(Karma as the search for universal justice)
We can put this question into everyday street language: “How come all this pain is happening to me and not to you?” Every philosophy has grappled with this problem of universal justice. The doctrine of karma also originates with primordial man’s search for an understanding of universal justice.
Karma is neither the law of punishment nor the law of retribution!
Essentially, the doctrine of karma states that every thought, word or physical action produces physical and mental effects; beyond these, it also produces an invisible, transcendental effect. The doctrine of karma states that every action, independent of its visible effect, produces an invisible effect called proclivity. This proclivity is stored in your soul, your permanent memory banks.
Karma is preset potential energy that, under certain conditions, changes from invisible to visible energy. These manifestations are looked upon by the average human being as rewarding or as punishing. However, they are neither good nor bad, in and of themselves. They are only preset results of past actions and attitudes. In short, life becomes what life does.
(Karma stored in the astral body persists beyond physical death)
Generally, the effects of any thought, word or deed are only visible on a few levels of your being. However, they affect all levels of your being, visible and invisible, long after the death of your earth body, and rebirth into a new body. This is so because the karma is held in the astral body, which lives beyond the birth and death of earth bodies.
Karma is gravity. Karma is proclivity. Karma is a blind spot. Karma is desire. It is important to say again that: Karma is not the law of retribution.
At this point, the bottom of the astral opens and Kim “falls” to earth with his five sheaths, which now create his physical earth body with all its cells and all its petals. Both are filled with his karmic desires and their permutations.
When the fifth karmic desire is grasped, Kim immediately leaves the astral. At that moment the bottom of the “astral sea” opens and the soul descends downward to earth, and encapsulates itself in five new sheaths and three new bodies. Human earth life has begun again.
(Three laws governing how karma is created and ripened)
- Karma is only produced by an act of conscious willing (volition). 2. Karmic events manifest only when conditions for their ripening are at hand. 3. Your attitudes and reactions toward karmic events in turn produce new karma.
The habits of the past lives are the ghosts of the past who want to live again.
you develop wisdom, then ignorance dissolves away. It’s as simple as that, because all negative destiny is rooted in greed, jealousy and hatred. All hatred and jealousy are caused by greed, and all greed is rooted in ignorance. The chief root and primary cause of man’s misery is his ignorance, that is to say, his forgetfulness of the true Self.
you understand this, you will understand that you get exactly what you want from this life, if you really want it. If you understand this, you will understand that each of us gets from life exactly that which we (subconsciously think we) deserve.
(Pre-karmic learning as the swifter path beyond burning karma)
Most people think that karma must be burned out. This is not true, and it may be unwise to believe it. Although karma functions to help us rebalance our awareness, the yogi seeks to learn through a better, swifter and more harmonious path, which could be called “pre-karmic learning.”
A man may have a piece of karma that calls for him to live through a rather difficult 10-year marriage, to learn the lesson of unselfishness. If he could genuinely learn the lesson of unselfishness prior to marrying, that experience of a difficult marriage would no longer be needed. A space would open in his life, in place of the karmic compulsion.
(Chakras, bindus, and where karma is physically stored)
The left side of a chakra tends to store more emotional-mental karma (Ida-karma). The petals on the right side of a chakra tends to store more mental-emotional karma, as well as more physical karma (Pingala-karma). Ida karma tends to have more to do with astral objects, whereas Pingala tends to have more to do with physical objects. Both have to do with emotionality. These five lower chakras exist in subtle form, within a subtle body, called the astral body.
However, the very center of a chakra does not store karma. It stores merit. This very center point that does not store karma is called a bindu. The very, very center of the bindu that stores merit is a dharma-bindu.
Conscious creation of Jupiter karma would be called Jupiter Kriya-mana-karma. So if you have a heavy piece of earth karma, like depression, you might be able to wash it away with water karma, which manifests as enthusiastic and/or devotional thoughts and actions.
Our lives would be in absolute chaos if there was no time delay (Saturn karma) between the wish and its fulfillment. The time factor saves us.
(Samadhi and breathlessness as the secret dissolvers of karma)
This state of absolute breathlessness is called Samadhi. When there is mystical stoppage of the physical breath, which is different from willfully holding one’s breath, there is also dissolving of past karma. Initially, the student reaches the outer fringes of Samadhi and the karma is only softened. Ultimately, Samadhi produces freedom (Moksha) from all karma. That’s the secret.
releases Kriya fire, which cremates the seeds of karma stored in the chakras. This small, short breath stoppage is a powerful mini-Samadhi. This mini-Samadhi is powerful because repeated over a million healthy earth years, it will produce the Maha-Samadhi, the Great Awakening.
If we abate our karma for one Muhurta (48 seconds), we will have overcome all our karma. This is why, in the higher yogas, the yogi is concerned with mastering the conscious trance state of Samadhi.
If you can laugh, that laughter produces attitudinal karma that will give birth to many other seeds of joy, and thus soften other karma.
“You see,” Yogananda continued, “when people allow themselves to be pressured, they lose their own free will. The goal of life is a movement toward freedom and liberation. If you and he could only remember, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and back off, you would continue life.
It was that one second when the pressure struck him (the karma attitude of the past). That one event triggered the gunpowder, like a match to dynamite.
It has been said that 97 percent of the average person’s actions during this present lifetime represent the karma forces of his previous lifetimes.
I need to communicate to you that the pain caused by that desire for God will manifest in this very lifetime because it is karma from the past. Therefore, remove the desire for God… but seek Him out! The person who is hooked on candy and says, “I really want to break free from being hooked on candy” may never break free of the candy habit in this life. But the very fact that he holds to that feeling through this lifetime will cause the Kriya-mana-karma to manifest in the future. Yet again, this will be balanced against other competing desires.
I would like to add here that, with the attainment of enlightenment, there arises the knowledge of the law of karma, and its counterpart: The law of rebirth. Awareness of the laws of karma bring the knowledge that these are basic, spontaneous and unconscious natural laws of cause and effect.
(Enlightenment reveals karma, rebirth, and shared selfhood)
Thus, whenever you harm other entities (or other things), you directly harm yourself. Whenever you help yourself, you directly help other souls.
This striving, this action, all begins with the awakening realization of karma, and thus the sense of personal responsibility in everything you do, including that which you choose not to do. Aum…