Karma
A few years back, my eighty-eight year old father and I were walking around a zoo. He suddenly became short of breath and began to lose his balance. I caught his arm just in time and together we prevented his fall. We sat at a picnic table as my father caught his breath. “About a year ago, you fell in your apartment.” I said. “Yes.” My father whispered, his voice raspy from poor circulation. “Have you fallen again?” I inquired. At this point my father changed his posture, straightened up a little, and turned towards me. “Many times, he said, but I’ve gotten good at it!” Our eyes met as I took in his widening smile and we began to laugh.
For me, my father’s coy statement reveals great intuitive wisdom about the process of life, how we learn from our experiences, and what perspective is appropriate considering the human condition. In fact, his words sum up my own understanding of the law of karma and how I observe its role in my life.
The concept of karma, unfortunately, has taken a beating during its translation into Western culture. It has philosophical and practical applications, derived from one of the oldest living worldviews of humankind, which are unavailable to most of us. In its current vernacular, karma has been reduced to a simple equation: “Do good and you get good karma or a reward; do bad and you get bad karma or a punishment.” However, to apply the concept of karma to our lives we have to grasp, at the very least, a basic understanding of the term.
What It Ain’t - What It Is
The law of karma is not directly linked to a specific deity. While karma does not deny the existence of God, it is not in any way, shape, or form, considered an arm of God’s system for justice. As a matter of fact, the law of karma is not even remotely related to Western notions of morality. As the old TV series, Kung Fu, starring David Carradine, described the karmic process in one of its episodes: You throw a pebble into a pond and the ripples spread out to its very edges and then return to their source. Karma is completely mechanical and impersonal; it is just the nature of life. You push and your force is returned equally.
Karma is created by our thoughts, words, and actions, and its consequences are therefore experienced in the realms of our thoughts, emotions, dreams, and physical existence. Karma is unfettered by time and space. Unlike the worldviews that most of us are familiar with through Middle Eastern religion, the law of karma does not presume that life begins with birth and ends with death. Rather, it starts, like our scientific theory of energy, with the understanding that everything is originally eternal, meaning without birth and death by nature; and that our lives appear to be singular, bound, and temporary due to ignorance of that nature, all because of the effect of karma.
Karma is an inherent component of the theory of reincarnation, although it can certainly be understood and utilized without prescribing to such a belief. Every action, as we’ve seen, results in an equal reaction and in return that reaction spawns another action, ad infinitum. Birth and death become the circular physical manifestation of this process until enlightenment ensues. Enlightenment has many schools of thought, but in my opinion, two schools most closely reflect the original definition of enlightenment - Vedanta and Buddhism.
For example, both share the simple notion that the cause of karma is wrong identification. Everything in existence is a temporal manifestation of eternity, and as humans we are in the unique position of experiencing that relationship as our nature. Until we recognize our existence as being a junction between eternity and the temporal, our lives continue as a reaction to the temporal world and therefore we remain chained to the law of karma. In such a situation, the notion of eternity either remains a hope or something we denounce; but either way, its reality exists for us as only a thought or belief system. In contrast, enlightenment is a process of recognition through personal experience that changes our core experience or sense of self. This ontological shift results in automatic fulfillment of spiritual aspirations: We naturally become loving, empathetic, insightful, happy, and even successful. What we typically call ‘virtue’ turns out to be a spontaneous bubbling up of our own nature. In the end, we do not end karma, we transcend it, and karma ends itself.
Practical Application
All of us have had the experience of some unexpected event. That event may be traumatic like losing a loved one; being diagnosed with a serious illness, losing a job, divorce, financial loss, identity crisis, and on and on. It could also, just as likely, be something positive, such as unexpected health, positive relationships that seem to come out of nowhere, spiritual insight that changes our life, wealth, recognition, or many other possibilities. This is the way life is everyday for all of us. But what is essential is not the events themselves but how we perceive and receive them. I should add here, I am not asking you to believe in the law of karma; I am asking you to consider the possible benefits of utilizing the perception of it as a tool in your life. This is the key to the currently popular, but most-often misunderstood approach to enlightenment, Tantra. Tantra teaches the student to intentionally use perception, either mentally or sensually, as a vehicle to gain direct insight into the nature of reality.
