Karmic obligation: bonds that keep us from spiritual --- and material --- progress
Hari Warrier
A few days ago came the news that Mr Justin Beiber is giving his father a handsome monthly allowance. Some said $10,000, some said $50,000. But anyway, everyone agreed that it was a hefty sum, and the father was having a blast.
The very same day came another news: a girl just out of her teens in the US (same age as Beiber? Close enough) was suing her parents; she had left home after she turned 18 because she was not willing to put up with restrictions on her personal life, such as a night curfew. But the purpose of the suit was not to question the restrictions: she wanted her parents to pay her an allowance that would take care of her personal life and her college expenses while she stayed on her own. The judge, in the first hearing, sided with the parents, but the case is continuing.
Two cases that put contrasting interpretations on the parent-offspring relationship. Who is right? Is the other person wrong? To understand this, we need to understand the nature of karma.
The law of karma is clear: what you sow is what you reap. Beiber senior must have done something right, to reap his allowance, right? Sure. But the parents of the suing girl had not done much wrong either: all they wanted was a good clean life for their daughter. But the child wants different.
What are these invisible ties that bind parents and their child together? Let us try to get a grip on this.
A child gets his or her body from the cells of the parents. The mother bears the child for nine months, suffering several pains and traumas. And only the father knows the price of the midnight snacks that "womb service" entails!
As the child grows up, the parents do their best to give it a good life, better than they had as children. Sure, some parents are bad, but mostly, they try to be good. They want their child to be a success in life.
All these efforts take the child towards a place from where s/he can launch a career, or strike out on their own. These are priceless efforts, efforts that cannot be repaid regardless of whatever the child does for the parents in later years. Master Choa Kok Sui, the founder of modern Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga, calls it karmic obligation. And he says, "neutralize karmic obligations, because that is the smart thing to do."
So, Justin Beiber's allowance to his father is a smart thing to do. It is a sort of part payment towards his parents' obligations.
What about the girl?
Karma ties us not just to our parents, but to several other people. So in the case of the girl, there is a boyfriend. "Undesirable" character, the news report said. Without being judges about that, it is no rocket science to figure out that if their relationship has turned the girl against her parents, the "karmic ties" between the girl and the boy is surely stronger than the one between the parents and their child.
So what is it about this karma thing?
Karma is the energy that is associated with every action we take, every thought we generate, every word we utter. But, according to the Yoga Vasishtha, the interaction between the young Rama and his teacher Vasishtha, karma arises from the emotion that is attached to an action, thought or speech --- not from the act itself.
What does this mean? Well, the action or thought or words themselves do not generate a reaction, if they are not accompanied by an emotion.
So does that give a sort of inkling to the words uttered by Lord Krishna in the Bhagawad Gita, to Arjuna? "Dedicate your every action to me. Do nothing for yourself. Perform your duty and do not hanker after the fruits of the action. Perform, and let go." Or words to that effect.
Hey, that's not practical, we say. How can I just let go? If someone shouts at me, should I just lie down and let him walk over me? Or like Mahatma Gandhi said, if someone slaps me on one cheek, I offer him the other cheek? That's crazy.
Well, yes. But if we shout right back, will it end the matter? Or will it escalate into a slanging match?
On the other hand, if we respond (not react) with measured words, without "vomiting" out our emotions, is it more likely to settle the issue? "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind."
That is a line pregnant with meaning. Wind, or the breath, is the instrument that can help us climb above emotions. That's one of the points of esoteric significance behind the flute that is the instrument of Lord Krishna, by the way.
Hence the stress on pranayama in yogic and spiritual practices. Breath control. Actually, not control but regulation of breath. The introduction of a certain rythm and pattern into our breath for specific durations. Breathing exercises can be cleansing, or energizine, depending on the technique practiced.
This article does not try to address this aspect. Suffice to say that if we are serious about spiritual practice, and wish to learn proper breathing techniques, do, do let us have a teacher teach us. A qualified teacher whose own life has sufficient proof that their techniques actually work.
So what will "practicing the wind" get us with regard to karma?
Emotions are a form of cyclone, whose vortex is rooted in a particular chakra of the body. Let us discuss chakras before we move on.
