The Karma Train

Have always had a real fascination with Karma.
   Partially because I always felt it was kind of in conflict with what I believe about free will. I think that, "free will",  is the greatest gift we were given as human beings. So how do those two things fit together?

  We had a very interesting discussion in my teacher training group one weekend that shed a lot of light on this topic for me. Sometimes the most brilliant moments for me, are when I am able to spend time in a group of people and absorb the intelligence of the group. We started a discussion about hard and soft Karma and what those terms meant. As the talk progressed, a concept came up that I really liked.

  Hard Karma is determined by your learning in past lives. I am starting to frame it like this. Your soul, is "Atma".  Regardless of who you are in this life, male or female, race, colour or creed, your atma is constant and beyond those kinds of labels. And "You" are a passenger on a train. Your ticket with your destination printed on it is your hard Karma. No matter what you do, based on past lives and past learning, you are going to, for example "Vancouver". Soft Karma, however, can dictate how you get there. You can go straight there, or you can go to Calgary and fly seventeen other places on the way! You can go past it to the coast and take a boat all the way around the world until you get to it from the other side. But in the end, you are going to "Vancouver".

  And "Vancouver" is not the punishment we seem to imagine that Karma meets out. It is simply the final point that connects to the learning of your next life. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. And in order to go forward in the best possible evolution, this trip ends and your next one begins in that place.

  Now there is another concept to throw in here, that influences it all. That is the concept of "Dharma". "Dharma" has been described in Hinduism as "the natural universal laws that if followed, allow a person to be contented and happy and to save themself from degradation and suffering". Now that is wikipedia's definition. Mine would be this, your dharma is the path you are meant to follow in "this" life. And through the process of learning we wander on and off that path. It is in a funny way, the karma you create in your every day behaviour and your every day choices. It is very influenced by your free will and the map you follow is your own intuition, your own divine intelligence.

    The Bhagavad Gita talks about Karma as being the great wheel of life and death that we cannot seem to get off of. We cycle through it over and over again as our learning progresses towards enlightenment. It also gives us the key to getting off that ride.

    There is a very important concept that has a different meaning today than it did in that original text. The meaning of this word has become distorted in a way that it no longer conveys the same message.
The Gita explains that the way out of the endless cycle of birth and death is to be concious in every moment and to do everything in the spirit of Sacrifice. Now sacrifice today has a very "martyr" smack to it. That is not the essence of this. To do things in the spirit of sacrifice is to offer every action, every moment of your day for the betterment of all that exist, not to the detriment of yourself.
It is not to deny oneself, but instead to release all attachment to the outcome of your actions, the need to be recognized for what you do. To simply do things because they need to be done and you are there. When a being is able to be in service without the ego being engaged at all, there is a place we can slip through and be released from Karma.

   It is certainly something to aspire to!
In love and light,
Kathryn