Karmic Liberation
Many ancient yogic scriptures and great Spiritual teachings tell us that the state of our consciousness at the time of death will determine our state of consciousness in the "afterlife" and the next life… In other words, our individual consciousness will return to the Earth plane at a similar “level” to which we departed. This consciousness is carried onward by the Soul, also known as the Atman in the Yog-Vedantic tradition.
During each incarnation, it is our experiences between physical birth and death that are the field in which our karma is played out (lessons learned), and either we consciously work to learn our lessons and clear our karma or we will unconsciously continue to repeat and accumulate more...
THE KARMIC CYCLE
The “Karmic Cycle” is what is often referred to as “karmic bondage” ~ it is a cycle that is created by our unconscious action and essentially repeats itself lifetime after lifetime, after lifetime ~ each incarnation unconsciously determined by the previous one, which leaves a human being feeling confused, frustrated and wondering about the true meaning of life. However, through the Yog-Vedantic wisdom teachings we learn that it is possible to extricate ourselves from the karmic cycle. This liberation from karmic bondage is achieved through a variety of spiritual practices and disciplines which are all designed to elevate one’s state of consciousness and therefore, make a person more self-aware and awakened to the true nature of reality. Eventually, with enough practice and devotion to our spiritual growth, we stop creating new karma by choosing our actions consciously. When we evolve our state of consciousness enough to realize that life is happening for us, not ‘to us’, then every experience is an opportunity to learn, grow and therefore, dissolve previously accumulated karma. Though at first it may not appear that important, truthfully, this shift in perspective towards life is profound. Learning to relate with life as an ally, rather than ‘the enemy’, changes everything about how we choose to act, and action is karma; therefore, this fundamental shift in perspective elevates our entire experience of life.
The ancient teachings of karma and karma yoga are incredibly powerful and liberating wisdom; however, in general, karma, as a fundamental concept of reality, is vastly misunderstood. As interpreted by the western, dualistic way of thinking, karma is related to the idea of being something one “has”; and, as interpreted within the paradigm of reward/punishment, the karma one supposedly “has” is seen as being either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There is the idea that if one does “good things”, then they may accumulate “good karma”. Logically then, from this perspective, “bad behaviour” begets one “bad karma”. However, once one understands the truth about karma, you won't necessarily desire the “good” kind either. Karma of any kind is essentially a kind of baggage that one ends up carrying. Though it is true that there are many different kinds of karma, karma is ultimately neither “good or bad”. Rather than being an “affliction” or even “a trap” of some kind, from the ancient Yog-Vedantic teachings of which karma origins, karma is a tremendous opportunity for profound growth, learning and deep wisdom for the Soul within the wheel of time.
TO DO…
The root of the word karma is ‘ka’, which in Sanskrit means ‘to do’, or action. Karma is also sometimes translated as ‘performance’, which is interesting because who is really performing this life? The soul incarnates and temporarily takes a body and a mind; it is through these physical aspects of the self that our experience via inter-action with life in this physical dimension of reality is possible. From the Yog-Vendantic perspective, this life is not something to escape, nor is it meant to be condemned. Life is a wonderful opportunity! However, life lived unconsciously, simply by ego and without spiritual awareness, is what causes suffering. Karma is the action arising out of the conditioned mind, or ego, Jiva, personality - the limited individuality of the self that exists within time, and therefore, has memory. This accumulated karma, or memory, is like the program that unconsciously dictates the great majority of our behaviour and keeps us in the karmic cycle. However, whether by conscious effort, a dark night, or certain life challenges that awaken a deeper sense of self, eventually we become more self-aware and discover the different aspects of self.
JIVA
The Jiva self is the individual personality of the ego ~ the “person” one has become after many, many lifetimes. Certain traits and patterns come back with us into the next lifetime ~ these are known as Samskaras and they are deeply embedded patterns of the Soul that rebirth in order to be healed and transcended. This is why even at one and two years old, the tiniest of humans, with very little conditioning received within this lifetime, already present distinct characteristics and personality traits. The soul is on a journey far greater than any one human life and karma is kind of like a link and a type of "baggage" we carry through these lifetimes.