A chakra is an energy centre. It is like a regulator, that regulates the "voltage" of energy that goes into organs in its immediate neighbourhood. And it is involved with the inhalation and exhalation of energy into the aura of a person. It also has psychological and spiritual functions, but just physical "imbalance", say arising from habits such as a poor diet (pizza and coke, anyone?), excess alcohol consumption, smoking etc -- or even from a poor choice of words in expressing oneself (four-letter words that do NOT mean love, for instance)... can put the other functions such as emotional and spiritual, out of sync.
What all these do is to cause a certain friction within the chakra. It is no longer able to do its physical function properly. It slows down. And in turn, emotional, mental and spiritual functions get impaired.
Hey, what has all that got to do with karma? Didn't we start from there?
Well, it is like this. When the chakra gets affected, the emotional energies, which are described as "sticky" in nature, start "coating" each and every act, thought and word. Bingo! We have karma.
No, this does not mean that turning vegan will solve the problem. Nor will pranayama. Nor will both the above together.
Because karma has already been there in our system for eons, literally. We are like zombies struggling in a moth-eaten castle, coated with dust and cobwebs, trying to get to the door but can't see where it is.
Wind will only raise the dust. The cobwebs may move around a bit, but it will need a gale to get rid of the whole thing. And a gale, my friends, is not a friendly spirit that will restore life, it will destroy much of it.
There are techniques to rid ourselves of old negative karma. Service is the best one. Serve people, animals, nature, anything of God's creation. Start at home, serve your parents (Ha! Beiber). Service brings into our system what is called higher emotions. And the energy of higher emotions is not sticky, but actually cleansing (somewhere it is said, love can melt a stone... This refers not to real stones, but to the accumulated karmic dust of lifetimes that have crystallized).
Be consistent, and don't aim for the moon: remember what we said about starting a gale. It is the small acts that bring big returns.
Having done service, or looked after your parents, or fed poor people, or done whatever to generate new good karma, you can then pray to your favourite god or the absolute supreme god, to release you from past negative karmic obligations, especially towards the person concerned.
Arhatic Yogis would recognize the specific technique to "decree" good karma to neutralize past negative karma. That is the only way to clear our chakras of past muck, and bring fresh air and clean prana into our lives.
So what happens if we neutralize our karmic obligation, say towards a partner in a joyless marriage? That is the million dollar question.
Well, from our understanding, it is something like this: when there is a karmic obligation or bondage, the nature our relationship with the person concerned is completely dictated by the nature of our bond.
If it is a love bond, for instance, whatever the other person does, we find ourselves unable to respond rationally, even if it is something hurtful or even criminal. We go on being supportive, and live in the fond hope that the other person will love us, some day, and change their habits. And we take that illusion with us to our graves.
If it is a bond of hatred, we just as passionately hate the person --- but are still unable to shake free, and keep doing whatever s/he tells us to do even if we get hurt again and again, because of the bond.
If we neutralize that past karmic obligation, the bond falls off. It takes time, but it does indeed fall off. Freed of the yoke, we can develop a new relationship that is based on the reality of the present time. Or we can just move on, if there is no real NEED for a relationship. In either case, we are free of the baggage of the past. It is astonishing how the other person gets transformed as we do ourselves.
Mind you, the other person is still not free, and can only move on when they have neutralized their obligation. But that is not really our concern, even if the obligation is towards us. Let us clear OUR world, rather than try to meddle with the entire world.
If we don't neutralize the obligation, the bond remains. And there is no telling what the other person will be, in our future life... someone who hurts us, or lives off us, or is a hateful boss, or... the possibilities are endless.
Ok, I think we have got the gist of that. Hopefully. But the law of karma has two parts. As you sow... is only part 1. The second part goes, "Don't sow seeds whose fruits you do not want to reap." or words to that effect.
Wow, this is a toughie. You mean, I can't unburden my emotions and let loose at that idiot who completely cut me off with his car and left me stranded at a traffic light while I am running 10 minutes from my meeting and now my boss is going to skin me and..."
Well, in short, NO.
Not just that, we cannot even THINK ill of that person. Or scheme really vile things that we would like to do to him or her when we catch them up a dark alley.
