कर्माशुक्लाकृष्णं योगिनस्त्रिविधमितरेषाम् ॥ ४.७ ॥
karmāśuklākṛṣṇaṃ yoginastrividhamitareṣām || 4.7 ||
The Karma of yogins is neither white nor black; [however], it is of three types for others.
The concept of Karma has been and will continue to be discussed for a long time. While nobody can truly prove the existence of Karma, yoga and spiritual practices can describe possible effects and lean into ideals associated with the things we think, say and do and how they have an effect on our lives and the world around us.
Karma means action. It has been translated and interpretated in various ways to also mean ‘cause and affect’ or ‘what goes around comes around.’ It is believed that our actions (even those that we think) will have an impact on our future and the world in which we live.
Karma ties directly into reincarnation and although it is another deep topic (that is difficult to prove but easy to debate) it works along the same ideas that creating good, positive and helpful actions in this life can set you up for what could come next.
Deep topics and conversations are healthy and the world of yoga is full of potential topics that have been (and will be) discussed eternally. So what about shallow or light topics? Can we discuss important things that are familiar to us on a surface level?
More than likely you have been somewhere or experienced something that is super familiar to you. When traveling we can say things like ‘this reminds me of this place.’ We can meet someone that reminds us of someone else. We can have repetitive days and conversations that make us feel like we’ve been here before or it’s not our first time for something.
Yoga tries to tackle the new experiences of life by making them familiar, that everything you experience is coming from you rather than at you. When I feel as though the world is coming at me I’m forced to see familiarities as conveniences when they are comforts and inconveniences when they are things I’d rather avoid. When I see things as a projection from myself I can see things as positive when I want them to be in my favour and negative when they are not going my way.
All of the actions I make are either going to take me closer to where I want to be or further away from it. If I have been somewhere before and I wish to return, what do I have to do to get there? To keep things light we can think of it as a good day, a nice vacation or a pleasant conversation. We can think of it as a nice yoga class we took. If I want to repeat that action what do I have to do? Who is included in it with me and what are the necessary steps I need to take?
Do I realize the effort in trying to create it again is taking my time and focus or can I notice when it happens by accident? How does it make me feel when it’s on purpose and how does it feel when I’m pleasantly surprised? Are the others that are included forced into it or innocent bystanders?
Karma is also thought of as being good or bad. But yoga describes it as also being mixed.
Who determines what’s good or bad? When trying to perfect our actions, we can strive to keep them positive and enjoyable whilst maintaining a certain level of confidence if things don’t turn out the way we wanted them to. Accepting that it’ll still be okay as we know (even if we forget) that we can try again.
Ultimately you’re the one who decides whether any action has a positive outcome, but it’s important to remember what’s involved along the way. If your actions are determined to be positive does that mean that nobody else experienced it in a negative way? If others are being used, abused or manipulated in some way in order for us to create positive actions in the world then it’s hard to gleam ‘good’ Karma from another’s misfortune.
As adults we have been here before. As adults who practice yoga we are challenged by where we have been before. If I’m practicing āsana even for a short amount of time there will be many postures that I’m familiar with, I know how they feel in my body and I can sense when I’m making progress. My teacher Sharon Gannon says that through repetition the magic is forced to arise. If I’m meditating semi regularly or not even that often I can feel impatience, restlessness or even relief. I want to commit to actions that will not only be good for me but for those who I am in contact with.
We’ve all been there before when our diet hasn’t been too positive. It might be sugar, alcohol or carbs. It might be too much or not enough and it might include too much animal suffering. From being somewhere before we are able to take the necessary actions to right some wrongs or say things we should have said or don’t say things we have said. When recognizing patterns we can revisit them and make them more precise or we can further challenge ourselves and see what happens when those patterns evolve into new ones.
Ideally all the actions we think, say and do should be positive. Yoga doesn’t make your actions positive but it can help to discern which ones we have done before and are worthwhile continuing and which ones we’ve done before and we need to change. Hopefully along the way we can maximize the positivity in our own life without the need or accident of minimizing the positivity in others lives too.
- Doug Whittaker