The soul expresses itself through the physical body in time in order to experience, express and evolve. While the soul is the subtler form, the physical body is the grosser expression in time that is available to the pure light of the Soul to experience that which we have termed “the material world”. From the Yog-Vedantic perspective, the Soul incarnates in order to embody itself into the physical realm where a subjective, individual experience is possible.
Even though the "material" world is ultimately pure energy, it is of a denser nature that vibrates slower in space allowing the physical body the ability to store a lot of memory within its DNA and cellular memory. This memory holds our conditioning, our habits, our beliefs, our memories and programming. Our cells are imbued with our samskaras and patterns from previous lifetimes by our soul's energy and, until we transcend or release them, we carry those with us throughout each lifetime, which is the opportunity to either relive them, or evolve and transcend with conscious awareness these patterns / samskaras.
So the Jiva, or personality ego self, is moving in time, but the consciousness maintaining this physical endeavour is subtler than time. Consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality. Consciousness does not come out of the physical, but rather creates it. This has been the yogic understanding of the true nature of reality for millennia and now, science, through its expansion into quantum physics, is coming around to understanding this truth as well. Therefore, it is important to understand this fundamental point, for if we are to assume the western material, reductionist thinking that reality is "physical" and that the brain, for example, is the source of consciousness, then we have a very illogical and limited understanding of reality.
However, once we expand our own consciousness to see, experience and KNOW that our consciousness creates our reality, we start to understand why we are here ~ born into a body that can see, taste, smell, hear and touch; a body that can sense and feel far more than most realize. While the body experiences and changes, the state of consciousness that we are maintaining, or evolving and expanding, is helping to create those experiences. This is why you have probably heard many people say that when their perspective of the world changed, so did everything in their life. How we see the world greatly affects our knowing and experience of it. Therefore, if we are not at peace within ourselves, it is impossible to know a peaceful world “out there”. As within, so without.
PEACE
Humanity is not at peace yet, and from the yogic perspective (and many other great schools of thought), this is not the result of a material crisis we face on earth, but a spiritual one. Humanity has lost connection with the true spiritual nature of reality and the true nature of Self; therefore, humanity is not and cannot be at peace until we are reconnected and discover that peace within. Perhaps this is also why correcting our understanding of karma has never been more important than now when many feel our very existence as human beings is in danger.
Whether this is the ultimate truth or not remains to be seen, but what I do know from experience is that when one starts to understand the true meaning of karma, it can have profoundly positive effects on a person's life. Because, as we have seen in the small child, the soul brings characteristics and memory, which are karma, with them into this life. A soul's karma helps determine things like where we are born, the parents we have, how much money we are born into and even what challenges and traumas we will or will not face ~ not as punishment, but as an opportunity for growth and learning.
THE LAW OF KARMA
The law of karma determines the circumstances into which we are born but cannot always be aligned with human perceptions of wealth or suffering - for example, one born into extreme luxury may appear to have “good karma” to an outsider, but what is really challenging them may not be defined by privilege and wealth and they may have an even harder time discerning what is Truth, what abundance truly means and may have to work much harder to discover the hidden layers of their subconscious, their samskaras and karma. Whereas one who is born into great poverty and suffering may appear to the human ego to have “bad karma”, when in fact their Soul is here to learn its own lessons, for its own reasons and purpose. These are mysteries which humanity is quick to judge, but only each individual can discover the true meaning of for themselves.
This does not imply that we should not work to help those in need or find ways to rebalance the distribution of resources and wealth on Earth so that everyone has access to one’s basic human needs, but what it means is we should embrace these endeavours without pity or envy in our hearts. If one feels called to work toward creating a more just and balanced society, one must do so without judgment of those who have more or less, otherwise the change and progress we work so hard to create cannot last. When we act out of judgment, fear or egotistical desire there is attachment to the result and therefore, more karma is created. When we act simply because the need is evident, because Nature calls and we are responding to this call for balance and harmony, then we are working for the highest good of all. When we can act without attachment to the result for “little me”, we create the opportunity to experience ourselves as part of a much greater whole. From the Yogi-Vedantic perspective, this is how we heal ourselves and the world.
“Don’t look to the fruits of your actions. Just look to the actions, the fruits will come.”