I am also not suggesting one worldview as being superior to another; I am asking you to consider perception as a tool for happier, healthier, and more productive living. Which perception or worldview leads to these goals is up to you, but I ask that you measure the short term and long term possibilities of the law of karma, and other such perceptual options, and that you ask one quintessential question: “How will my new perception affect all others and the world at large?” This last question, I believe, will expose the law of karma’s unique contribution to the world, for it does not simply include our current perception of what is relevant, but goes one step further, to expand everyone’s perception to include every life-force. The law of karma shows us that every one of our thoughts, words, and actions, affect every sentient and non-sentient form of existence. I have come to believe that this is not just unique, philosophically, but it is also unique in its practical application. Our world’s many wars and conflicts, alone, justify its consideration, not to mention our growing awareness of environmental concerns.
What are the benefits of perceiving our life in terms of ultimate responsibility, for this is what the law of karma proposes? For one thing, if we are able to stop judging ourselves, or considering ourselves in terms of good and evil, as the law of karma proposes, since it is purely mechanical, we could face our lives dispassionately. If I have a bad habit, such as smoking, I don’t have to personalize it, and consider myself a failure or success depending on whether I’ve quit or still struggle with the habit. Instead, I can perceive the entire process as a momentum of past actions, and that perception could assist me in seeking interventions that could help me end the habit.
If I am trying to quit but continue to return to the habit, I can boldly state as my father did about falling – “I’ve gotten good at it!” This attitude is a hallmark of eventual success: we get good at failing or dispassionate about it, while maintaining a vision of our goal. If on the other hand, I have successfully stopped smoking, I can equally be dispassionate about the habit’s reoccurring manifestation in the form of desire, since it is only memory of past action. Unfortunately, most of us get a little cocky about our successes and as we’ve read, “Pride goeth before a fall,” but the law of karma teaches us that our successes and failures are completely impersonal. They are not a matter of identity; they are a matter of law, of momentum, and they both begin and end through the processes of awareness, insight, motivation, and proper action.
There is also another important feature of the law of karma, and it involves the extremely practical dynamic of what I call, “The No Blame Clause.” We stop blaming anyone for our circumstances, experiences, or reactions. Now, I recognize, this aspect of karma is going to ruffle some feathers and believe me, it’s ruffled mine. However, this is where ‘the rubber hits the road,’ so to speak, and this is where we get karma in the practical sense of the term; because the whole point is to transcend or end karma, and the only way to do that is to stop blaming. To do otherwise, is to be a barking dog in a palace of mirrors; it just never ends. Whether we’re right or wrong, the mirror just keeps on reflecting and we just keep on barking, and that’s the wheel of karma. To stop the wheel, the first step is to stop the blame and here’s the worst part: It don’t matter who started it. YUCH! HELL! DAMN!
Now, don’t mistake me, I’m not saying that outside influences haven’t impacted us personally, but rather that those influences can never be separated from our own interpretations of those experiences. We are forever included in everything that appears to happen to us. In such an environment, forgiveness becomes unnecessary. It may be a noble motive, but it assumes a detached, passive position upon the part of some victim, which if even physically true, is never psychologically true. This explains the behavior of saints; they don’t just ‘Do the right thing,’ by forgiving their perpetrators, they perceive themselves beyond the actions they received and were a part of. This is the gift of learning the law of karma. We perceive ourselves in a true light, beyond the wheel of action and reaction. We are Being before action began and we will be Being long after reaction ends. Our personal history and future is a blip on the screen of Being, which is our True Identity. All great beings have defined themselves as such and we can do so also; it just takes a little more experience of Being and a little less emphasis on who we think we are.
Personal Lessons
For myself, I will always remember my father. I was fortunate enough to share his passing. During several late nights as he was dying, in between his coughing and heavy breathing, he expressed to me his deepest concerns. I have to admit, I didn't hear anything that I measured as a great sin. Granted, he played his cards like a true gambler and I'm sure many would consider his life to be taboo in certain areas, but as one great saint said: "What friends do is OK," and he was a friend of mine. I spent his last few nights meditating by his bedside, talking to him whenever he regained consciousness. He was very helpful to me. He explained, "It's becoming more and more of a dream world. Sometimes I'm not even sure if you're part of the dream." I told him, "When you see the light, merge with it if possible. If merging is not possible, follow it." He smiled, shook his head, and asked, "How do you know this?" I told him, "For once in your life, will you just trust me?" He laughed and fell back into unconsciousness.
After he passed, I was called and went to see his body one last time. The nurse told me, "He was sleeping very peacefully. The sky has been so gray. We decided to open his curtains anyway and as soon as we did, the sun came out so bright right on him, and he sighed his last breath." Karma.
