Karma
I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before (it seems I have a mild case of A.D.D for some things so forgive me) but karma works in mysterious, often hilarious ways. With me, it usually lets me slide in an almost Ferris Bueller-like fashion throughout the course of a month but one day (at random… always at random) it knocks on my door to collect on all of my good fortune in what I call my monthly Black Capricorn Day. it’s just downright unbearable from beginning to end, nothing comes out the way I want it to and no matter how much I try to rectify things they just come crumbling down for me to try doing them all over again… it’s somewhat of a staple now, and I’ve come to accept it as part of my life. Yesterday was my Black Capricorn Day for the month of December, and it was so ridiculous that the only way I can do it justice is by telling you the tale in an episodic format… give me a week and I’ll blow your mind. Now, let Wikipedia kick things off:
Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म from the root kṛ, “to do”) is a word of ancient origin meaning action or activity and its subsequent results (also called karma-phala, “the fruits of action”). It is commonly understood as a term to denote the entire cycle of cause and effect as described in the philosophies of a number of Dharmic Religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
Karma is a sum of all that an individual has done, is currently doing and will do. Individuals go through certain processes and accompanying experiences throughout their lives which they have chosen, and those would be based on the results of their own creations: “karma”. Karma is not about retribution, vengeance, punishment or reward. Karma simply deals with what is. The effects of all deeds actively create past, present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one’s own life, and the pain and joy it brings to others. In religions that incorporate reincarnation, karma extends through one’s present life and all past and future lives as well.
Throughout this process, many see God as playing some kind of role, for example, as the dispenser of the fruits of karma. Other Hindus consider the natural laws of causation sufficient to explain the effects of karma. Some interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita suggest an intermediate view, that karma is a law of cause and effect yet God can mitigate karma for His devotees. Another view holds that a Sadguru, acting on God’s behalf, can mitigate or work out some of the karma of the disciple.
The “Law of Karma” is central in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism (religions born in IndiaNepal). All living creatures are responsible for their karma – their actions and the effects of their actions – and for their release from samsara. As a term, it can be traced back to the early Upanishads.
Upanishads, huh? Somebody should hop on a time machine and shoot them. Anyway, karma’s at work all the frickin’ time. Once I was dating this very lovely lady who was very nice and seemingly harmless at first; one time I was at the Causeway walking and found 20 dollars on the floor… decided to take them and treated myself to lunch while looking over my shoulder to see if the SWAT teams would spot me… later that day,and I swear to Marley this is true, I went to this girl’s house because she summoned me with that magical phrase everyone fears: “we need to talk.”
As it turns out, she wanted to tell me how she had stopped taking her birth control pills in an effort to get herself pregnant so that I wouldn’t leave her. Oh yes, I love me the crazies. Her reasoning led her to believe that I was cheating on her (certainly the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard any person tell me since I started playing this dating game… I hear it a surprising lot, for some reason that escapes me) and instead of doing what any normal girl would do and follow me around without me knowing until she caught me red-handed, she went the “have a baby” route. Karma. What a bastard.
Where I’m trying to get at with this is that karma, in a lot of ways, is fueled by people. I know for a fact that if I weren’t the guy that I am and I hadn’t hooked up with this particular jealous-type girl, as great as she is, I wouldn’t have sent her off the deep end so far away that she thought that having my baby actually sounded like a good idea to keep me around. It’s not entirely true when people create problems all by themselves… there’s always someone else causing reactions… reactions. For every action, there is a reaction. This is the way of things. One thing leads to another, which leads to another and another and then another and suddenly you “misplace” your birth control pills. Think about this: every time you run away from something, you’re causing someone harm. Not doing anything is, most of the time, just as bad as doing evil on purpose. Being oblivious to what you do to other people is downright dangerous, but in that regard we’re all sinners here. There’s always been an instance in your life where you’ve set things aside for later… they’re not important enough for you to deal with them as soon as possible, or you’re too scared, or too confused or whatever the hell, who cares, who cares as you’re alright, right? Ahh, bliss. Such a warm place. Fueling karma without even knowing it.
