One Thought At a Time

On this tiny, fragile ball called Earth, we share a common journey. Every day, together, we spin through the vastness of space. Suspended amidst the stars, we are born, we grow, we strive. In everyone’s life, the pendulum swings between pleasure and pain, loss and gain, success and failure. Events don’t always unfold in the way we would like; life doesn’t always match our picture of how things should be. John Lennon of Beatles’ fame once wrote, “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.”

There is constant movement, constant change, beginning with our cosmic journey and continuing through the details of our daily existence. No one, no thing, is with us always; nothing remains the same. And so it is challenging to keep one’s peace at all times. In times of hardship or crisis, Sri Gurudev would often quote an ancient Indian scripture, which proclaimed that: “Not even an atom moves without God’s will.” Nothing can happen without God’s permission.

Devotees through time eternal have bowed in prayer, uttering: “Thy will be done,” affirming total faith, acceptance and surrender to the higher will. If we have total faith, nothing that happens in life will disturb our peace. We will accept everything as coming from God for our highest good. A saintly woman once observed that everyone’s life was like a piece of embroidery in which God was fashioning a masterpiece. Most people only viewed it from the backside, and all they saw was a tangle of knotted threads with little meaning. From the proper angle of vision, however, one could see the beauty and purpose that was being revealed.

But what do we do when life seems harsh, cruel or pointless; when we are stretched or tested beyond any reasonable limit? How do we respond when our minds are outraged, our hearts bereft of consolation, our bodies broken and as much as we may want to, we can’t truly say, “God, not my will, but Thy will be done”? What recourse do we have then? How do we reconcile an all-knowing, all-loving, all-merciful, all-powerful God with all the violence and suffering in the world? Is there a way to understand the workings of God’s will so that we can come to peace with what unfolds in our life?

In The Yoga Sutras of Sri Patanjali, we find a key to unlock this mystery. Patanjali speaks of Purusha and Prakriti, Spirit and Nature. The Divine Spirit expresses itself through Nature. Accordingly, God’s will is expressed through the fundamental law of Nature, which is the Law of Karma.

The Law of Karma states that for every action, there must be a reaction of equal force and similar in nature. The entire universe, including everything on the physical and mental planes, unfolds in an orderly way based on this grand Law of Causation. There is a clear pattern of cause and effect. Sometimes we can readily see the connection: we overeat and get a stomachache. Sometimes the antecedent cause is hidden in the far past. But it is certain that, if we do good deeds and bring happiness to others, we will experience happiness. If we do harmful acts, harm will come to us. There is no one to blame. As the great South Indian saint, Avvaiyar, once said, “The pleasure and pain we experience in life is not given to us by someone else; we, ourselves, are the cause.” Sometime, somewhere, we did something to merit what unfolds in our life. With this understanding, we accept responsibility for our actions and their consequences. Instead of lamenting or protesting about God’s will, we take the approach, “My will created this, so my will can change it.”

Karma begins with the thoughts we cherish. We sow a thought and reap an action. We repeat an action and it becomes a habit. The sum total of our habits defines our character, and our character, in turn, determines our destiny. This means that everything we are experiencing in our lives—our health or illness, wealth or poverty, happiness or despair—are all due to thoughts we chose to cherish. Every moment is like a slate on which we write our destiny. The destiny we see unfolding in our lives now is none other than result of thoughts and efforts made in past, and what we do now will determine the future. We are far more powerful than we realize.

There are three types of karma: sanchita, prarabdha and kriyamana (also called agami). Imagine an archer with arrows in three stages. There is the quiver filled with arrows, one has just been released and another is poised in the bow. The quiver represents the sanchita karma, the storehouse of all our past actions. All the experiences from previous births remain in the form of impressions, known as samskaras, in the subconscious mind. Everything is recorded and preserved. The arrow that has been released represents the prarabdha karma. This is the inevitable karma, that portion of our karma that is to be worked out in this lifetime. It is like a debt that has come due and cannot be avoided. Then, there is the arrow poised in the bow, which you can choose to release or not. This is the kriyamana or agami, the new karma you are creating. This is what preserves our free will within certain limitations.

