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

Day 10 - Once Upon A Yogi Time

Today's Tarka Practice
Today, I wish to share one of my favorite stories. Before making any decisions in my life, I think about this story to see whether or not I really wish to generate the karma from the thought and action that would occur from the decision. It goes like this...

"Once upon a yogi time, a disciple went into a restaurant and sat down. He was thinking. 'My Guru says that the mind can cause great havoc. I don't understand.' His eye caught the glistening of a little drop of honey that had splashed on the wall. He then saw a bee come to taste the honey. Soon a lizard rushed at the bee with its long, quivering tongue. The manager's pet cat leaped for the lizard. A little dog hidden in the coat of a customer jumped up and wounded the cat...the owner of the little dog pounced upon the dog...the waiter spilled a large tray of hot soup...and the cook came screaming from the kitchen wondering what was going on! The disciple sat calmly and reflected. Is that too mystical"? Taken from Goswami Kriyananda's Beginner's Guide to Meditation

What is the moral of this story? Sometimes we should leave the honey alone, or sometimes we should not take any action.

In your journal today, think about a situation that got out of your control very quickly. Think about the very beginning of the situation - the thought that made you take action. How might your life be different if you had not acted on that thought?

Day 11 - The Way We Experience Love

Today's Tarka Practice
To begin today's reflections I have another story to share. This story comes from my own personal journal and talks about my meditation experience in the Zen tradition. This was before I became a student of Kriya yoga and the writing is from about eight years ago. After re-reading this story in my own journal, it struck me how many great lessons are still present. This was a writing about love.
And the story begins...

The faint scent of cedar wood filled the room. Eyes closed, I carefully observed the proper form of the Soto Zen meditation tradition. As my breath eased in and out of my body, I used breath control and intention to push the air deliberately towards my feet. I was focused and felt calm and peaceful until my cat, Egypt, started rubbing her head lovingly against my hand, begging for attention. I did not reach out to pet her; instead, I tried to maintain my locus of control. In order to train my mind, my will, it was essential to maintain proper form. Her rubbing became more insistent, and I felt the hives begin to grow and itch on the back of my hand. They itched like mad, but I refused to move and break form. Again, I used my breath to try to forget the itching sensation that was now cascading up my wrist and forearm. She would not leave me alone, and I was getting very irritated. I did not set out to make irritation the central focus of this meditation. Yet, I sat there still, irritated and itchy. She was not trying to irritate me; she was only seeking love. This love came to me without warning and was not what I expected it to be. I thought to myself, love is often like this. We have expectations about the form it will take and who it will be with. We make judgments about the way we wish it to be, and when it does not meet our expectations, we become irritated. This irritation actually blocks us from being able to receive love. We often want love to come to us on our terms and only when we decide we want it; we want to control it instead of just opening ourselves up and letting it happen. When others demand love from us during inconvenient times, such as during meditation, or while we are busy working on a project, or watching our favorite TV show, we don't notice it; we actually push love away, get angry and then wonder why our partners are irritated, hurt, or angry. Love can be very demanding. When those who seek only to be in our presence approach us, what we need to do is to stop, to listen, to awaken, to pay attention, become fully present in the moment and ask ourselves what is going on here? When others are "begging" for our attention, it is because we have not been giving it. If we tend our relationships as if they were a flower garden, if we nurture them with care and water them regularly, the petals will slowly open and grow towards the light. Instead of acting and reacting, we can just sit openly, listen silently, and awaken to what is being offered here. It is caring, compassion - it is generosity. My cat gave up for a bit, moved away, and sat next to me quietly purring. We rested comfortably in each other’s presence. Neither of us had to do anything. No action needed to be taken. Both of us were able to offer each other love and both of us were open to receive it. Love does not need to be demanding if we are awake. Love moves through us as freely as our breath.

In your journal today, I want you to open yourself to love. As you move through your day, think about your own encounters with love and the effects love has on your state of mind.

How many times did you feel love enter your life today? How did you approach it (did you receive it easily, get irritated, close yourself off, etc.)

Just notice all of your feelings and thoughts surrounding love.

Day 12 - The River of Life

Today’s Tarka Practice
I have one more story to share with you this week. This story is taken from Goswami Kriyananda's Beginner's Guide to Meditation.

"Once upon a yogi time there was a man who owned a little donkey. For many years, the donkey carried huge baskets of salt that weighed him down and made him tired. One day, by accident, the donkey slipped at the edge of the river and fell in. When he emerged, he realized that his burden was greatly lightened because most of the salt dissolved in the river. The man was angry but accepted the loss of the salt as an accident. The next day the donkey passed the same river and remembered how light his burden had been made the previous day. So he threw himself into the water and came back out, his load greatly lightened. This went on for a few days until the man realized what his donkey was doing. But he said nothing. Some days later, the man stacked huge piles of cotton on the donkey and together they started their trek. Coming to the river, the donkey thought himself very clever and again fell in. But this time the light cotton quickly soaked up the water, and when the little donkey emerged from the stream his legs buckled under him, and he understood the ways of the river of life."

