How can we reframe our view of current US political events by understanding how karma works? A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi
First Words from Podcast
Lots of words enter cultures from other cultures, right? One of the words that has entered our culture from the Sanskrit language is “karma.” There are actually lots of other words—there’s even a website of all the Sanskrit words that have made it into English. It’s kind of interesting to look at.
The word “karma” means activity, but specifically it means bound activity, un-free activity. We don’t know that, though, because we talk about good karma and bad karma. I even saw once in a window of a Gap in a mall somewhere, “Get good karma, buy our clothes” or something like that. I can’t remember exactly what it said, but it was ridiculous.
“Bound” means bound to repeat itself. It means having momentum in time. It’s very easy to understand. People think karma is a mysterious idea if they even think about it at all, but it’s not actually all that mysterious. You have various habits in your life. You have habits of emotion. You have habits of physical activity. You have habits of thinking, habits of relating, all kinds of habits. Mainly you are 82 percent habit.
Those habits are an aspect of your experience in linear time, and they actually have energy. How do you know that they have energy, that they have momentum? It’s because when you try to change one of them, it’s hard. Sometimes it’s just like putting the brake on in your car, it’s not so hard, but other times it’s like standing in front of a speeding train.
