Karma is the Blind Spot

In articles here, I’ve occasionally mentioned that karma comes with a blind spot. This causes us to walk into circumstances we otherwise wouldn’t and do things we may later regret. We may even ask ourselves “Who was that person?”

But if we look a little closer, it’s not so much that karma has a blind spot but more it IS a blind spot. Or even more precisely, The blind spot gives us the karma.

To understand this, let’s go back to basics. Karma means action or what we might call energy. What we often mean though is the consequences of action, the energy flowing back to us.

When we develop concepts that are contrary to or resist life, we create internal energetic (emotional) resistance to those things. By expecting trouble, we invite it. A simple principle – What we give our attention grows stronger. Similarly, when we experience a trauma and don’t fully process the emotions, the residue becomes an energetic resistance.

We can tell when we’re resisting life by how we respond. We pull back or in and shrink or feel smaller. Or we get triggered, react insensibly or out of proportion. This is the story of many people’s lives. A life experienced as one drama after another, difficulty after difficulty. For some, they come to see the world as a living hell. Perhaps try to escape in drugs or other excess.

For others, this has been playing out for a long time but enough awareness arises and we begin to see the drama in action. Not always a pleasant realization to see how we’ve been contributing to our own troubles.

When the energy of our actions loops back for completion (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction), if we’re in a state of resistance the action doesn’t flow through and complete but is instead distorted or blocked.

Just like water with a dam, it either builds up until there is an outburst or is diverted and circles back on itself and comes around again, and again. This is the essence of the “wheel of karma”.

Resistance in and of itself creates a kind of mental and emotional fog. In Vedic terms it is rajoguna, the illusion maker. Or tamoguna, inertia, that covers the light with a blanket. By distorting the flow of energy, we distort our perception of the world. Not seeing clearly, we react in ways that don’t support us. Rather than trying to protect life, we protect our story, we protect our resistance, and live in a delusion of pain.

Not to mention all the energy it takes to do all this resisting. It can be an unbelievable relief when a big knot lets go and all that energy is freed up.

When you feel contracted in resistance or inertia*, you’re feeling this mechanism inside yourself. It’s why many disconnect from how they feel. But don’t be hard on yourself, that’s just more of the same. It’s normal. It’s the story of the passing age. You’re waking up to the cage. To let it go there is a new learning, the art of being OK, of being easy, of moving back into the flow.

This fog is why karma comes with a blind spot. This is the ignorance they speak of in Indian philosophy. This is the drain on life and happiness. This is the barrier to living heaven on earth.

The solution is really quite simple. Not always easy to do, but simple. If you’re feeling resistance, let yourself feel it. Don’t resist the resistance. It may not want to be seen, but that’s OK. Be with what is here now. Just simple attention will take you to the source of it and allow the energy to be resolved, maybe in a brief rush of emotion. And then its done. Repeat as necessary.  😉

And yes, it can be like an onion with seeming endless layers. But you’ve been collecting them for a long, long time. There is an end. Now is the time for peeling them away, for rising above our history.

It’s remarkable what a difference this can make in our experience of life – the quality, happiness, peace and energy improvements just by letting go. It is only we that hold our burdens and it is only we who can let them go. It is a profound trick to learn as it opens the door to the gateless gate, to who we are, to the divine beneath all the noise and fog. The benefits are beyond imagination.

Be free.
Davidya

*what I describe is an emotional resistance or inertia that contracts. This is different from the more subtle intuitive “no” that may arise as a signal to not take a certain direction. These are much more clear when we clear some of the fog of resistance.

Last Updated on April 8, 2014 by