Last Updated on August 5, 2015
I know a few people, and have come across others, who invest belief into the idea of Karma. Yet I have also observed that there are different ways of relating to karma.
The approach to karma I have been observing in some of my friends is one that for me seems rather futile. Someone might mention a friend that is challenged by a particular disease. This person might have tried various ways of dealing with that disease—taking herbs, using various alternative treatments, using doctors etc. The disease remains and continues to progress into more advanced systems. The comment to this might be, “Oh, it’s Karmic” with the intimation that there is really nothing they can do about it. They are, in essence, a victim to their own Karma or past actions. To me this seems rather futile.
The nature of Karma, in my experience, is that I am the sum total of my so-called Karma right Here and Now. It is not about some action I took in the past that I am now paying the price for here in the present. Rather, the predisposition I have to think in certain ways and relate to life in certain ways, and to have certain beliefs and make certain choices in my life… that is the here and now of my so-called Karma. Hence it is all happening here and now.
It may be possible for someone to externalise there awareness beyond their present incarnation and view other lives where they made certain choices that were—for instance—”life-taking” in nature. They might then correlate those life-taking actions with certain painful experiences they are going through now. Hence they might say, “Oh I got hit by that car because of my karma from when I was a tyrannical King and I killed lots of innocent people”.
Yet let’s take a deeper look at this. Let’s assume that YES they have played out the role of being a tyrannical King. Let’s assume they did kill lots of people in that “other life” (keeping in mind, if you can, that all these “lives” are in fact all taking place right now in one vast instant). How does that affect a person here and now? Esoterism and mysticism maintain that time is an illusion, there is no past and future. The past and future are simply projections within the mind, within our thinking about things in terms of memory and fantasy. Yet these esoteric paths also talk about karma, about the law of cause and effect. The idea that my actions in the past will effect my life now, and the my actions now will cause an effect to take place in my future.
We have an obvious contradiction, do we not?
This contradiction exists because of our intellectual incapacity to perceive reality as it is. The ego-mind can only think of things in terms of time and linear logical progression. In my experience what I might experience as a “past life” is in fact here and now. It is just another holographic fragment of what I am here and now within this story of life. But this poor attempt at explaining this is the best I can give just now. The ego-mind can not relate to this. Rather it is something that I know through direct experience, through intuitive feeling.
I have diverged so let’s get back on track. “Time as illusion” and “karma”. The two contradict each other. Right here and now how can my actions from the past impact on what I experience here and now?
There are two aspects to this. One is that most people are not consciously engaged with the hear and now. Here and now is the ONLY time and place where you and I exist, and is in fact beyond time and place. But as far as the illusion of this world is concerned most people have their attention fixated on the story which is pure fantasy. Their attention is stretched out between the apparent past and the apparent future. I suspect that one of the motivating forces that keeps a person fixated on the not-here-and-now is that there is unfinished business within their ego-mind. There are elements of their story that have not come into a place of completion and hence dissolution. So long as those elements exist in their story then it will continue to divert some of the life-force or awareness granted to them by Infinity / God / Spirit and hence will continue to divert their attention into their story as opposed to the vast void of the here-and-now.
The second aspect to this is that those elements of the story that were life-taking in nature—and hence that go against my nature and hence are representative of gross misidentification—will continue to play out in my story reflecting to me the unique configuration of how I am “asleep” and maintaining my own personal illusion of individual ego-self. Put another way, these elements of my story will create pain in my experience. It might seem that my now moment is being affected by a past moment. But the the is that it’s all taking place outside the now moment, which is where my attention happens to be held.
This is extraordinarily hard to explain and put into words. I feel that my attempt to do so is failing and hence I think I shall stop trying to explain the esoteric aspect of this and leave that as it stands. Perhaps I will revisit the esoteric side of this topic. We shall now take a quick diversion to the pragmatic side of this topic, so that you might at least get something of value from ready thus far.
The pragmatic side of this is that it is futile to stand in a place where one says and feels, “Oh, there is nothing I can do about this current situation. It is the result of my past Karma”.
Your so-called past Karma is playing out right now. Not the infinite NOW that mystics talk of, but rather the normal sense of now that you and I have as human beings. The present moment so to speak… my life as it’s playing out from minute to minute, and from day to day, from week to week. Woven all through this is my so-called Karma. This Karma is simply a propensity to make certain choices and decisions. It is the unique configuration of my way of co-creating the illusion of this world and my own sense of independent self as an ego-mind. Dissolving my karma is not simply about experiencing the repercussion of my past actions. I do something bad in the past and then something bad happens to me today and I drive to the supermarket. “Oh, that was my karma. It’s come to pass now and hence I’ve released that element of my karma”. No, this is missing the point entirely.
Rather in my story at this time I am choosing to relate to life, to the people in my life, to myself etcetera that is life-taking. That is effecting my world now. The pain I experience from that effect—which previously I might have just written off as “Oh that was karmic”—is there to make my STOP. In that moment I can stop my usual habitual training of thought and reaction. In that pause I can stop and feel what it is I am doing. What choices and I making. What is going on around me? What people are a part of this story? What feeling do I get from these people and around these people?
Basically the key is to stop and breath and to take in the details of the way my immediate sense of the apparent world is presently configured. That configuration will mirror to me the way in which I am asleep. That, when owned and embraced, will allow me to release the illusions I am faced with at that time.
Again, I find this rather hard to explain. I shall leave it at that.
With love and blessings, from here to infinity,
Jonathan Evatt
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