Therein lies the great opportunity to recognize that the soul makes choices upon reincarnating ~ choices that were based upon a much greater purview of this reality, beyond the limitations of the ego's conditioned perspective and thankfully, a purview that we may reconnect with and dial into once we open ourselves to recognizing it. Then the question isn't so much about whether or not we have been born into health or wealth, for example, but what are we going to choose to do with what we have?
From this perspective, life becomes a much more empowering experience. Perhaps if more human beings understood their circumstances to be opportunities, rather than reward or punishment, there would be much less reason to think of oneself as ‘victim’ or ‘victor’. So, for example, one born into wealth, without understanding karma, may become incredibly entitled and destructive with that opportunity. Another person who is born into poverty may choose to pity themselves and be angry at “the system” their entire lives. Both, however, would be missing a great opportunity to instead move in the direction of dharma and become incredibly successful living life in an evolutionary way.
The real question becomes not “how much do I have”, but what am I going to choose to do with what I have? because it is all a choice. However, in order to see life's challenges as opportunities we have to shift our consciousness and become self-aware... when an individual is ready for this shift, the teachings, wisdom, practices and experience of yoga are great tools and technologies for discovering one's true nature and reconnecting with Spirit and Soul.
Yoga's most ancient wisdom known to human kind teaches us about the Dharma and any conversation about karma inevitably leads to talking about dharma. When we are living in karma, we are living the same patterns, conditioning and programs which we have received from the outside world ~ the one that is not at peace, stuck in dualistic thinking and sadly, at war with itself. Karma keeps us in the same loop of behaviour, experiencing the same outcomes, struggling with the same issues, repeating the same patterns in relationship after relationship, over and over and over again, because Karma is the act of living unaware. If we are not conscious of our thoughts and behaviours, then we cannot choose or change them except from that place of conditioned and programmed thought, and it is from this place of unconscious living that life inevitably becomes a “constant struggle”. Limited in understanding of what life really is and means, we get stuck in the drama of the ego playing out an endless game of victor vs victim, good vs evil, right vs wrong and so on and so forth. This drama lives at a certain level of consciousness that keeps humans the same ~ suffering, warring with each other and themselves, year after year, after year, after lifetime, after lifetime, after...
Wheel of Karma / Dharma
KNOW THYSELF
Enter dharma. Another misconception is the idea of dharma as a "religious" concept, but nothing could be further from the truth, for although the concept of dharma shares the nectar of its teachings across many different faiths, its essence is rooted in ancient yogic and deeply spiritual teachings. There is nothing dogmatic about dharma for ultimately, dharma is about reconnecting with Spirit, embodying and living your true Self and soul's highest life's purpose.
At some point in the human life, whether by bliss or suffering, the human has what is known as an “awakening”. This awakening takes endless form, each as unique as the individual experiencing it, but what is common to all is that the result or effect is the invocation of an inner consciousness ~ an awareness is born and the human has either glimpsed or fully realized a greater or “higher” Self beyond the ego, or “little me”. It is called an awakening because it is literally like waking up from a very long sleep where one realizes the true nature of life extends far beyond what one previously believed to be true. It is just like waking up from a dream and that sense of “that wasn’t real” is a part of the experience.
With continued awareness comes the realization that "someone" or "something" is always aware; that in every experience there is the knower, the knowing and the known ~ the experiencer, the experience and the awareness that there is someone having the experience and suddenly consciousness is expanded beyond its previous limitations and understanding of reality as "material"... one has tuned into the subtler dimensions of reality.
With this awareness may come the further realization that witness consciousness is always there. The soul, or Atman, is always bearing witness and, for those who can hear, is communicating with us. The problem has been that until this point, the ego personality (which is an important aspect of self for living in the world and should not be viewed as negative or "bad") has believed itself to be the only one and therefore, “the boss”. The ego has always believed that the drama was real, that the play was real and that therefore, death was also “real”.
However, when one awakens inner consciousness and glimpses the truth, that this life is a spiritual experience the soul is having in the physical; and, that therefore, the soul is eternal, never born and never dying, everything changes.
When one realizes the endless loop of karma does not have to mean endless suffering, that there is a higher realm of consciousness, of understanding this existence, then one is finally free to step out of the wheel of karma and into the evolutionary spiral of dharma.
