Today's Tarka Practice
In the west, people tend to think that karma means "what goes around, comes around" or "you should watch your actions because if you don't, you will get what's coming to you." However, this is not actually what karma means, so I thought I would discuss karma in greater depth here in order to clear up the misunderstandings.
Karma is not the law of retribution. Instead, it has many different meanings and is associated directly with our traits, characteristics, personalities, desires, habits, and tendencies. Karma is both a direct result of things or actions we take in all of our lifetimes as well as the genetic characteristics we are born with. For example, being right handed is a type of karma. The desire to be rich is also a type of karma.
In the yoga philosophy of the east, there are 3 different broad categories of karma. I will discuss the first one today - San-chitta karma. San-chitta karma is all of the karma you have collected from each life you have lived. Now that is a lot of karma.
This can be hard to picture so think of yourself as the ocean - all of the karma from all of your lifetimes is contained here. Each of the waves within the ocean is your karma manifesting. Not all of the karma manifests at one time or even in this lifetime. Not all waves in the ocean come all at one time. Sometimes the waves are big and sometimes they are small. Who you marry would be a big wave, what you choose for breakfast would be a small wave.
In order to begin to get a better understanding of karma, let's take a look at some of the karma that has manifested in this lifetime. In your journal, write down all of the characteristics you were born with - hair color, eye color, right or left handed, gender, weakeness or strengths within your body (for example - a weak stomach or a strong heart), sexual orientation, lifestyle choices (smoking, drinking, eating, etc).
Tomorrow, we will discuss this list futher. So, until tomorrow...
Shanti
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