Remember what we said earlier: it is the emotion that lends "sticky" to the act. And boy, is that emotional or what, the "skinning him and dipping him in boiling oil" routine.
So we ask: what about Arjuna, who was ranting and raving about facing his family and his teacher and his friends on the battlefield? Wasn't he emotional?
Sure, yes, which is why Lord Krishna took time out from the battle and gave him a lecture on Life, the Universe and Everything. When he came out of that lecture, Arjuna was not the same student who went into the classroom. He had absorbed the lecture. It oozed out of his pores. He had embodied the teachings. And so he fought.
On occasions, he still tripped. Like the time when Abhimanyu got killed, and he swore revenge. So he had his share of negative karma, and went to hell to pay for it. But on the whole, for the rest of the war, he only did what his charioteer, Lord Krishna, told him to do. Without exercising his veto right, without arguing. And hence, there was no emotion, no "entanglement", no cobwebs, and no karma.
At least, no fresh karma from then on.
A quick recap: Karma comes from the emotions that accompany our thoughts, speech and action. Relationships are governed by past karma. If we neutralize our past karma, we become free of the bond that ties us to a relationship, and become free to experience a relationship based on present reality.
If we don't neutralize the karma, not only do we continue to remain under bondage, we build on it, embellish it with present-life emotional experiences and traumas, and carry forwards enhanced and "improved quality" karmic bonds to future life times. We don't really want to carry with us all those irritating and downright ugly people in our lives into our future, do we?
And by the way, there is no escaping. If we sow seeds, we reap. Period.
Look, this is not saying that all this is easy to do. Of course it is not. But that is no reason for us to not TRY. Trying is the first step, constant practice the next. Remind ourselves all the time, stick post-its on our bathroom mirror, put a note on our cellphone wallpaper, try every trick in the trade and then some.
Let us also give ourselves reward points for doing the right thing, saying the right word, thinking the right thought --- AND for refraining from the wrong thing. We deserve it. We are all children of God. Children of the Most High. We deserve rewards. And who better to give it than ourselves?
But please, let us not cheat ourselves. Or cheat on ourselves. For Papa is watching. And there will be payback: Karma, most sublime.
Hari Warrier
A few days ago came the news that Mr Justin Beiber is giving his father a handsome monthly allowance. Some said $10,000, some said $50,000. But anyway, everyone agreed that it was a hefty sum, and the father was having a blast.
The very same day came another news: a girl just out of her teens in the US (same age as Beiber? Close enough) was suing her parents; she had left home after she turned 18 because she was not willing to put up with restrictions on her personal life, such as a night curfew. But the purpose of the suit was not to question the restrictions: she wanted her parents to pay her an allowance that would take care of her personal life and her college expenses while she stayed on her own. The judge, in the first hearing, sided with the parents, but the case is continuing.
Two cases that put contrasting interpretations on the parent-offspring relationship. Who is right? Is the other person wrong? To understand this, we need to understand the nature of karma.
The law of karma is clear: what you sow is what you reap. Beiber senior must have done something right, to reap his allowance, right? Sure. But the parents of the suing girl had not done much wrong either: all they wanted was a good clean life for their daughter. But the child wants different.
What are these invisible ties that bind parents and their child together? Let us try to get a grip on this.
A child gets his or her body from the cells of the parents. The mother bears the child for nine months, suffering several pains and traumas. And only the father knows the price of the midnight snacks that "womb service" entails!
As the child grows up, the parents do their best to give it a good life, better than they had as children. Sure, some parents are bad, but mostly, they try to be good. They want their child to be a success in life.
All these efforts take the child towards a place from where s/he can launch a career, or strike out on their own. These are priceless efforts, efforts that cannot be repaid regardless of whatever the child does for the parents in later years. Master Choa Kok Sui, the founder of modern Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga, calls it karmic obligation. And he says, "neutralize karmic obligations, because that is the smart thing to do."
So, Justin Beiber's allowance to his father is a smart thing to do. It is a sort of part payment towards his parents' obligations.
What about the girl?
Karma ties us not just to our parents, but to several other people. So in the case of the girl, there is a boyfriend. "Undesirable" character, the news report said. Without being judges about that, it is no rocket science to figure out that if their relationship has turned the girl against her parents, the "karmic ties" between the girl and the boy is surely stronger than the one between the parents and their child.