"Karma yoga is when you start to bring yoga into your karma."
~ AnandJi
When one awakens to the true nature of Self, then one begins the journey back into unity with Source, Divine within. Yoga, after all, means unity and above all else, references a state of consciousness that is in unity with the Divine. To be in unity with Cosmic consciousness is to be simultaneously aware of the great Lila, the theatre and the “play” of life, and discover that indeed "all the world is a stage" and the characters we have been playing have been gathering and living their karma as a means to keep the play going.
Whether comedy, tragedy or drama, there has been something to learn from every story we have lived; however, now we begin the transformation from actor to playwright, and we may even choose to write a script that sees our character, and all of humanity, evolve.
HOW DO WE STEP INTO DHARMA?
As we nurture and expand our self-awareness, our understanding of reality deepens and continues to expand, but if we choose to step out of the karmic wheel, we must step into something else. So where do we start? How do we move forward in life beyond our karma without creating new karma, or unconscious behaviours? In yoga, this conscious action is known as KRIYA, which means “evolutionary action”.
Kriya is conscious, evolutionary action, which includes thought. Kriya is a practice which helps us break unconscious habits, expand consciousness and transcend our conditioned and programmed patterns of the mind. The karmic loop is the world of “cause & effect” wherein we remain the effect (also known as the “victim”) of a cause that is perceived to be “out there”. As long as we still perceive life as separate from us, unaware that “as within, so without” is a Universal Law of Life, then we remain in the karmic loop. It is an endless loop of energy ~ of doing & having, doing & having, doing & having, victim & perpetrator, good & evil... and it is believing in this loop as all there is which has kept humanity playing very small for thousands and thousands of years.
Many religious and spiritual belief systems mistake this karmic loop as a trap and as such have create an ideology where freedom is equated with escaping this world. However, from the Yog-Vedantic perspective, we are not seeking escape. Life is to be fully embraced and embodied. Life is a miracle. Anyone who stops and pays attention to life will realize this. Yogic wisdom teaches us to transcend karma by stepping into dharma through kriya so that we may fully experience this miracle by expanding our consciousness in true self-realization. When this shift happens, everything changes in a fundamentally positive and profound way.
When we step out of the karmic loop, out of the unconscious doing that is the result of our conditioned mind, and into our dharma, we enter the upward spiral of evolutionary action. We start moving VERTICALLY instead of endlessly circling the same path. The same spiral that we see throughout nature and creation itself, for it is even in our DNA, is the consciousness that rises as it "loops" ~ in fact it is not a loop at all, but a circular motion that climbs higher and higher and instead of coming back around to the same spot and repeating the same behaviour, it sees things from a new perspective again and again and continues to rise; therefore, we are not stuck in repeating patterns, but rather we are infinitely evolving consciousness.
we are infinitely evolving consciousness.
Finally we begin to break the habit of being ourselves. We can see that the "person" we thought we were, was the result of our karma and we BREAK THROUGH! We get out of our own way.
Kriya ~ action anchored in awareness, which leads to wisdom and connects us to higher intelligence ~ begins to invoke new memory within us, awakening dormant DNA, activating our gifts and reconnecting us with Spirit. We stop self-sabotaging and begin living true karma yoga for we have brought yoga (unity consciousness, awareness) into our karma (conditioned mind) and the programs "break". We realize the patterns that keep us stuck and embody the wisest of old sayings: "KNOW THYSELF", for it is only when we truly know who we are that we break the habit of being ourselves and get out of our own way.
It is said that when we break through, lessons that we have been struggling with for lifetimes can be overcome in a week. The hardest lesson for any human, that I have personally experienced myself, is how to get out of our own way... how to start listening to that inner voice.. how to trust our intuition... how to hear the deep truths in the "plain-ness" of the ancient teachings of yoga, Buddha, Jesus, Yogananda and many, many others.
Once we step into dharma by consciously choosing to be more aware and engaging in evolutionary action, we start to experience life much differently that before. This is where THE FLOW, of which all the great Masters speak, happens. We see that life isn't happening "to us", but that life is happening “for us” and “through us”. It isn't me, the personality, that is writing these words, it is a flow of energy coming from a much higher power that I have allowed to flow through me that is the author and ultimately that Divine Source of infinite intelligence, love and wisdom, and I are ONE.
