Patanjali Yoga Sutra — सोपक्रमं निरुपक्रमं च कर्म तत्संयमादपरान्तज्ञानमरिष्टेभ्यो वा ॥3.23॥

Sopakramaṃ nirupakramaṃ ca karma tatsaṃyamādaparānta jñānamariṣṭebhyo vā॥

Karmas are of two kinds:

1) Active (sopakrama): The fruits of which will soon be yielded

2) Dormant (nirupakrama): That which will not bear fruit until later.

By saṁyama on these karmas, the yogi gains knowledge of the nature of one’s fruits of different karmas. Thus, the yogi is able to read warning signals of different omens or portents and foretell the time of death.

The followingsubhāṣitam beautifully explains the nature of our Karmas.

यथा धेनुसहस्रेषु वत्सो विन्दति मातरम्।

तथा पुराकृतं कर्म कर्तारमनुगच्चति॥

yathā dhenusahasreṣu vatso vindati mātaram|

tathā purākṛtaṃ karma kartāramanugacchati॥

Though there are thousands of cows, the little one (calf) finds the mother cow and follows her. Similarly, our past karmas follow us without fail in every life till totally extinguished.

Any amount of advancement in the medical field has not helped the man in his desire to become immortal. A human being is, hence desirous of knowing at least his time of death. His quest to know one’s own time of death is as old as himself. Here in this sūtra, Patañjali says, many great yogis knew their time of death for certain and they exhibited all preparedness for their final journey from this world. What could be the logical explanation? The karma siddhānta says karmas are the root causes of what happens to one. We are not different from what we do, what we think, what we say. We are the sum total of the impressions of what we think, do, and say. Thus, if the karmas are the root causes of what happens to us, the very saṁyama on these causes could definitely give the knowledge of what happens, including death. Knowledge of cause can get us the knowledge of the effect too.