In plain words
In human life, creation, sustenance and dissolution are all bound by karma alone. The joys and sorrows man experiences, the sins and merits he commits, the blame and praise he receives, are nothing but the gifts of karma! Humanness is ‘Karmānubandīni manuṣyaloke.’ By karma alone man stays bound. Not recognising this secret, man does his karma happily at the time he does it; but at the time he experiences the result, he experiences it in sorrow. So they told every man, before doing any karma, to honour the word of the Upaniṣad and first of all bow to karma. In what way? ‘Karmānubandīni manuṣyaloke.’ Every man today does his karmas desiring the fruit of karma. He takes on a body in order to experience the fruit. ‘Tasmai namaḥkarmaṇe,’ they said. That is, it is nothing but praying to God, ‘Grant me the strength and capacity to do good karmas!’
The fruit is nothing but the final form of karma
In every karma we do, its fruit lies contained. A small seed. In that seed lies contained the vast tree that will take shape in the future. The branches in that tree, the twigs, the unripe fruits and the ripe fruits, are all nothing but other forms of the seed! After we plant the seed in the ground, in some time it grows into a tree. Where did this tree come from? ‘I am the seed of all beings.’ This whole world has come forth from nothing but the seed called the fruit of karma. Karma is not one thing and the fruit of karma another. The fruit is nothing but the final form of karma. To everything there is a beginning and an end. Joy and sorrow too are only beginning and end!
Hardship and happiness, the two, are joined together; no one has the power to separate them; happiness by itself we shall nowhere see; when hardship bears fruit, they call it happiness.