When there is no "I", there is no Karma.
Ramana Maharshi
Okay...I want to start understanding karma better. I want to take the book from Sadhguru and analyze it a bit better using other resources as I do. May take some time. Bear with me.
What is karma?
Karma simply means action and when we think of the existential mechanism of Karma ( Sadhguru) we see there are consequences for our physical, mental and energetic actions. What we do or say, what we think or feel, and how our energy is expressed determines the course of our lives.
Purely Internal
Contrary to what most of us believe, karma is not something that is determined 'out there' as a reward and punishment system for our actions. It is purely internal. Though something else seems to be pushing your buttons. Someone else seems to be driving the car...(Sadhguru, page 14)....this is not the case. It is this continual oscillating and repetition of thoughts, feelings, behavioral and energetic tendencies that are attracting things to us and/or pushing them away.
Ram Dass reminds us that "Our karma is our mind". And Sadhguru says:..."your mind shapes the way you experience the world around you. This becomes your karma- an orientation to life you have created for yourself in relative unawareness. (page 9) He goes on to say, the unconscious mind is a tremendous library of karmic memory...(page 12).
Responsible
Our minds, to me, are like fans spinning around sucking things in and pushing things back and away. We are doing it all unconsciously, not aware of how we generated these patterns that got the fan spinning, not seeing the roots of our karmic tendencies...just reaping the fruit and saying "WTFork? Why does this type of thing keep happening to me?" And the fan keeps picking up momentum the longer we are stuck in these compulsive and unconscious habits.We have to see we are the makers of our own karma and are therefore the creators of our lives. We have to know we are responsible for our own destinies if we want to shut the fan off, or at least slow it down.
What got this karma fan moving?
We accumulate "impressions" over the years based on the massive amount of input we take in from our senses. This creates our psyches, our tendency to think, feel, act a certain way. It also affects our energy. If the impression is strong, it may create a samskara which in turn will create a blockage in our energy body (pranamayakosha) and this will disturb the natural flow of shakti through us adding to our karmic consequences. We see life through this veil of psyche, through these thoughts, feelings, through these energy blockages and "react" accordingly creating consequences for these action choices.This creates a cyclical effect. Life responds to our thoughts, feelings, words, actions and energy expressions by giving us more of the same. It feeds the fan we set in motion. We turned the fan on and both life and our own reactions to life keep the fan moving.
Do I stink?
Another way of looking at how karma determines our lives is through Vasana. Vasana is the type of karmic smell we emit......what moves toward you and what moves away from you are determined by the smell that emanates from you. Your vasana depends, of course, entirely on the kind of residual memory or karmic content you carry. (page 18).
All we have accumulated over the years of our existence in this life and the others has a fragrance to it. Though this smell is neither good or bad in existential terms, our human minds may have to see it as such to understand it. Maybe our thoughts, feelings, deeds and energy expression were helpful to humanity creating a very lovely fragrance that we emit. Or maybe they led to less than positive karma accumulation leaving an offensive smell. We might smell like roses or we might smell like garbage based on an accumulation of past actions in this life or another. The garbage smell may keep the pleasant at bay and attract the predators ( challenging and unwholesome life circumstances) and the roses may attract the admirers ( the wholesome and easy life experiences).
So how do we stop it or slow it down? Go Beyond Mind, Body and Energy to the Self
Sadhguru reminds us that are five bodies ( physical, mental, energetic, etheric and bliss body) and that karma only takes place in and effects the first three. The more we focus on and reconnect to who we are at the ethereal and blissful level, the least we will be impacted by karma.
Maharshi also taught it was our attachment with the first two body levels, especially, that creates karma and keeps us stuck in these karmic loops. We are not our bodies or our minds. We have to stop trying to put all our energy and conscious awareness into attempting to deal with the consequences of karma on these bodies and minds, into trying to rectify our karma, and instead go right to the root and pull it out. What is the root? This ego...this sense of "me" with its identification with body and "me, my, and mine". We need to transcend self for Self. As long as we identify with a body, with doership, we are going to be lost in karma. Self realization, a focus on the other two bodies, frees us.
Sadhguru ( 2021) Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books
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