The scope of free will can be understood if you picture a dog tied to a rope of set length. The dog has the freedom to move within the circle defined by the length of the rope. Within that circle, the dog can choose to jump around and bark, dig for bones, or simply lie down and sleep. But the dog cannot accomplish anything outside that circle.

Master Sivanandaji describes it this way: Every soul is like a farmer given a plot of land. The acreage, nature of the soil and weather conditions are all pre-determined (prarabdha), but the farmer is at liberty to till, fertilize and plant and get a good crop or let the land lie fallow and become wasteland (agami).

The Law of Karma is not fatalistic. Properly understood, it is the ultimate doctrine of self-empowerment. The Tirukkual, a holy scripture from South India, states: “One should never get disheartened thinking a job is difficult of execution; perseverance will give you the capacity to do it.” Similarly, Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, listed three essentials for achieving anything worthwhile in life. They were: hard work, common sense and stick-to-itiveness.

More importantly, karma can be transcended altogether. The sanchita and agami will eventually be destroyed when one attains God-realization. The prarabdha must be experienced but, with God’s grace and proper attitude, we can dispose of it skillfully. According to the Jewish tradition, on the first day of the New Year, one’s fate is inscribed and, on the tenth day, it is sealed. In the interim, through prayer, penance and charity, severe decrees can be averted. In like manner, a South Indian proverb proclaims, “For a devotee of God, an arrow that comes for the head, takes the hat instead.” Thus, through faith, prayer, atonement and good deeds, karma can be mitigated.

There is an Islamic saying: “Trust in God, but tie up your camel.” In other words, don’t worry, have faith in God, and at the same time, do all that you can to move things along in a positive direction. This is true in our personal lives and with respect to the world as well. The news today is filled with stories of disasters, both natural and manmade, intolerance, conflict and problems of every sort. Just as our individual thoughts have determined our personal circumstances, so, too, our cumulative collective consciousness has produced the world, as we know it. There is individual karma, national karma, even global karma. Our lives and our destinies are intertwined. It is up to each one of us, in our own way, to help turn this around.

We are all guardians of this planet, entrusted with a small, but essential, role to play. Martin Luther King once said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Sri Gurudev used to say that, “We are interdependent, cells of one universal body.” We may not be in a position to set domestic or foreign policy, or influence the practices of major corporations, but by our own thoughts and efforts we contribute in a very real way to how events unfold. Swami Sivananandaji wrote: “Every thought is a vibration which never perishes. It goes on vibrating every particle of the universe. If your thoughts are noble, holy and strong, they set into vibration every sympathetic mind. Unconsciously, all people of similar mind take in that thought and then send out similar ones. The result is that you set in motion great forces, which work together to overcome the negativity in the world.” So let us begin where we are and carry this positive spirit into our family, workplace, school and community. We can change our destiny and we can change the world, one thought at a time.

Swami Karunananda's love and compassion combine with her strong presentations and vast knowledge to make her a favorite teacher of Yoga philosophy and meditation. She has taught Yoga in hospitals, businesses, prisons, schools, and colleges, and she has led workshops, retreats, and Yoga Teacher Training programs throughout the United States and worldwide. Her sharp intellect and ability to move from practical to mystical topics in one easy leap show her background in science and philosophy, as well as her many years of deep study with Yoga master, Sri Swami Satchidananda. Her teaching is very accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. She can make the most difficult philosophical concepts clear and easy to understand and uses a variety of teaching techniques, such as demonstrations and interactive exercises to deepen the experience of her students.

Swami Karunananda has had over 35 years experience teaching all aspects of Yoga. Today, she specializes in programs that focus on the science of meditation, the philosophy and psychology of Yoga, yogic breathing techniques for better health and healing, personal transformation, and attuning to Divine guidance. In 1989 she developed a Raja Yoga Teacher Training program and in 1991, a Meditation Teacher Training program and has since conducted many courses training students to skillfully impart these teachings.

One Thought At a Time

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