Question: Karma and Remebrance
Dear divine brother, Please clarify : Our ‘karmic bondage'(sins / vikarma) is reducing by Remembering Baba or by being in Soul conscious stage ? And how it is happening ? or what is happening in subtle way?
Dear soul,
Thank you for your question!
You are asking if our “bad” actions, our “sins” could be reduced by remembering God or by being in soul conscious state, right?
Let us start from the beginning, so we could demystify the meaning of “karma” and its need to be “absolved.”
One of the things to understand about the Drama of life is that nothing is “good” or “bad.” It is as it is and it is necessary. That is why the Drama of life, the movie; is beneficial.
The issue is our vision. Let us say that Peter lost his job. Is this “good karma” or “bad karma”?
🙂
According to your vision, that is what it will be. Losing a job could be the opportunity to find another “better” job. It could be the opportunity to spend greater time in spirituality, etc.
When we are trapped in the concept of “opening and closing” karmic accounts, we miss the opportunity to live life as we only see “good or bad,” but we are unable to see beyond the thing appearing right in front of our eyes. All actions are related.
Here is the latest realization.
Forget about settling karmic accounts. Free your mind from that dualistic concept.
Become a detached observer instead.
Why?
Because a detached observer is beyond the effects of Karma. A detached observer is a soul conscious individual or an individual who knows and understand how to change his vision, his perspective of things in life.
For example:
Peter lost his job. If Peter changes his vision by trusting the Drama of life in the understanding that “things happen for the best, as long as I do my best;” then his vision will allow things to change. If Peter’s vision is fixed in “how can I make money now… this is terrible…etc,” then obviously that vision will make Peter’s existence miserable.
A karmic account is the opportunity for us to realize that still we have some inner work to do. Is that “sinful”? 🙂 Some will keep suffering. Others will try to find a way out.
How do we get out?
1) By going through the experience. Some may refer to this as suffering. Others as learning. What is your vision? 🙂
2) By doing an inner work and finding the issues. Usually a lack of acceptance of things as they are due to inner rejections and repressions. This will lead into #3.
3) By becoming a detached observer.
In my experience, any other word that we like to use such as “remembering God” or “yoga” or “meditation,” etc; means only to become soul conscious. However, this soul consciousness is a process and it will lead into being a detached observer, little by little; not all of a sudden.
Moreover, we will become a detached observer when we have resolved our inner issues, that is our emotional problems, our fixed ideas and concepts, our own complexities, our inner struggles, our “baggage,” and are capable of embracing life as it is. This is called inner observation. Inner work on the self.
In my experience, we cannot expect that “yoga” alone will be all we need. As we know, that “yoga” is not the same for everyone: the same power and intensity. Therefore, we will need to observe the self, to become a detective of our inner world to find things which are making us to behave in a certain way. This “effort” will be rewarded through the law of karma as we know and whatever we find will be gone permanently.
Yoga can make us experience what is soul consciousness; but our emotional baggage will bring us down as soon as that yoga experience finishes.
It is a balance.
Best wishes!
Exploring the Depth of Living 
Serving others, OR serving the self? – A story
There was a carpenter cum plumber who was very efficient in his job and was in great demand. One big company manager used to like his work a lot and would engage him in all his construction works. Since that manager of the company used to pay him well, the carpenter paid good attention to his work and claimed his trust and regard.
Many years passed by and the carpenter became old and thought of retiring from his work. One day, when the manager gave him an assignment to do all the wood work and plumbing for an apartment, he politely declined to do it saying he was thinking of retiring.
The manager was disappointed as he was losing a trust worthy worker. After thinking for a while he requested the carpenter to work only on that one project and that it would be the last assignment he would be getting from him. The carpenter agreed reluctantly.
With the passing of time the carpenter was actually losing interest in focusing on his work but he could not refuse to take up the project assigned to him by the manager. And he was not attentive in his work this time, and actually he did a lousy job knowing that anyway he would get his payment and he would not be there to listen to the complaints about the apartment in future. He did not choose good quality wood, and the plumbing work he did was full of flaws.
Once he completed his work, he informed the manager about it and asked him to have a look at his work and to finish off the contract. The manager came and saw his work; he never doubted the quality of his work, and the house looked pretty with all the wooden fixtures.
He felt very happy and turned towards the carpenter and said, “As a token of appreciation of all the work you have done for me all these years, i am offering this house to you as a token of love and gratitude.”
This is what happens in our lives some times. We do not realise that what we do to others would come back to us. Had the carpenter known that he was building his own house, he would have paid a lot more attention to it. Now he had to live in the house which he himself built which had lot of flaws.
Yes, we do not really ‘help others’, we help ourselves through our actions. And we can not really hurt others so much, we actually hurt ourselves in that process. There is only Karma, it is neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’; whatever karma we perform will ‘come back’ to us; we can label it by whatever name.
Om shanti.
Note: Sr. Gayathri does not remember the author of the story but remembers the story itself!
LikeLike
Lovely…
LikeLike
“Forget about settling karmic accounts. Free your mind from that dualistic concept.
Become a detached observer instead”
This Soul’s learning point!
LikeLike