma is more nuanced than popular presentations — Tantra teaches that karma is the mechanism through which consciousness explores its infinite freedom, not a mechanical system of cosmic reward and punishment.
While popularized versions of karma present it as a cosmic ledger of rewards and punishments, the Tantric understanding is more sophisticated. Karma (action, cause-effect) is the mechanism through which consciousness (Shiva) creates the experience of individual identity and bounded experience. The three types of karma — Sanchita (accumulated karmas from all past lives), Prarabdha (the portion activated to bear fruit in the current life), and Agami (new karma being created) — together constitute the apparent bondage of the individual. The Tantric teaching on karma is liberation-oriented: Prarabdha karma must be experienced (it cannot be avoided), but its force is dramatically reduced through Jnana (knowledge) and Vairagya (non-attachment). For the Jivanmukta, Agami karma no longer binds because the sense of personal doership has dissolved — actions arise but are not 'owned' by an ego. The root of all karma is Ahamkara (the sense 'I am the doer') — dissolve this, and karma's binding power is dissolved.
Karma binds only the one who believes 'I am the doer.' The one who knows the Self is free, for actions arise in consciousness but belong to no one.
The Ashtavakra Gita teaches that the Self is the ever-free witness and never the doer; recognizing this, the sage acts without the sense of authorship that binds action into karma.
Ashtavakra Gita