While there are many different levels to this story and many things to reflect upon, today we will focus on only one of those themes.

For today's journal, think about your misconceptions about life. It is easy to think that once we take care of the problem, life will run smoothly. However, this is not the way of life. Life can be easy sometimes and challenging sometimes. We can solve one problem, have a break, only for another new set of problems to begin. Write down your expectations about life. What you expect to happen and what actually happens may be completely different things, so it is good to be aware of the nature of life, particularly, the nature of your life.
Shanti

Day 13 - Your Conversation with Life

Today's Tarka Practice
Life is a dialogue with the self, others, and the world. Each of these entries in your journal is your conversation with life. These conversations are not complete, and they will never be complete. All they can do is to give you a snapshot of what you are thinking during one moment. Just as a photograph represents an exact slice of time so do your writings and reflections. Therefore, each entry will build on another entry. As you write, you will find that your thoughts change. When you engage in conversations with others, your thoughts change. As you have new experiences, your thoughts change. Your thoughts breathe with each passing moment, and you will often end up somewhere completely different from where you started. The message here is really this - don’t get too attached to your thoughts or to your conversation with life, for everything is impermanent and will change.

In your journal today, write about impermanence and how each moment passes. Reflect on old thoughts that you don't believe in anymore. For example, maybe last year you ate meat and this year you don't or maybe you were a vegetarian last year and this year you are not. Notice how you feel when you discover that thoughts are fleeting and are of little importance. Does this make you happy, distressed, peaceful?

Day 26 - Beginning to Know Your Dharma

 

Today's Tarka Practice

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India. If you have not read Monday’s and Tuesday’s posts, you may want to start there before reading this post.

 

 

For the last two days, we have been talking about our own life’s song or our life’s meaning or purpose. We have discovered that the overall meaning is to serve – to serve others, to serve ourselves and to serve life. How can we serve life? The answer to this question brings us to the next part of the Gita.

In the Gita, there are many key players. Today, we will talk about the two most important players – Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna symbolizes the human being, a person, or even more literally, you – the person you are in this life. Krishna symbolizes God incarnate but can also be seen as symbolizing the oversoul or our higher self or spirit.

So, what is happening in the Gita is this – a conversation between Arjuna (your earth self) and Krishna (your spiritual self). Depending upon your religious beliefs, you can also see this as a conversation between you and God.

The conversation that is taking place is this: Arjuna is trying to figure out his life’s purpose or his life’s song and he is asking Krishna for help. Krishna’s response to Arjuna is this: your life’s song is your dharma.

In yoga, dharma has many meanings. For the purpose of our discussion here, you should think of dharma as the nature of life. Krishna is trying to help Arjuna understand the nature of life, more specifically, the nature of his life.

For today’s journal entry, I want you to think about the nature of your life. What is your dharma or purpose in this earthly life? Most people do not know the answer to this question or are uncertain. That is fine, for this is the place to begin. Many people come to yoga to find out the answer to this question, so for now, if you do not know your life’s purpose, make a list of your strengths and what you feel you do well.

 

Shanti

Day 27 - Your Dharma Part 2

Today's Tarka Practice

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India.

 

Yesterday, we ended our tarka practice with the question, what is your purpose in life or your dharma? Today, we continue on with that question to a second level of the word dharma. Dharma also means duty. So here, we could also ask ourselves the question, what is my duty in life?

 

The word duty often calls up thoughts of responsibility or questions like what am I responsible for? This is a question of ethics. So now, if we yoke together both purpose and duty within the word dharma, we come to understand that we each have an individual purpose to fulfill and a way to fulfill it. Not only should we fulfill our purpose but we should fulfill it in a responsible and harmonious way.

 

This is one reason that I asked you yesterday to make a list of your strengths in your journal. Your strengths tell you about what you do well. We are meant to do these things. It is our duty to do them. For example, if you think you are very good at teaching others but not very good at woodworking, this is a hint from the universe. One might say here, it is your purpose to teach or your duty to teach. It is not your purpose to be a woodworker. So, another way to find our purpose or our dharma is to make a list of what we do not do well. If you are still searching for your purpose, you can eliminate those things from the list that you have difficulty with and those things that you do not enjoy doing. We are given strengths and talents and we are meant to use them to fulfill our purpose.

 

In your journal today, I want you to make a list of things that you don’t think you do well and things you are not interested in doing. Now, you have to be careful here because sometimes we have weaknesses that we are meant to develop into strengths and sometimes we are afraid of success. When making your list, make sure that the things on your list are not there because you are running away from them.