Ultimately WE ARE ALL ONE with the Divine, Brahma, God, Source ~ the great I AM is who we truly are ~ expressing as individuated points of consciousness in this great experience called Life. A wonderful experience of unimaginable joy and bliss that turns into suffering when we cut ourselves off from that holy, Divine connection of Spirit to embodied soul.
KARMA to DHARMA
As we realize that life is happening for us and through us in this magical cocreative dance of energy and consciousness, then consciousness shifts and naturally we become more self-aware, meditative, creative, compassionate and spontaneous. The ego finally relinquishes its need to control and plan everything because deep within our awareness we now know and trust Life. You can almost hear it sigh in relief as we surrender to the higher Self / Divine power within that is God expressing through and as you and me. Synchronicity suddenly abounds in life and we discover what it means to be guided everywhere we go and how important it is to listen to our true feelings.
When we are in dharma, unity is the dominating frequency within our consciousness and conditioned thinking is decreasing. Spontaneous right action starts happening and we are always “in the right place at the right time”.
As we continue along this path, we realize that it is a pathless path ~ each step revealing itself following the previous step and we never need to worry about “the future”. There is no need to be anxious about the future when we are present, aware and living in the NOW!
No doubt many of these things may seem to be “easier said than done”, but simply know that this is why it is called a practice and that it is our devotion and dedication to the daily practices and kriyas we choose that creates the change we seek. Many of us have spent many years, decades and even lifetimes repeating the same karmic patterns. After many lifetimes these karmic patterns become samskaras which at that point are deeply embedded in our DNA and therefore, require deep compassion, patience and continued practice to break. In yoga we call this “roasting the seeds” and it takes time. Even after one experiences higher states of unity consciousness, what is commonly called enlightenment, there are still seeds to roast and karma to release, which is why those who experience these states go on to teach about them, guiding others along the path of self-realization.
Nevertheless, once we have awakened, one can say that we have, at the very least, interrupted the unconscious patterns. How we each do this, whether with a plant medicine, a dark night of the soul or a revelatory experience, is unique. To live this awakening is a continued work and why we create daily practices, but what is important is that that we have interrupted it. We cannot go backwards without great effort and pain, for the mind, once freed is no longer the same and one cannot unknow the truth of who they are. The Truth indeed sets us free from illusions so that we may start living in purpose, which is really when we are living in dharma rather than karma.
As the Maha Yogi AnandJi has often said, “in the beginning it can be challenging to break the chronic habit of being yourself”, for that is the “false self” that is always having the same thoughts over and over again, that is karma and can be challenging to break out of for it is like a car that has been driving the same track on autopilot for thousands or millions of laps and the grooves have become very deep. Even when we break the pattern and the car “jumps the track”, it may sometime want to find its way back into the loop out of habit or comfort, or both. Humans have created a love for the familiar and a fear of the unknown. We have adopted one of many conditioned beliefs which is that “change is scarey”, but in time, we discover that this is not true. Change is the only true constant in life and if we avoid it and try to keep things forever “the same”, we stagnate as a species and become depressed as an individual.
When we start to embrace change, then we really beging to fly in the flow. We are then uniting with existence rather than fighting with it and with that comes a great ease in living life to its full potential. Success that arises out of dharma is the kind of success that brings meaningful joy into a person's life, not fleeting victories and circumstantial happiness, but real JOY ~ the essence of life.
YATO DHARMAS TATO JAYAH ~ where there is dharma, there is triumph.
~ the Mahabharata
Where there is dharma, there is victory is a quote appearing at least a dozen times throughout the great, yogic text of the Mahabharata, one of the oldest scriptures in the world (and four times longer than the Illiad and the Odyssey put together). This scripture speaks many great Truths and contains within it the Baghavad Gita, “the song of God”, which is an epic discourse between Arjuna and Krishna, or God explaining how to live in yoga and therefore, in dharma.
