Karma carries the seed of its own destruction

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): Acharya Ji, on being asked, can Karma ever come to an end? Ramana Maharshi says, “Karmas carry the seed of their own destruction in themselves.” Dear Acharya Ji, please help me understand, how Karmas carry the seed of their own destruction?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Karma is action. We do not just act. We act with the intention of obtaining the fruit of the action. So, the actor is there, the actor acts as per his own personal intellect, desires, calculations, projections. And he speculates, calculates that his action will get him a particular result. The result is in his estimation, in his imagination pretty lucrative.

In fact, it is for the sake of that result, that he acts. So far so good but then comes the disappointing part and the disappointing part is — the results are never as anticipated. And never means never. Here, you would probably object, you would say, “but sometimes we do succeed in getting results of our choice.” No, I would still insist. What is it that the actor is actually seeking in the result? The actor is seeking contentment, completion, a finality, a solution in the result.

The actor doesn’t merely act. The actor is a very frustrated entity. The actor acts for the sake of…