 

Shanti

 

Day 28 - Your Dharma Part 3

Today's Tarka Practice

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India.

Yesterday, we were talking about the relationship between dharma, duty, and purpose. Today, we will continue that discussion here, so if you missed yesterday’s post, read that one before reading this one.

 

A second way to understand the relationship between purpose and duty is this – it is our duty to fulfill our purpose. Hence, our task in life is to find our purpose and then to do it. The deeper message here is that when we are off the path - we are not finding our purpose or doing our purpose (we are not living our dharma), we will experience pain and unhappiness. However, when we are on the right path – we are moving towards our purpose and beginning to practice our purpose (we are fulfilling our dharma), we will experience joy and happiness.

So, our next task is to now write down in our journals those things that bring us pain and unhappiness and those things that bring us joy and happiness.

 

Finally, over the weekend, you can examine all of your journal entries this week in order to begin to get a sense of what your purpose in life is or what your duty is or what your dharma is. Go ahead and write those things down. Keep this list. Build on this list and notice some of the changes you begin to make in your life over the next few weeks.

Shanti

Day 29 - The Meaning of Karma

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

Day 30 - Pralabdha Karma

Today's Tarka Practice

This week's discussion is on karma, what it means, and some of the different types. On Monday we talked about San-chitta karma or all of your karma from all lifetimes. Today, we will talk about Pralabdha karma.

 

Pralabdha karma is just the karma of this lifetime. So, if you did Monday's tarka, you will be off to a good start thinking about the karma you have in this lifetime. Take a look at the list I asked you to make on Monday. On this list, you should see some of the karma you were born with.

 

Your karma can tell you about your dharma, so it is important to understand the type of karma you were born with. This is the most likely karma to manifest in this lifetime. I'll use myself as an example here to illustrate what I mean. On my list of characteristics, I have teacher. Whether formal or informal I always seem to be teaching something. I teach my kids, I teach my students, I teach myself. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get away from this approach. Smiles. It follows me everywhere. It seems that I was born with this already in place. So, one might say that I was born with the karma of a teacher.

 

To take this further, the way I approach life - through the eyes of a teacher - can then be seen as a part of my dharma. It is in my essence. I might then say that it is my duty or my responsibility to be a teacher in this lifetime.

 

For today's journal entry, take a look over that list of characteristics you made on Monday and see if you can draw a relationship between your characteristics and your passions. What are you most passionate about? How might this tell you about your karma and what you are meant to manifest in this lifetime?

 

Shanti

 

 

Day 31 - Turning the Negative into a Positive

Today's Tarka Practice
We have now talked about two different types of karma - San-chitta karma and Pralabdha karma. The next type of karma it is important to understand is Kriyamana karma.

 

Kriyamana karma is the karma that you are creating in this lifetime. To clarify, Pralabdha karma is all of the karma in this lifetime but Kriyamana karma is the karma you are constantly creating and adding to the Pralabdha karma tank or ocean if you will. For example, on Wednesday I talked about one of my traits - teacher as a part of my Pralabdha karma. Now, when I teach I am creating something and this act of creation creates karma.

 

In other words, karma can also be described as a cause-effect relationship. In my essence, I am a teacher; therefore, I teach. This act of teaching creates an effect on myself and on others. Remember, it is not a good effect or a bad effect, it is just an effect. Someone might see my teaching as either good or bad but this is not karma. Instead, this is someone bringing their own attitudes onto what I am teaching and assigning it a meaning of their own. Most likely, they will interpret my teaching in a way that is harmonious with their own karma.

 

To simplify this idea, what I mean here is that everyone has their own personal lens through which they see the world. This personal lens effects one's attitude towards things. What is important to understand is that you can change your attitude about something at any time. You have the power to see things in any way that you want to see them.

 

For today's journal entry, think about a time in which you experienced something you didn't like and had a negative attitude about it. Now, think about how you could have changed your attitude in order to experience this same thing more positively. I'll give an example for further clarity.

 

When my daughter was born, my pelvis separated and I couldn't walk or take care of my daughter without help. I couldn't carry her or get her a bottle or get up with her in the middle of the night. I couldn't do anything that one normally does with a newborn. I could have seen this as a very negative experience (and on some days I did). However, I thought mostly about what a great gift it was because it allowed me to spend time with my newborn. All I could do was sit in a chair all day long so this is what I did. I sat with her on my lap, holding her for the entire day. This was precious bonding time for us both. If I had been able to move around more, I might have missed out on this bonding time because I would have been very busy cleaning and cooking and tending to things.

 

Think of this example and write about a time when you turned a negative experience into a positive one.

 

Shanti