Karma simply means we have created the blue print for our life. It means we are the makers of our own fate...It makes each one of us squarely responsible for our own destinies and, above all, the nature of our experience of life.
Sadhguru, Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, page 8
I have only finished the first chapter and I already have a better understanding of karma than I did. I can tie it into what I know and often write about samskaras. It is so cool.
Karma is basically the result of all our accumulated actions on the body, mind and energy level. We, since the time we are born, take on these sense impressions and these impressions settle into our minds, bodies and energies creating certain patterns ( pleasant, unpleasant, neutral? ). The patterns shape themselves into behavioural tendencies ( habits- certain choices, physical actions, preferences, thoughts, feelings, openings and closings?). A cluster of these tendencies hardens over time into what you call your personality, or what you claim to be your true nature. (page 9) This then shapes the way we experience the world around us. Our karma then is basically the result or effects of our individual psyches ( minds, egos, sense of "me-ness"). It is basically all we spoke about so far but now we are going to call it "karma."
Things we need to know about this habitual way of experiencing life is that it is unconscious, compulsive, cyclical, tenacious, individually distinctive, attractive to certain energies, and above all else, it is changeable!
Huh?
Karma is unconscious.
We did not collect our impressions, patterns, tendencies and therefore specific life circumstances consciously. We were not aware of what we were doing and how we were reacting to external stimuli, how we were storing our emotional experiences, how we were blocking our energies and behaving accordingly, how we were building our psyches. As humans, we often look to the outside world as the cause and solution for what we are experiencing. We are seldom aware that we are even responsible for what we got going on inside of us, let alone what is going on in front of us.
Like so many people, you probably don't know why certain situations keep recurring in your inner and outer life. This is because these patterns are unconscious. As time goes on, you turn into a puppet of your accumulated past. page 10
The unconscious mind is therefore a tremendous library of karmic memory. You would find this useful if you were approaching it consciously. The problem is it manifest all the time, without your permission! You feel like one big mess because you are punching your psychological key board randomly all the time. page 12
Karma is compulsive
Most of the decisions we make to act a certain way are a result of the internal compulsive pull of karma. It is a result of unconscious habit more so than conscious action.
Karma is cyclical
Sadhguru teaches that karmic information is encoded into certain cycles. The longer we stay in a cycle the more balanced we become and the more blessed our life experience will seem to be. That cycle we strive for is the longest cycle, the solar cycle of 4, 356 days ( 12 years). (certainly not the karmic cycle I am in lol). If our life runs in cycles lasting only 3-6 months we are said to be in a state of psychological imbalance (:(...probably mine) and if our cycles are lunar and only lasting 28 days we are mentally ill ( my loved ones?)
With yogic practice, your goal is to move toward the solar cycle so your balance and stability are assured....You no longer wear your karma like a skin-tight garment; you wear it loosely. You hold it at a distance. page 15
Karma is tenacious
Karma sticks to us and follows us from life to another. We may die but karma doesn't. If we die before we resolve the internal mess in this existence...that mess goes on.
You could meet with an accident and die, but your karma is not destroyed. You could break your head and blow all your brains out, but the karma continues! page 15
Karma is individually Distinctive
Ever wonder why our life situations are so different? The karmic memory in you is totally different than the karmic memory in me. You did not experience what I experienced. Did not sense what I sensed. Did not perceive, interpret, label or judge in the way I did. You stored different junk ( samskaras) than I did. You like different things than I like. You may hate other things I love. You make different choices than I make. Therefore your karma differs from mine. You have your own smell and that smell attracts different energies to you than what my smell attracts to me.
Smell?
Karma is attractive to certain energies
Sadhguru also describes the vasana our karmic energies emit. Vasana? This sanskrit word can be translated as "smell,"
This smell is generated by a vast accumulation of impressions caused by your physical, mental, emotional and energy actions. Depending on the smell you emit, you attract certain types of life situations to yourself. page 17
I am sniffing under my arm pits right now, wondering if I stink? But he assures us this vasana, this smell, has nothing to do with odor our bodies may emit or breathe in. How rotten are you "in there"? Depending on our vasana we will pull in certain energies. We need to remove good and bad from our dualistic tendencies, but it may be useful to use them here just to make a point. If we think "bad", (less than positive, life -affirming) thoughts based on deeply stored unwholesome beliefs ...guess what happens? We tend to experience "bad" things. If we feel "good", (higher energy feelings)...we tend to draw in pleasant things. Do we not? If we do "bad" or unwholesome things, we tend to suffer in the long run. If we offer loving "goodness" to the world, we tend to feel "good". Right? What we have stored in the body, mind and energy, what decisions we make in these three areas based on that, gives off a smell into the universe, like a flower with a certain fragrance. We, as a result, draw those things to us that are attracted to that fragrance and we unknowingly push away those things that are repulsed by it. What Life gives us, is at least partly influenced by our karma.
One thing we try to change with yoga...is the type of fragrance you throw out into the world. page 21
Karma is changeable
Though we may not be able to change the past actions or change external events we can change what is going on inside us now so karma is different, so the smell we throw out into the world is different, so our experience of Life is different. We do not need to stay in these old habitual ways of living life. We can break these internal and external patterns. How? By becoming more conscious!
With a little more awareness every human being can begin to transform habit into choice, compulsion into consciousness. page 21
Wow! I am impressed by this book so far. Why? Because I am learning from it in a way that resonates with everything inside me.
All is well!
Sadhguru ( 2021) Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books
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