So what is it about this karma thing?
Karma is the energy that is associated with every action we take, every thought we generate, every word we utter. But, according to the Yoga Vasishtha, the interaction between the young Rama and his teacher Vasishtha, karma arises from the emotion that is attached to an action, thought or speech --- not from the act itself.
What does this mean? Well, the action or thought or words themselves do not generate a reaction, if they are not accompanied by an emotion.
So does that give a sort of inkling to the words uttered by Lord Krishna in the Bhagawad Gita, to Arjuna? "Dedicate your every action to me. Do nothing for yourself. Perform your duty and do not hanker after the fruits of the action. Perform, and let go." Or words to that effect.
Hey, that's not practical, we say. How can I just let go? If someone shouts at me, should I just lie down and let him walk over me? Or like Mahatma Gandhi said, if someone slaps me on one cheek, I offer him the other cheek? That's crazy.
Well, yes. But if we shout right back, will it end the matter? Or will it escalate into a slanging match?
On the other hand, if we respond (not react) with measured words, without "vomiting" out our emotions, is it more likely to settle the issue? "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind."
That is a line pregnant with meaning. Wind, or the breath, is the instrument that can help us climb above emotions. That's one of the points of esoteric significance behind the flute that is the instrument of Lord Krishna, by the way.
Hence the stress on pranayama in yogic and spiritual practices. Breath control. Actually, not control but regulation of breath. The introduction of a certain rythm and pattern into our breath for specific durations. Breathing exercises can be cleansing, or energizine, depending on the technique practiced.
This article does not try to address this aspect. Suffice to say that if we are serious about spiritual practice, and wish to learn proper breathing techniques, do, do let us have a teacher teach us. A qualified teacher whose own life has sufficient proof that their techniques actually work.
So what will "practicing the wind" get us with regard to karma?
Emotions are a form of cyclone, whose vortex is rooted in a particular chakra of the body. Let us discuss chakras before we move on.
A chakra is an energy centre. It is like a regulator, that regulates the "voltage" of energy that goes into organs in its immediate neighbourhood. And it is involved with the inhalation and exhalation of energy into the aura of a person. It also has psychological and spiritual functions, but just physical "imbalance", say arising from habits such as a poor diet (pizza and coke, anyone?), excess alcohol consumption, smoking etc -- or even from a poor choice of words in expressing oneself (four-letter words that do NOT mean love, for instance)... can put the other functions such as emotional and spiritual, out of sync.
What all these do is to cause a certain friction within the chakra. It is no longer able to do its physical function properly. It slows down. And in turn, emotional, mental and spiritual functions get impaired.
Hey, what has all that got to do with karma? Didn't we start from there?
Well, it is like this. When the chakra gets affected, the emotional energies, which are described as "sticky" in nature, start "coating" each and every act, thought and word. Bingo! We have karma.
No, this does not mean that turning vegan will solve the problem. Nor will pranayama. Nor will both the above together.
Because karma has already been there in our system for eons, literally. We are like zombies struggling in a moth-eaten castle, coated with dust and cobwebs, trying to get to the door but can't see where it is.
Wind will only raise the dust. The cobwebs may move around a bit, but it will need a gale to get rid of the whole thing. And a gale, my friends, is not a friendly spirit that will restore life, it will destroy much of it.
There are techniques to rid ourselves of old negative karma. Service is the best one. Serve people, animals, nature, anything of God's creation. Start at home, serve your parents (Ha! Beiber). Service brings into our system what is called higher emotions. And the energy of higher emotions is not sticky, but actually cleansing (somewhere it is said, love can melt a stone... This refers not to real stones, but to the accumulated karmic dust of lifetimes that have crystallized).
Be consistent, and don't aim for the moon: remember what we said about starting a gale. It is the small acts that bring big returns.
Having done service, or looked after your parents, or fed poor people, or done whatever to generate new good karma, you can then pray to your favourite god or the absolute supreme god, to release you from past negative karmic obligations, especially towards the person concerned.
Arhatic Yogis would recognize the specific technique to "decree" good karma to neutralize past negative karma. That is the only way to clear our chakras of past muck, and bring fresh air and clean prana into our lives.
