My Journey to understanding Karma….
My thoughts on Karma, where way different
before this, different when we started, and changed constantly as I tried to
understand and digest the information coming through...
Through this exercise I walk through that
journey towards understanding and accepting Karma.
Actions have consequences!
That was always the first thing that came to
mind when I would hear the word Karma.
Yes! Actions have consequences!
A principle I was raised upon, one which seemed fair
and made complete sense. You do something, you pay the price or you reap
the reward. As a child it was a simple as black and white, as an adult....well,
not so much....
Karma can be ruthless! It is
unforgiving. Karma leaves no room for excuses, or mitigating
circumstances and intent means nothing. It is the result that matters and
it is on that result that Karma will be created...
When we started talking about karma, I found
its ruthlessness difficult to fathom. I won’t start with adults, because we as
adults have a lot to answer for, but, take an innocent child for example, who
is sick and dying or to whom bad things have happened. Is that karma? And
why? To say it is happening for someone else (i.e. parents) to live out
their karma seems even worse, it is cold and cruel and vindictive.
When we were kids our scripture teacher would
say "Αμαρτίες γονέων παιδεύουν τέκνα" in direct translation “Sins of
parents, torment children”. I would always find myself wondering, how can
a religion that speaks of love and forgiveness be so vindictive and cruel at
the same time?
It also raised the additional question. If we are responsible for our own actions,
then why should someone else pay the price?
My head was spiraling trying to make sense of
it all, it was becoming personal and I needed answers! I wanted answers!
If I take it a step further and look to my own
personal experience as a teenager, I always thought I somehow deserved what had
happened, that I brought it on myself, despite being a child, because I WAS a
child then. In my mind that thought was just confirmed when we started
learning about karma and I am not going to lie to you, I cried in my closet
more than once.
So! Is
there no crime anymore, no accountability? Every person raped, killed, abused
or murdered? They deserved it???? When
someone says, it is not your fault, it is the person who carried out that
action that is to blame, is that wrong? Wrong, because whatever happens is
karma? Were you supposed to be attacked, stripped of your dignity, was that
innocent child supposed to get sick, be abused or killed? Is this karma???
I struggled with these questions for days....
The Judge, Jury and victim within me would
say. "See! I told you so! Καλά να πάθεις (Serves you
right!)" which made way for the guilt and the obsessive thinking. That whirlpool of thoughts would start
spinning in my head fueling years of guilt, self-hatred, shame and blame all
over again....
BUT!
As our lessons progressed and I started to
learn more, I started to wonder…
Was I asking the wrong questions? Was I looking at it all upside down?
And I finally started to realize certain
things...
Life is a gift!
No matter what happens, no matter how dark and
how difficult, the fact that we are still alive and breathing is a precious
gift!
What happened no longer matters, it is
finished it is done! But, what you do with it does! How you move on from it
does! How you react to it! What you make of it. All of the above actions and
reactions can create or avoid creating karma. You can spend your whole
life looking back in pain and sadness, stuck in a past you cannot change, or
you can pick yourself up and live! Life
is a gift we have been given, to waste it would be a terrible thing.
Next Lesson:
It is not about me!!!!
Karma is not personal! I mean, it is unique
and different for each and every one of us, but how it works is not personal.
I was making it personal. I was seeing
it all through my emotions based on that one, awful experience and making
myself blind the possibility that there is a bigger picture out there. In saying that, here comes the next
revelation….
We are not our experiences.
Our life is more than our experiences. We are more than what happens to us. Good or Bad, It doesn’t matter. Experiences can mark us, but they should not
become us. There is so much more to this
world, to our lives, to our existence than one experience.
We can let an experience freeze us in time and
define us for the rest of our lives, or we can accept it, absorb it and move
on, opening ourselves to endless possibilities.
The choice is ours…
Next Lesson:
In life, things happen we may never be able to fully understand!
I cannot know what cosmic karmic forces
supported it, and trying to figure it out will always be a losing battle. There are so many dimensions to this world
and to each and every one of us individually, the majority of which we may
never know... We are but a tiny drop in the ocean, in this thing we call
universe….
There is no usefulness in constantly going
back, or in digging up things you will never be able to know or understand.
There is a reason some questions have no answers.
All you can do is take the responsibility,
however big or small, of what you can, accept it and move on.
Stop spending energy on the whys and the how’s
beyond that point, focus your energy on the now.
Perception!
Perception is everything! How you see
things and what you choose to understand and make of things is entirely up to
you. So I could choose to make it personal and let my emotions get
the better of me, while my head spins in circles digging me into a pit of
self-pity and self-loathing, creating more Karma, or I could open my mind and
see things from a different perspective.
Yes Karma is Ruthless, Karma is unforgiving
and Cold, But Karma is also Just! Therefore it works the same for all
persons. Karma does not separate between good and bad, black and white,
woman, man, child, rich or poor. Karma is Karma!
They say Justice is blind and that the only
way true justice can work is if it remains that way. However over the
years, the justice we humans have created in our world, is not blind. It is flawed.
It looks at things through the imperfect vision of society and politics.
It looks at intent, at circumstances and decides first based on those and not
on the result. Maybe that is why the world has become what it is
today. Full of blurred lines and unclear direction...
Karma however IS blind and that is how it
should be. It is clear cut and painfully fair.
Karma does not choose, it just happens, and that is it!
SO as I reached these revelations one by one,
I stopped!
I stopped going back, I stopped wasting
my life, looking back, reliving the pain, overanalyzing and searching for
answers and I just moved on.
Onwards and ahead, as I realized through the
above that, preventing Karma can only be done when you are able, to
1. Separate yourself from your emotions
2. Do not take everything personally
3. Let go of the past and that which you
cannot change
4. Accepting that sometimes things just happen
and realize that you do not need an explanation.
5. Stop feeling like the God/the universe
owes you answer.
6. Do not let the past become more important
than the now
7. And as you have often said lately. Just Get on with it.
A.E.
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