on Karma by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

[Guest guest]

LESSON 262 from Living with Siva

 

How to Face Your Karma

 

If difficult things are happening to you and your mind is disturbed

because of them and you have mental arguments within you because you

can't accept your own karma, go to the feet of Lord Siva in your mind,

go to the feet of Lord Siva in the temple with your physical body, and

beg for the intelligence to place yourself firmly on the path of

Sanatana Dharma.

 

Though it is true that we must work through all aspects and phases of

past actions, there are ways of becoming excused from the punishments

that drastic actions of the past impose upon the future. These ways

are grace, sadhana, tapas and atonement through penance and the

performance of good deeds, thus acquiring merit which registers as a

new and positive karma, alleviating the heaviness of some of our past

karma. Through seeking grace and through receiving it by performing

sadhana and tapas and the doing of penance, the karmas are in

themselves speeded up. The going through and meeting and reaping of

rewards as well as displeasures embodied in past karma in the present

is accelerated through these self-imposed actions. Therefore, the

sages say, "Bear your karma cheerfully." And as the seeking of Self

commences, the karma unfolds in all of its hideousness and glory, to

be seen before the single eye and not reacted to by even a tremor

within this physical and astral nerve system. The yoga must be that

strong. Each time you blame another person for what has happened to

you, or cast blame in any way, tell yourself, "This is my karma which

I was born to face. I did not come into a physical body just to blame

others for what happens to me. I was not born to live in a state of

ignorance created by an inability to face my karma. I came here to

spiritually unfold, to accept the karmas of this and all my past lives

and to deal with them and handle them in a proper and a wonderful

way."

 

Humility is intelligence; arrogance is ignorance. To accept one's

karma and the responsibility for one's actions is strength. To blame

another is weakness and foolishness. Let's begin by not advertising

our ignorance. If you must blame what happens to you on your friend,

your neighbor, your country, your community or the world, don't

advertise it by speaking about it. Keep that ignorance to yourself.

Limit it to the realm of thought. Harness your speech and at the same

time work to remold your thinking and retrain your subconscious to

actually accept this basic premise of Saiva Siddhanta.