So what happens if we neutralize our karmic obligation, say towards a partner in a joyless marriage? That is the million dollar question.
Well, from our understanding, it is something like this: when there is a karmic obligation or bondage, the nature our relationship with the person concerned is completely dictated by the nature of our bond.
If it is a love bond, for instance, whatever the other person does, we find ourselves unable to respond rationally, even if it is something hurtful or even criminal. We go on being supportive, and live in the fond hope that the other person will love us, some day, and change their habits. And we take that illusion with us to our graves.
If it is a bond of hatred, we just as passionately hate the person --- but are still unable to shake free, and keep doing whatever s/he tells us to do even if we get hurt again and again, because of the bond.
If we neutralize that past karmic obligation, the bond falls off. It takes time, but it does indeed fall off. Freed of the yoke, we can develop a new relationship that is based on the reality of the present time. Or we can just move on, if there is no real NEED for a relationship. In either case, we are free of the baggage of the past. It is astonishing how the other person gets transformed as we do ourselves.
Mind you, the other person is still not free, and can only move on when they have neutralized their obligation. But that is not really our concern, even if the obligation is towards us. Let us clear OUR world, rather than try to meddle with the entire world.
If we don't neutralize the obligation, the bond remains. And there is no telling what the other person will be, in our future life... someone who hurts us, or lives off us, or is a hateful boss, or... the possibilities are endless.
Ok, I think we have got the gist of that. Hopefully. But the law of karma has two parts. As you sow... is only part 1. The second part goes, "Don't sow seeds whose fruits you do not want to reap." or words to that effect.
Wow, this is a toughie. You mean, I can't unburden my emotions and let loose at that idiot who completely cut me off with his car and left me stranded at a traffic light while I am running 10 minutes from my meeting and now my boss is going to skin me and..."
Well, in short, NO.
Not just that, we cannot even THINK ill of that person. Or scheme really vile things that we would like to do to him or her when we catch them up a dark alley.
Remember what we said earlier: it is the emotion that lends "sticky" to the act. And boy, is that emotional or what, the "skinning him and dipping him in boiling oil" routine.
So we ask: what about Arjuna, who was ranting and raving about facing his family and his teacher and his friends on the battlefield? Wasn't he emotional?
Sure, yes, which is why Lord Krishna took time out from the battle and gave him a lecture on Life, the Universe and Everything. When he came out of that lecture, Arjuna was not the same student who went into the classroom. He had absorbed the lecture. It oozed out of his pores. He had embodied the teachings. And so he fought.
On occasions, he still tripped. Like the time when Abhimanyu got killed, and he swore revenge. So he had his share of negative karma, and went to hell to pay for it. But on the whole, for the rest of the war, he only did what his charioteer, Lord Krishna, told him to do. Without exercising his veto right, without arguing. And hence, there was no emotion, no "entanglement", no cobwebs, and no karma.
At least, no fresh karma from then on.
A quick recap: Karma comes from the emotions that accompany our thoughts, speech and action. Relationships are governed by past karma. If we neutralize our past karma, we become free of the bond that ties us to a relationship, and become free to experience a relationship based on present reality.
If we don't neutralize the karma, not only do we continue to remain under bondage, we build on it, embellish it with present-life emotional experiences and traumas, and carry forwards enhanced and "improved quality" karmic bonds to future life times. We don't really want to carry with us all those irritating and downright ugly people in our lives into our future, do we?
And by the way, there is no escaping. If we sow seeds, we reap. Period.
Look, this is not saying that all this is easy to do. Of course it is not. But that is no reason for us to not TRY. Trying is the first step, constant practice the next. Remind ourselves all the time, stick post-its on our bathroom mirror, put a note on our cellphone wallpaper, try every trick in the trade and then some.
Let us also give ourselves reward points for doing the right thing, saying the right word, thinking the right thought --- AND for refraining from the wrong thing. We deserve it. We are all children of God. Children of the Most High. We deserve rewards. And who better to give it than ourselves?
But please, let us not cheat ourselves. Or cheat on ourselves. For Papa is watching. And there will be payback: Karma, most sublime.
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