So wherever one finds themselves living in dharma, in true, divine purpose, there is triumph. Triumph over what? This has nothing to do with conquering or taking triumph over another person or country, but speaks to personal victory of overcoming one's karma and transcending the wheel of time; it speaks to releasing the soul from bondage and freeing the mind from illusion. Naturally when these things are accomplished through devotion and love, the experience of life on earth is an abundant, joyous, loving and beautiful experience and one is then free to guide others along the path within.
Imagine what a beautiful and joyous world it will be indeed when more and more people choose to invoke their inner consciousness and wake up to the true nature of reality! When one truly sees the interconnectivity of ALL that is, there is no more “conquering” mentality. The ability to hurt or take from another without feeling their pain is impossible. A new earth is born every time another human steps in their dharma. With each new awakening, consciousness shifts and the great awakening of humanity is upon us.
Everything does indeed come full circle but as we circle, we spiral and evolve in upwards motion toward new levels of awareness of interpreting reality rather than staying stuck in the same loop looking for someone to blame. It takes great courage and the ability to choose to take responsibility for one's life, but as we mature as a species, the time is upon us where we are waking up to the truth of who we are and the truth of karma.
EVOLVING KARMA
Will we choose to create more?
Both individually and collectively, the ego, the senses, the stressed, anxious & desire-filled mind and uncontrolled emotions are the elements for new karma. Yoga gives us the techniques and practices for literally breaking out of the karmic cycle. This can take many lifetimes or “just one”, but just one life lived in wonder, gratitude, devotion, compassion, honour, study and surrender, can liberate us from lifetimes of suffering.
The more aware we become, the more we realize that our karma is our responsibility. As yogis we actively work to clear karma by moving in the direction of dharma. As we consciously create daily practices that "interrupt the program" and reconnect us to the Source within and we consciously choose to observe the patterns of our behaviours and thoughts, we may begin to clearly see the cycles of karma in our life.
Some yogis will engage in intense practices or forms of renunciation, or Tapas, to actively accelerate the “burning of karma”, which may be a slightly distorted perspective on karma, but holds tremendous value for breaking the bondages of the conditioned mind that is consistently vacillating between desire and aversion.
What is “need” and what is “gluttony” would at first glance appear to be very different things, but modern societies have blurred the lines to such a degree that many people exist in the grey area of constantly wanting for something.
Speaking from personal experience, growing up in the West, I was conditioned by the materialist culture rooted in endless desires; therefore, engaging in purification rituals for an extended period of time, whether that be fasting or giving up TV, for example, has taught me a lot about my own conditioned mind and its attachments and addictions.
By consciously choosing to give up certain pleasures for a time - for example, doing various cleanses and detoxes, fasting, committing to 40 and 60 day Sadhanas, or meditating every day regardless of circumstance or “how I feel” - what I have observed is the mind's endless cycle of craving and aversion “in action” as it will come up with any excuse it can think of to deter one away from the commitment and back into the cycle. What I have learned during these kinds of commitments, also known as Tapas, is how not to be ruled by the conditioned mind. These practices wake us up to deeper layers of ourselves by giving us the opportunity to become more aware. They are a challenge we choose to take on to help us evolve, rather than stay the same... I am grateful to say that I have struggled with various challenges of my conditioned mind and learned a lot about myself. I have discovered that there is within me a power much greater than the conditioned mind which is merely running a program, the way a computer runs software, and if we can interrupt that program with conscious awareness, we break its ability to relentlessly and unconsciously control us.
From higher states of consciousness, all of our karma, past, present and future, exist within us always in the now. It is how we choose to engage with life that creates or dissolves karma. A single moment of awakening, surrender, or "enlightenment" may completely turn one’s life around to where they are no longer passive “victims” of karma, but true, pro-active, co-creative participants in the cosmic dance of life - essentially by re-creating our relationship with life and the Divine through yoga, we re-create our relationship with karma. We are no longer afraid of karma and can even be motivated by challenges and lessons as they surface for we now know the power of acceptance and our ability to transmute, transform and evolve!
SUBSCRIBE BELOW & stay tuned for the next article ~ A deep dive into the Triangle of DHARMA .. what is dharma really and how do we tune into living our best lives?
much love & peace
HARI OM TAT SAT 🙏🏼