#30. Is It Karma Or All random? | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily life meditation session with me,

Dhyansa.

We sit in meditation.

We sit in contemplation in the hope that this will improve the experience of our life.

This will put into a place where there is inner peace,

Where there is happiness,

Where there is joy,

Where there is purpose,

Meaning,

Sense of life.

So we do all this with the intention that the life's experience,

What we are experiencing every moment,

Every day,

All these years of our life,

This somehow improves.

But there are lots of other things that govern the experience of our life.

It is important that we understand how the experience of our life is created,

What all goes in,

What all ingredients are in which create the experience of our life so that we can move towards wherever we want to move with those experiences in our life.

If you think,

Why were you born in the country you were born?

Have you ever thought about that?

We take that for granted and a huge portion of the experience that we go through in our life is dependent on where we were born.

It is also dependent on in which family we are born,

Who are our parents.

How does that happen that somebody who is born in a country which is prosperous in a family which is all loving has the experience of all love,

Joy,

All accesses to different things,

Whereas somebody growing up,

Taking birth in a family which is not so privileged,

Which is in a country not so privileged has a completely different trajectory of experience of life.

We take that for granted.

When we are born in a particular place,

We feel entitled to all what comes along,

All the heritage that comes along with the family,

With the country,

With the culture,

All these external factors.

Such a huge role of these external factors in the experience of life.

On the other hand,

For the underprivileged,

The same person born in an underprivileged family,

Underprivileged society,

Underprivileged country and has suffering all throughout life.

Such a small difference.

Just imagine you yourself,

Wherever you were born,

If you were born in a different family,

If you were born in a different country,

How different your entire experience of life would be.

Not just the experience,

How you are conducting yourself,

How you are would be completely different and we never ask ourselves what goes into determining where are we born.

Is it all accidental?

Is it all random?

If this would be all accidental,

All random,

How can we ever claim the experience of our life as our own creation,

As our own responsibility?

In that case,

If all is random,

Then you don't need to do anything.

If you are still in the mind space where you would consider that all of this is random,

Then meditation also has no place.

Then yoga also has no place.

Spirituality has no place.

Physicality has no place.

Psychology has no place.

Then you have broken all the structures,

All assumptions,

All frameworks of life with that whatever life brings to you,

That is then your way of life.

But if you want to still understand,

If you still want to make assumptions,

If you still want to put a framework on whatever is happening,

Keeping the randomness to its place,

But also assuming that the experience of life is not so random,

Then what is that higher logic?

What is that framework which decides where will you be born,

In which family,

In which country,

And so on,

And so many other things that happen to you,

How do you explain that?

Some people are very,

Very successful.

They achieve success which you had never imagined.

Some people never reach to success.

Some people you see they are born at the age of five,

Six,

Seven,

They already are declared prodigies in music,

In arts,

In any other form.

How do they reach to that height of capability when they are five,

Six,

Or seven?

Can this be all random?

Can this be all based on what they have learned in this life very fast,

Very quickly?

Or there is something else.

What I want to point out in this session for us to contemplate,

For us to meditate in this session is the continuity.

That there is a continuity of you.

You are continuously changing births and lives and you are continuing.

There is something in you that is of course discarded with the life,

But there is something that you carry forward and then you continue and you start from there.

To my consciousness there are two things that arise when I think of this continuity,

When I come to terms with this continuity,

And those two things are one is this eternal consciousness,

The light,

That stroke that has no beginning,

That has no end,

That is just simply moving whether you are aware of it or not.

This is the source from which you derive all the energy,

All the power,

All the awareness.

Everything that manifests into your life is on the energy of consciousness and that consciousness is simply a continuity.

You as a consciousness were never born,

Would never die,

But in life,

Life as this form,

You take birth and you die.

And the second continuity that happens is some sort of memory that is carried forward from one life to the other.

In yogic philosophy this is known as karma.

When we think of karma,

It has a certain obvious appeal to it as well because we feel that in our life,

But we don't want to believe it.

We don't want to give it its credit because we think that everything that happens is because of our doing in now,

In the moment,

And we are the controllers of our life.

So we don't want to see that our actions are actually leading to the experience of our life.

We don't want to take responsibility of that.

And that is why the karma,

The theory of karma,

The understanding of karma,

The explanation of the framework of karma is not having that much appeal,

Especially in the western thought.

But if you look at the whole digital world that we have created for ourselves in the last 10 years,

15 years,

20 years,

That has become a proof that karma is the principle,

Is the framework with which the experience of our life has been governed all these years,

All these lifetimes.

