On Karma: A Strict Accountant.
By: Kali Basman
Photo: jeffreythomasball.com
Generally, we perceive Karma as a designation of the impact of our actions. In accordance with a lifestyle aware of or engaged in the limbs of Yoga, one’s Karma is the conscious, intended actions a person performs through the social, physical, environmental, and vocal and emotional realms.
It’s less the law of cause and effect and more the actual imprint on our energetic symptoms that these intended actions make. Karma is like the recorded layers of the subconscious mind- it is very likely that how we are in this moment will feed the context of how we are in the next moment. Karma has been called the“strict accountant”, in that one’s deeds and thoughts become the very storehouse or basis for future experience.As such, our accumulated tendencies build so that our present and future decisions and actions are informed by the residual imprints of our past movements- this is called the Karma Resultants: residual impression of all our past karmic activity.
In a way, it acknowledges the plasticity of our beingness – we are carving cultivating and conditioning ourselves to experience the world in a way we define for ourselves. To feel, crave, desire, know- from our own experiential understanding.
As I said, Karma means that it is highly likely that the way we are now, will be the way we are next. Karma is a nod towards our tendency to become enmeshed and rooted in strong habit patterns of bodily actions, verbal speech, and thinking- and thereby the way in which the world relates back to us. But this is not a sentencing. We have the agency to awaken in any one moment to cut the roots of habit.
Each person weaves his own web of fate. We are the architects of our own future.
Photo: jeffreythomasball.com
Karma reminds us of our own divine agency, our ability to mold our future circumstance to accommodate our own physio-mental vibrations. If the mind is one with hate, lust, greed- then accordingly it will attract and manifest the condition in which it will satisfy itself in those pursuits.
From the Buddha Dhamma:
“All beings are the owners of their deeds
They are the heirs of their deeds;
Their deeds are the womb from which they spring…
…just as the wheel of the cart follows the hook of the ox that pulls it”
Want to practice with Kali and learn more about craving and suffering?
Learn more with her upcoming 5 Elements Yin & Restorative training intensives in Manitou Springs, Colorado on August 6-12 & in Sedona, Arizona September 13-19.
About Kali:
International yoga teacher Kali Basman enriches the paradigm of Yin Yoga to integrate distinct aspects of Self into an innate wisdom practice to awaken a rich inner life and radiate with ritual. Her offering honors Yin Yoga as a tool to surrender to our intrinsic wholeness.
On the textured path of mindful healing, Kali is celebrated for her integration of the 5 Elements and Chinese Meridian Theory with self-inquiry, embodied Anatomy, Buddhist Philosophy of Equanimity, and sharp intellect.