Karma

Daily Reflection
Many people in western culture misunderstand the word karma and the role it plays in their lives. Karma is not ethically charged. This means that it is not good or bad. It is neutral. In the west, we tend to think of karma as "what goes around comes around" or if we do something bad, bad will come to us, just as if we do something good, good will come to us. However, this is not the correct understanding of karma. Karma is the law of cause and effect. All this means is that if you do an action there will be an effect of that action. Our minds misunderstand this concept and assign meaning to the results. Yes, there are consequences to the actions we take. These just happen naturally as a result of the action. Your mind falsely tells you whether or not these consequences are good or bad.

In your journal today, I want you to think about 3 actions that you took and the results that came of those actions. For example,

Action = moved to a new town
Action = went shopping on Thursday morning
Action = smiled at my neighbor this morning

Record the results of each action and notice what the mind tells you about the results.

Result of moving to a new town  = had to make new friends
Result of going shopping on Thursday = was able to read a book on Friday
Result of smiling at neighbor = was invited to dinner

Notice as you read through the example that you are assigning meaning to each of the results and that this meaning could go either way. Perhaps you like to make new friends and welcome the opportunity (positive association) or maybe you find it hard to make new friends and are having trouble (negative association). The important thing to notice during this exercise is your mind is making the associations and is creating the meaning.

This means that you can change the meaning at any time.

Swami K