Karma

 “All that we are is the result of what we have thought: all that we are is founded on our thoughts and formed of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain pursues him, as the wheel of the wagon follows the hoof of the ox that draws it. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: all that we are is founded on our thoughts and formed of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness pursues him like his own shadow that never leaves him.” – Dhammapada- Dhammapada is the best known and most widely esteemed text in the Pali Tipitaka, the sacred scriptures of Theravada Buddhism.

A way of alleviating my sense of needing to defend myself or have some kind of revenge without me actually being responsible, is to have a sense of karma and wish it.  Trouble is, it always comes back in some form, so I am pretty careful.

Some say Karma is a predestined destiny.  Many religions do not believe in this, but I do.  I was once told that, when you have done that ONE thing you were meant to do, no matter how inconsequential it seems to you, and you do not know what it is, then you are done down here on earth.  I love that theory too.  

“Karma” comes from Hinduism.  Some say Karma is a manifestation of something happening in a past life and it is reincarnated into our Present.  It is best remembered that Karma manifests both positive and negative.  It, also, is that Karma can manifest from something in your past ad/or present.  Karma is from the realms of cause and effect, action and reaction, sequence and consequence.  Whatever has happened in this past, or ancient other-life pasts, will reincarnate in our today, in some way.  It is the ultimate justice of either negative or positive.

Karma is not permanent.  It asks us to deal with whatever the them is that occurs in our life and then it will be appeased.  Learn the lesson.  Once that particular lesson is learned then it will extinguish.  It behooves us to find our own personal way of dealing with the Karma that may show up in our lives.  It is important to know that our free will can change karma.  Karma is not set in stone, as far as relieving it, if it is negative or positive.  We live, we are human, we will have frailties and learning to deal with. 

No matter how much we may wish it, we cannot enact Karma in any other’s life/lives.  To think such is to think we are above ourselves and the very thought of trying to act out Karma in someone else’s life will bring more Karma to our own Self.  It behooves us to be cognizant of every thought we have, what we say and how we say it, what we think and how we change our thinking.  We have free will of choice to either change to meet each new moment so that our heart and mind and soul adjusts our karma.  Doing good with the idea that it will change your Karma is not authentic.  You have to live out and work through incidents of karma that belongs to only you and belongs to something done in an earlier time.  This is controversial, of course, but I have a sense that when something positive or negative whinges into our life, seemingly unbidden, there is something to be done to keep it or fix it.  It is said that who and what we are, at the very core of Self, determines the outer life we live through. 

The Medicine Elders speak of this type of ideology.  I tell it as I understand it:  Medicine People speak of Karma ( of course not using that term)  by teaching us that there is Justice that began in the beginnings and that there is repayment for both negative and positive actions.  (Karma is action.)  Creator is the judge and energy began with Creator as he created Mother Earth and All Things.    There are natural and universal moral laws in place since the beginning.  No action ever takes place outside the knowing of Creator.  Creator feels our energy, every living thing’s energy.  There is Divine Justice.  We are made to follow the Divine Harmony of taking care of Mother Earth and each other.  If we harm any, so shall we be harmed. 

Our loneliness and sense of separateness come from energy we have put out that separates us from the Divine.  For peace, joy, fulfillment, and wholeness, we need to reconnect with the energy we were created with. This, alone will change our negative Karma.   Do no harm.  Love One Another as I have loved you!

Carol Desjarlais 7.20.20