Karma, Yoga & Chicken Tikka Masala
If there was a poll among westerners for the 3 most popular words exported from India, my guess would be — Karma, Yoga and Chicken Tikka masala — and in no particular order of importance.
This blog speaks only on #Karma although I am a chef & yoga enthusiast (:o)). Most people explain Karma as a bad surprise for themselves and good surprise for someone else. A popular colloquial use is when we are forced to accept some unexplained or an unpalatable choice, “Oh it is my Karma” or “this is Karmic”. Karma is circular but it surely does not follow this example of my treating my dad badly and many years later my son treats me badly. It is not that simple.
Let us start with the Webster’s definition of Karma which I have split into a few lines so you can absorb
the residue generated
by a person’s actions,
its “ethical” consequences,
carried across lives,
determines the nature of the persons next life,
believed in Hinduism and Buddhism’
Well then the most absurd question we may ask is, what if I do not engage with the world at all and sit in a room locked up (if that was ever possible). Even if we sit alone, our thoughts and desires will go driving around town and that creates Karma. So Karma is not limited to action alone but thoughts as well.
The best analogy on Karma is — Human life is like a field. The Atman (soul) is like a farmer. The dimensions of the field, soil, vagaries of weather are pre-determined by your past life Karma (so you need to believe in the philosophy of re-birth which Hinduism & other belief systems do). Like any farmer, you always have a choice to raise a crop or you also have a choice to leave it as wasteland.
All the actions taken on the field in this life have consequences and added or carried forward. So Karma has 2 parts as we see. One which was carried forward from many lives before this and one which is with the choices made.
I strongly believe that “we may not control the cards dealt to us, but how we play them determines the next set of cards”.
Karma is a vast topic, yet can be simplified and we shall do that in the subsequent blogs