How?

Just if you see the digital world that we live in,

Every act that you make,

Every move that you make,

Every blink that you do with an eye,

Every movement of your eyeball while you are in front of that screen,

Everything counts.

Wherever it goes,

The digital world,

It captures that.

And your experience continually changes to what you do,

Where you are moving your attention,

Where you are acting,

Where you are not acting.

So this whole principle of how the digital world is structuring,

It has not yet reached to its peak,

But it is moving into that direction where everything that you do,

Every movement that you make is going to decide what is the experience of your digital world.

We can call that as personalization,

We can give it different names,

But in the end,

The experience of your digital world is governed by what you do over there,

Your every specific act,

Your every move,

Your even thought.

That is also captured in different ways and allowing and changing that experience for you in life.

So that could be one analogy to understand what is karma,

How it works.

Essentially what it means is that whatever you do,

Whatever you do,

Whatever you think,

Whatever movement that you bring into your consciousness by yourself,

That is recorded,

That becomes the basis,

That becomes the seed for whatever you are experiencing in life.

And whatever is happening to you right now is arising out of that what you did in the past.

That experience that you are having now has been already created by the karma,

By the act,

By the thought,

By any movement in consciousness that you did in the past.

So there are three types of karmas that are explained in yogic philosophy.

The first type of karma is what has already manifested for you as your birth.

The framework,

The logic,

The reasoning,

The intelligence that goes behind,

That creates the consequence of your birth is the first type of karma which is already expressed.

Which is that you are born in a certain situation,

You are enjoying the fruits of the past karma is the first type of karma which is what you are experiencing right now,

Which is what is already being expressed.

The second type of karma is which you are creating,

Which you are creating now.

So in this moment,

In this experience of this moment,

Two things are happening.

You are experiencing your past karma and there is also a freedom to create what you are creating now.

A new karma that will be manifested in future at some point of time and will create the experience of your life at that point of time.

So in every moment two things are happening.

One you are experiencing something from the past and two the present moment,

The present karma.

It is important to acknowledge both.

It is important to acknowledge that what is the experience of your life right now has roots in the past and also there is a possibility to create the present experience and the karma which then spreads over to your future.

And the third type of karma which is from the past but has not yet expressed in the present moment but it will express,

It will manifest at some point of time in the future.

This all might sound very theoretical,

This might sound impractical but if you carefully observe your life,

If you carefully see each of the events happening and try to understand why things are happening to you the way they are happening to you,

You may come to this framework as well.

You may realize that yes there is something from the past in action,

In play and there is something that I can create today that will help me tomorrow.

With that understanding of the yogic philosophy on karma,

Let us move into meditation because that is the space where we reflect,

We understand and we also move into silence where we can come out of all the influences of karma and just be as pure consciousness.

With that please close your eyes.

Take a posture that is comfortable.

Allowing your breath to flow naturally and with every breath the body resting,

The mind settling.

Remember that every action,

Every movement,

Every thought,

Every emotion,

Any movement in your consciousness has an implication.

Good or bad,

It has an implication.

Bringing your awareness to all your inner movements.

As you breathe in and out,

Allowing your body to become still,

Centered,

Your mind to become silent.

Keep your awareness in your inner space and observe all these movements in your mind,

Thoughts,

Emotions,

Movement in your inner space,

Sensations,

Things arising from the past.

Launch all these movements.

Listen to Dealer worthy A doubting• Thank you.

As your awareness settles in your inner space,

You notice subtler movements,

Subtler sensations.

Don't try to change anything.

If the sensations dissolve in silence and you become still,

Allow that to happen.

If the movements remain,

Let them be.

Simply observe all your inner movements.

Not just physical,

Not just mental,

But in your inner space,

That aliveness.

Let them be.

As you are aware of the movements,

Now shift your awareness to the silence in the backdrop.

From movements to silence.

Let go of all the movements in awareness,

On silence,

The stillness in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

In that silence,

You are silence.

You are not the movements.

You are the silence.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Rise and fall.

Let your silence be eternal.

Always there.

Still peaceful.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

In this silence,

You are not your karmas.

No experience of life can touch you in this silence.

And there is peace.

There is bliss.

There is consciousness.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

Let go of all the movements in the background.

If you wish,

You may continue in this meditative silence on your own as long as you like.

Or very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

Remaining in tune and connect with your inner silence and taking this to your daily experiences.

Remembering to do the right act,

The right thought,

The right movement in your consciousness.

I will see you tomorrow at 7 am CET.

Namaste.