karma, free will and yoga

[Guest guest]

my quick thoughts on karma:

 

Rather than any literal conceptions of karma and the ensuing strange

sitautions and contradictions it brings up (if my karma is to be shot, who

will shoot me, etc) I tend to see karma more as energy that stays manifest

because most of us live in a constant state of reaction.

 

That is, someone cuts you off in traffic and you respond by

shouting/thinking something mean and bad energy begets more bad energy,

etc: violence begets more violence, war begets more war, and we stay

chained to wheel of suffering and clinging and wanting and needing, never

for a moment just being and accepting and rejoicing.

 

So I think that "stopping the wheel" refers to what we need to do in our

own lives, stopping the wheel of karma within ourselves, by giving up the

bad energy and focusing on the positive. I think yoga does this by allowing

us to step into a mode of consciousness that is gradually more in tune with

the Divine radio station rather than all the squaks and squabbles of the world.

 

I think that the more literalist ideas of karma can easily fall into the

trap of blaming people for their current problems (much like Biblical

notions of suffering and sickness being visited on those whose parents were

sinners or somesuch) and fall into moralizing: do good in this life or your

life in the next will be bad! which I think is just scare tactics and

useless in a spiritual sense (although useful i suppose in a social control

sense)

 

To me karma refers more to the fact that we are all interrelated (there is

only One of us here?) and the energy we send out is constantly in effect

(in the past and now and future-there is only one time) and that we tend to

attract the energy that we put out (ever noticed how people that like to

complain like to complain about things with other people that like to

complain?)

 

or rather, most religions have some kind-of literal concept of "good/bad"

actions being punished/reqarded/etc (karma, heaven/hell, the wiccan rede,

etc) and I don't think that is necessarily the case. The real heart of the

matter is, there is only One of us here, so shooting, hating, hurting

another person may well be akin to chopping one of your own fingers off!

Talk about instant karma.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Sat Nam Ya'll,

I DO know that Karma is a slippery term for the western mind because we are

accustomed to thinking of things in such a linear pattern. I just started

reading THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and have only

just gotten to the point where he is discussing this very issue - so I'll have

to get back with more, but I have understood this: Free will is the very

backbone of Karma. It's ALL about the choices we make and how we do/don't use

energy in a positive manner.

SO far my feelling that "Payback is a bitch" shouldn't exist in a Universe

with a Loving God at the head of it all. But I can see theat I am presented

with a myriad of opportunities to CHOOSE. Some of the circumstances of my life

may be shaped by Karma, as indeed I can see many things in my life shaped by the

choices I've made in just the last 20 years, but I get to CHOOSE what to do

next.

That's all I got so far.

Sat Nam, Leo