Skip to main content

The circle of life

YOGI ASHWINI

The manifested Creation is based on certain laws which have governed it since its beginning. These laws rule us whether we approve of them or not. One of the main laws that binds us in our journey on this planet is the Law of Karma. It is not a mere coincidence that nearly every major religion of the world talks about karma.
It cannot be a coincidence that all the great men of different religions saw this rule of Creation and gave it as a law. Karma is an unfailing law and the foundation of any yogic practice.
Karma can be simply translated as “action”. Action doesn’t necessarily stand for a physical act; it can be a thought, too. In fact, every action in physical term is a thought before manifestation.
The Law of Karma states, “What you sow, so shall you reap”. But does everyone believe in this law which says that everything we do comes back to us in some form? We know this, but somehow there is doubt when we actually begin to do things. This is the basic problem with all of us. We do not understand or grasp the power of this knowledge and its teaching. We doubt it. Everything in the universe, all the laws, are circular in movement, a complete cycle. Life is a cycle of life and death, lifespan is again a cycle of birth, infancy, childhood, youth, middle age, old age, death, and again, birth, infancy… Each and every event in this cycle is an experience, and every experience is the result of a past karma. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West, again, the next morning, it rises in the East… an unfailing cycle. A tree sheds its leaves only to have new ones again… another unfailing cycle.
The entire Creation is governed by the Law of Karma. In fact, the Creation itself is the result of this universal law. In the beginning of Creation there was nothingness and the desire to experience resulted in an action. This karma or action set the ball rolling for the manifestation of the entire Creation. This thought led to the emergence of Mata Adi Shakti from whom emerged the Tridevs and their three consorts. Just as the ripples from one thought leads to creating more, similarly, each one of us, through our thoughts, actions and deeds, are constantly creating ripples and get tied into the reactions of those ripples… into another ripple, and then another...
Because of this constant play and interplay between various entities, the universe is constantly growing and evolving — nothing is ever static. Even the modern, most relevant to the present-day business theory of economics, says: “Either a company has to grow, or fall down, it can never stay static”. And in order to grow, companies have to constantly innovate and create; otherwise they will cease to exist. Similarly, everything on this earth has to change and evolve, it cannot stay the same. The day every action in the universe comes to a standstill, that day the Creation will go back to nothingness or shoonya, the state where it all evolved from.
The Law of Karma also plays an important role in the evolution of a human being. At the level of physical existence we see that there’s one child who is born in a wealthy, prosperous family and there’s one who is born to a labourer. Why do these things happen? Why this discrimination if it is not a play of karmas?
When a person is born in a rich family it is believed that s/he has good karmas behind him or her. And because of the good karma, s/he has been given benefits and pleasures in this lifetime. This means that in their previous life, these people must have been yogis or great people who are beginning this life with all the physical comforts and luxuries. They need to realise now not to get engaged in the clutches of maya, because the stronger the person’s karma, stronger is the pull of attractions for him/her, which keeps him/her entangled in the vicious circle of action and reaction.
Every action of ours, whether positive or negative, releases an opposite force in the universe, i.e. to say that whatever we do has to come back to us. But unlike the Newton’s Law, the reaction is to be greater, not necessarily equal.
This if the first of the two-part series.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

difference between ‘meditation’ and dhyan?

"The difference between meditation and dhyan is that between shoonya (this is not to be confused with shoonyata, here it refers literally to zero) and poorna . Dhyan is state of complete awareness-inside and outside- it is a Poorna state, whereas meditation is a big zero. In meditation what a person does is he/she thinks of a certain thing and therefore it is basically no better than day dreaming, where as in dhyan you are aware of everything .Swami Satyananand Paramhans (Bihar School of Yog) described meditation as a ‘moodh ’ state or a lower state. Now a days, the subject of yog and tantra have been totally misrepresented. I was watching a programme on a ‘spiritual’ channel and there I saw a very elderly woman sharing her thoughts on ‘spirituality’. So I thought let me listen into what she has to say. After her discourse she made the viewers do dhyan and sat herself in dhyan as well. When it was over, she came out with some sort of jerk in her body. Anybody who knows the st...

'Vairagya'

We all know that we come in this world alone and go back alone. We will not be accompanied by anyone, no matter how close or dear we are to them, or they to us. Pause a minute and think: A majority of our problems stem from our near and dear ones. That is, relatives, immediate family, enemies and friends, not from someone unknown. You will also find that the rootcause of arguments, fights, emotional turmoil, congestions, broken relationships and business losses are also these very people. So it is safe to conclude that for the greater part of our lives we get troubled, not by absolute strangers but by people who are known to us. Your relationship with every individual is a result of one basic principle — as you sow so shall you get. It is a mere give and take. This give and take is a payback of our karma from our previous births and from this lifetime. You get associated with people because they need something from you and you need something from them too. Without any level of dependen...

THE YOG OF TIME TRAVEL

Time travel has remained one of the most intriguing subjects for physicists of all times. Scientists have spent their lives racking their brains on how to make it possible, yet as per modern sciences it remains a dream. On the other hand, the Vedic rishis had already decoded the mystery of time. Time, as per the Vedic rishis, is nothing but the distance between two thoughts. That is why in the state of dhyan, time does not exist as at that point thoughts cease to exist. The higher the state of evolution or stillness, slower is the passage of time for that being. It is said that in a blink of Lord Brahma’s eye a yuga passes by, and a blink of Lord Vishnu’s eye sees a mahayug pass by. Through yogic practices like Sanatan Kriya , one is able to still ones thoughts and hence become independent of time. The yogi can then travel in time — go forward or backward. Travelling in time, in fact, is widely used in yog for the purpose of evolution and for aiding the creation. Yogis visit past liv...