The Reasons for Wanting to Understand Karma.

 

The essence of everything you consider to be yourself is karmic.

Sadhguru, page 53

I realize my quest to understand karma may be actually adding karma weight  to this heavy Albatross I am already wearing around my neck. Though I may have progressed somewhat beyond the "it is all about me" motive, I still want to understand karma for personal reasons.  When I started on this mission, I was caught up in the "Why is this 'suffering' happening to me and what can I do about it?" conundrum. I was so focused on the melodrama of this 'little me. 'I felt I, as it,  was being punished by life and I wanted to know why. More importantly, I wanted to know how I could  change it. That is why I wanted to look deeply into this idea of karma.  It is actually why I began this so called 'spiritual journey' in the first place.  It was very, very personal. What I thought I was a concept I was very much attached to. 

Since I began this journey, however, a lot of 'me' has been peeled away by the winds of life and by my committed practice. I see how sick this 'little me' is, how disturbed the mind is, how responsible it is for my experience of Life. I am really getting it...finally...that this form and mind I am is only one of 8 billion similar forms and minds and God knows how many beings in total. It definitely, definitely is not all about me! Infact, I am beginning to see that there is no "me" anywhere but in the mind.  So what is happening to this 'me' is not personal. What is left of my egoic  mind still  makes it personal with its reactions. I still have quite a bit of egoic mind left.  That mind questions, albeit less selfishly,: How does karma come  about for 'us' humans and what can we do about it?

There is still a bit of "me, my and mine"  when I speak about karma. Sigh!

Still, I am progressing. I have also progressed from wanting karma to change and life to get easier  to accepting what is and seeing the higher purpose in it. ( Don't get me wrong...I would still very much like Life to get easier lol...please, please throw me a bone... but I am not dependent on it getting easier before I accept what is, before I accept my karma.) 

Right now, I am at the point where I am accepting that if this is my karma, if this is something that needs to be burned or worked off through all these challenging situations for the betterment of those that came before me and those that will come after me...so be it. I will gladly go through it.  If my so called suffering is serving a higher purpose, I welcome this type of karma. I do. I am just looking for validation that it is. ( I hate to think that it is all happening unnecessarily because of something my unevolved self is doing or not doing, you know?) 

Hmm! Confusing I know.  Don't get hung up, though, on the reasons  this form and mind that is writing this is trying to understand karma...understand it for yourself, for the freedom it will give you.  All these things we are truly learning on this spiritual journey are taking us to freedom...right? Even this weight around my neck is offering freedom...maybe not so much for this false identity of 'me' but for the realization of Self beneath the me. 

Anyway, how I ramble.

Sadhguru ( 2021) Karma: A Yogis Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books