Nobody escapes it no matter how many steps you take to be clean with your acts. I was an active (and sole) participant of someone’s karma recently, it seems, and personally I feel horrible about it. You find out that things are never simple no matter how much red tape you cut because the second you get someone else involved in your personal debacle then the proverbial shit hits the fan for all of you… and in many ways then, the shit will always hit the fan since we’re so hung up on our friends and interpersonal relationships that we can’t escape things getting complicated. Everything we do affects other people… so then, if there are so many people in the world, why bother worrying? Great question, and my train of thought informs me now that all we can really do is mind those that are closest to us and tend to those that need us as best we can.
This whole thing makes me wish I was 6 again, when all I was worried about was taking care of my Ninja Turtles toys and “The Legend of Zelda.” Nowadays, and this is true in our current day and age, things get decidedly more complex; it’s a bitch to give when everybody wants for themselves. I hear this shit all the time: what about what I want? I want to go away. I don’t want to deal with people anymore. People suck. Yadda yadda yadda. Everyone goes through it (even you, Mr. High and Mighty) at some point or the other and that’s karma at work… there’s a balance that needs to be established. But hell, there comes a moment where you have to stop and think about what others are doing for you and what you’re doing to them. Being on the receiving end of “the shaft” can happen to anyone, and most of the time it’s pretty much a domino effect of shafting: tens of people (I’m sure) are being shafted by someone that’s being shafted by me because I’m being shafted by someone who got shafted by another, and so on and so forth. Someone needs to stop the fucking shafting chain, man. What you do affects everything and everyone around you… now that you’ve realized this then, what will you do? Will you give or will you keep shafting? Somehow, drama is inevitable. My suggestion? Shake, shake, shake, bitches! Nobody likes to get hurt as much as nobody likes to hurt others. Well, tough break. I don’t know about you, sir or madam, but I like it much more when I get a warning before getting shafted. This is so gay. Whatever. My point here is that neglect is just as big an evil as doing something bad deliberately, and in many ways it’s worse. Please don’t do it… specially during the holidays.
Removing Karma is generally a good idea but a long and hard thing to do. While removing single functions is a matter of a few minutes, removing all functions is a lengthy process. Working on the removal means increasing the life quality itself and it is a very basic and important process to know.
The most common way to remove Karma is to understand and decide. This is something people do sometimes without knowing about the mechanisms. Usually a karmic problem is a pattern that repeats over and over. The related person behaves in the same way again and again. To break the pattern it is necessary to follow four phases:
- 1) Identification of the problem
- 2) Understanding the effects
- 3) Decision
- 4) Return of the energy
The identification is the hardest part. As long as the function is active, it is very hard to see and most often the problem is identified in an argument with another person. A common technique to track a problem down is to install an observer. To do so, simply observe yourself with a small part of consciousness that should remain active anytime. It is necessary to keep the observer somewhat “outside” so that it does not get emotionally involved. This needs some training but is an invaluable tool for karma removal.
Understanding the effects often follows automatically after the identification when people suddenly realize what they have done. If it does not come that easy, a closer investigation should detail all effects. If the understanding does not happen, the identification usually is not complete.
The decision is crucial. As long as the problem is identified and no decision is made, the karmic function remains active and intact. At this point it is possible tobehavior (this skips point 4!) or in clearing the karma by simply declaring the old behavior as undesirable.
The return of the energy is something that happens is the immediate sign of success.
A problem is the possible reclaiming of the problem. A “but I cannot..” or “what would my mother say” can instantly undo the removal. In that case the only way to go is to treat all possible opposing internal voices and begin anew.
If a karmic problem is not solved by that steps, the problem is usually clustered. A complete solution needs the effort of clearing all of the related problems.
With that said, I have some pending issues I can either address now or address as part of the new year. There’s a lot of shafting there, yes… and if someone has the cojones (both figuratively and literally) to stop the shafting chain, then that person’s yours truly. I’m still on the fence with that, but at least my shitty karma came to collect already, so what’s the worst that could happen?
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