Which One Gives Its Result First – Good Karma or Bad Karma?

Can good karma nullify the effects of bad karma?

Someone asked Sage Parashara.
Sage Parashara is one of the foremost propounders of Jyoti Shastra.

He said —
No, it won’t.

Good karma cannot nullify bad karma.
They are independent of each other.
Each one will work independently.
Good karma will give its own result.
Bad karma will give its own result.
They don’t influence or affect each other.

No matter what you do, you will have to undergo the suffering arising out of bad karma and enjoy the benefit arising out of good karma.

Then why do prayaschitta or a remedy when you are in trouble?
Scriptures talk about thousands of them.
What is the point?

Mothers and grandmothers—and even men who know cooking—would understand this easily.

Suppose you cook a dish and then realize that there is too much salt in it.
You unknowingly put two times the normal quantity. What do you do?
You don’t just throw it away.
You add some curd to it—or something like that.
It becomes edible again.

It may not be the perfect dish, but manageable.

Bad karma is the salt which has made life unbearable.
Good karma is the curd that you add so that the overall life experience becomes bearable.

The salt that is already put doesn’t go away.
By consuming that dish, your BP will still shoot up because there is too much salt in it.
But at least you won’t have to throw it away.

Life is a collective experience.
Feeling good or otherwise is a sum total of so many things.

So when you are under the influence of the results of your bad karma, do some good things.
Their good results will start running parallelly.
And your overall life experience will improve.

Which is what we want.

There are a couple more points here.

What about specific prayers like Mrityunjaya Homa, Santana Gopala Homa—meant to achieve specific results or at least performed praying for specific results?

They are prayers.
It is like a mercy petition you file.

We know that.
These petitions are filed to surpass the normal system.
The normal system in place is that of karma: cause-effect, cause-effect.
Mercy petition is at the discretion and pleasure of God.
If He feels so, He will grant.

But then we say: go to Sri Hari, go to Mahadeva, go to Para Shakti—they will absolve you of all sins.
Yes. Very true.

But, who said they will waive off all the sins?
They will show you the path to burn away bad karma in a faster, more efficient way.

What they grant is a boon of knowledge—of how to do this.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi