How to untangle yourself from karmic tensions and the habitual stories we repeat over and over again about ourselves, others, and life. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi
Podcast First Words
Many years ago I was doing a practice of the purification of the six lokas of samsara. One thing I learned when I was doing that practice is that when we’re operating through our fixation, aka through our repetitious tensions, we become more mono-dimensional than when we’re in a less fixated condition.
It’s almost like we get reduced to this script. When I was doing that practice, I encountered some beings who needed help freeing themselves from certain kinds of karmas. That’s how I learned this. From the way that they talked, the way that they moved, and what their concerns were. I learned that when we’re under the sway or under the spell of these repeating patterns, then we really become much less nuanced, much less rich than otherwise when we’re in a more spontaneous and open condition.
We know that the outcome of doing any spiritual practice through to its conclusion is that we experience more freedom. The kind of freedom that we’re experiencing is not the individualistic freedom that we imagine when we’re like fourteen. No, Mom, I’m going to do anything I want! That’s how I was at fourteen, anyway. That was my version of freedom back then.
I think some of us have not really left that version of freedom very far behind. We’ve sort of updated it to its adult version. But we can’t really conceive of—or don’t stop to conceive of—a kind of freedom that isn’t about us getting to do whatever we want.
The kind of freedom that’s the result of waking up after doing a lot of spiritual practice is freedom from conditioning. It’s freedom from the conditioning of past, present, and future. It’s freedom to express yourself spontaneously, in response to something.
