The field of action (karma) is unfathomable, partly because of its complexity, but more so because creation is simultaneous – everything happened at once. (And never happened at all.)
Part of our purpose is to experience the details of an aspect of that instant. This is done by playing it out incrementally as a sequence of experiences. Thus we experience time and experience unfolding and can digest the details of this perspective of wholeness.
I can’t say it’s the Divine that needs this unfolding. For the Divine, all about this possibility was known in that instant of musing. But we could say that the disciple of the Divine, consciousness or Shiva, reflects this thought and expands it out into space and time and experiences as a form of devotion and a way to know Divinity.
As an act of devotion, a similar orientation ourselves moves us into the flow of this reality.
To sustain this massive reflection of a thought of Divinity, the dynamics of consciousness must be maintained in balance.
As experiences unfold, they create movement in balance. If there is any resistance to that unfolding, it creates ripples that have to be balanced. Thus we see the play of karma.
From a perspective of unfolding, if the charge is not balanced immediately, it must be stored until it is. This leaves a charged energetic node. People have called these the seeds of karma. We have energetic ties to those nodes that carry forward through vast expanses of time.
The nodes are a way of keeping balance with what is unresolved. Otherwise, energy would just float around, speeding up entropy. It would also collect in certain places, increasing imbalance.
The charge has an effect and distorts what is nearby or associated. They also have a rigidity that interferes with a smooth flow. The net result is suffering in a field of devotion.
We can resolve the action and restore balance several ways:
– by acting it out: events show up in life to counterbalance with consequences
– by experiencing the node energetically and releasing/ balancing that
– by remembering old events and completing them within
We may recognize aspects of these at play. A memory of a deceased relative that triggers an emotional reaction resolving a charge, perhaps even one that’s been carried down through the family. A sensation that expresses as some energetic or emotional intensity, then fades. Or simply the events of an unfolding life.
The key is shifting from reacting to resolving. Winding down our past allows us to be much more in the present and out of stories and dramas. Life moves forward rather than going in circles. Life becomes smooth flow rather than an epic drama.
This takes time and patience but gradually improves quality of life.
Davidya
David, isn’t it much more effective to wash all that out with the highest energy, available resting in high states?
Hi Andreas
Sure. But unless we’re conscious of it, we can’t target it. If your porch is dirty, hosing it off is useful. But if it’s dark out, that’s much harder to do. If we’re not even sure what’s dirty, we don’t know where the hose is needed.
We can also say that resistance is mixed in with structural elements that are valuable. Flooding the whole house to clean the porch isn’t very effective.
This is why skills are useful. If we can minimize the challenge of our karma by resoling it as it arises, our life becomes much smoother.
That said, there are some things that do a major housecleaning. Waking up, for example, is said to roast our karmic backlog. Or descending Divinity rinses out pretty thoroughly. But there are always a few things that need more targeted attention. Thats where skills are useful.
In response to your above comment, could you elaborate on the skills you are referring to?
Hi Aaron
That would be skills in action and skills in healing. ie: Skills in action in harmony with life and skills in letting go of resistance. I write on the topics quite a bit.
It’s largely quite simple but it takes practice as we’re often not too conscious of some of the dynamics and we’ve usually long-cultured resistance, aversion, and grasping.
This is why I share this stuff. Sometimes, it brings insights…
In conversation over brunch, I was reminded of a curious detail about karma. The results of our actions return relatively quickly. However, how we react to what happens is where it gets messy. We react, suppress the feelings and then carry them forward for lifetimes until we’re willing to let them go.
In other words, how we react to events has more influence than the events themselves.
Is it like a DVD? The whole movie is already on the disk and we just watch it play out?
Hi Daniel
In a sense. But it’s not that fixed. There’s a set of experiences to have, like scenes in a movie. But our choices/ how we respond determine what happens next. Some DVD’s have choice points where you can change the direction of the story arc. In life, there is the tendency to loop back to the original timeline but considerable leeway in how we respond and thus the flavour we give the experiences. Do we struggle and thrash or move into the flow?
This is why culturing gratitude or understanding the basic mechanics can be useful. It helps make the process a little smoother and more conscious so we’re inclined to work with life rather than against it.