The karma theory is mere religious and yogic fable.+

Sage Sankara said:~ Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies, and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness.

According to Advaita Vedanta, the Veda addresses itself to two kinds of audiences - the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of ritual sacrifices, and the more advanced seeker who seeks to know Brahman. Thus, the Purva mimam. sa, with its emphasis on the karma kanda of the Vedas, is meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. However, the Vedanta, with its emphasis on the Jnana kanda, is meant for those who wish to go beyond such transient pleasures. 

Sage Sankara says in the commentary on Vedanta Sutra that what is accepted without a proper inquiry will not lead a person to the final goal. On the contrary, such acceptance will result only in evil, something detrimental to our spiritual progress.

Seekers of truth should not believe blindly in traditional Orthodox Advaita without verifying all the facts from every angle. The orthodoxy has nothing to with spirituality, which is based on the soul or spirit.  One has to reflect through reasoning over and over again without getting tired of the process.

The doer, the doing (karma)  and the world belong the duality.  From the standpoint of the soul, the innermost self, duality is not a reality.  From the standpoint of the soul, the innermost self, the doer, the doing, and the world are one in essence. That essence is the soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.  Thus, there is no second thing that exists other than consciousness.  The consciousness alone is real and eternal, and all else is merely an illusion. 

The karma theory is merely a religious and yogic fable.

Sage Ramana, Maharishi J. Krishnamurti, and Nisargadatta, all died of cancer-type illness. It does not make any difference if they died of cancer or not of cancer or any illness. Even Lord Krishna died a painful death.  Death is a certain cause of death that is irrelevant to a Gnani. When the Self is birthless then it is deathless A Gnani is unconcerned about death because he is fully aware that the illusion is only a passing show. The last words of Sage Ramana on the death bed: - says I am not going anywhere. He did not mean his physical form, which was bound by birth, life, and death but the birthless Self, which is ever formless.  Thus the karma theory is nothing to do with the birthless Self. Thus, people’s painful death cannot be taken as evidence because the Self is ever deathless because it was birthless because it is formless.

The karmic account is never-ending because one has to be born again and again to reap his good or bad karma carried forward from one life to the next.   The karma theory is a mere religious and yogic fable.

Sage Sankara says in Aparokshanubhuti:-  88. When the whole universe, movable and immovable, is known to be Atman, and thus the existence of everything else is negated, where is then any room to say that the body is Atman?

   89. O enlightened one, pass your time always contemplating Atman while you are experiencing all the results of Prarabdha; for it ill becomes you to feel distressed.

   90. The theory one hears from the scripture, that Prarabdha does not lose its hold upon one even after the origination of the knowledge of Atman, is now being refuted.

   91. After the origination of the knowledge of Reality, Prarabdha verily ceases to exist, since the body and the like become non-existent; just as a dream does not exist on waking.

   92. That Karma which is done in a previous life is known as Prarabdha (which produces the present life). But such Karma cannot take the place of Prarabdha (for a man of knowledge), as he has no other birth (being free from ego).

   93. Just as the body in a dream is superimposed (and therefore illusory), so is also this body. How could there be any birth of the superimposed (body), and in the absence of birth (of the body) where is the room for that (i.e., Prarabdha) at all?

   94. The Vedanta texts declare ignorance to be verily the material (cause) of the phenomenal world just as the earth is a jar. That (ignorance) being destroyed, where can the universe subsist?

   95. Just as a person out of confusion perceives only the snake leaving aside the rope, so does an ignorant person see only the phenomenal world without knowing the reality?

   96. The real nature of the rope being known, the appearance of the snake no longer persists; so the substratum being known, the phenomenal world disappears completely.

   97. The body also being within the phenomenal world (and therefore unreal), how could Prarabdha exist? It is, therefore, for the understanding of the ignorant alone that the Shruti speaks of Prarabdha.

   98. “And all the actions of a man perish when he realizes that (Atman) which is both the higher and the lower”. Here the clear use of the plural by the Shruti is to negate Prarabdha as well.

   99. If the ignorant still arbitrarily maintain this, they will not only involve themselves in two absurdities but will also run the risk of forgoing the Vedantic conclusion. So one should accept those Shrutis alone from which proceeds true knowledge.

The above proves that karma is a reality only on the base of a false self, where one thinks of the body and the universe as reality. 

When one becomes aware of the fact that, the true Self is the formless soul, then karma becomes part and parcel of illusion.   

My point is that, if one accepts the karma theory as reality, he will never be able to come out of ignorance. And ignorance makes him believe the cycle of birth, life, and death as a reality.  Thus the freedom which one is seeking will remain a distant dream. For the one who accepts the birth of life and death as a reality, Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is impossible.:~Santthosh Kumaar