- Karma, Baby
November 6th, 2008
March 2006
It seems like there is a lot of talk of karma floating around these days. The term pops up in some of my favorite hip-hop songs on Power 98. (Yes, yoga teachers like to shake their booties.) On my father’s favorite show, “My Name is Earl,” Earl spends his time making up for past grievances to balance out his karma. (Yes, Dad loves Earl.)
We reckon karma is somehow related to yoga but what does it really mean? Well. There are many ways karma ties into yoga. At the risk of oversimplifying, I’ll try to highlight a few …
What we practice in group classes — hatha yoga — is one of six branches. Another branch is karma yoga, the capacity to perform selfless action. Which means you can practice yoga by just being nice to somebody. Go ahead, try it. It feels pretty good.
The Law of Karma decrees that selfless action towards others will result in a return of abundance for the giver. The opposite goes for, shall we say, not so nice actions. This definition parallels the more Western Golden Rule, do unto others as you would unto yourself. Karma yoga takes it a step further: through selfless actions, one eventually finds freedom from worldly attachment.
Another element of karmic philosophy is the recurrence of life lessons. In Indian philosophy, the belief is that when we come into the world, we arrive with a certain amount of karma. It’s like we each pick up our own backpack of issues to work out on our birthday. Each of us have a karmic path. Part of our path is the discovery of these karmic patterns. Some of us, undoubtedly, have been handed a more challenging karmic pattern than others such as a predisposition towards addiction or abuse. It could be something more subtle such as struggling to assert oneself in relationship or career. We continue to bump up against our karma, creating a circular pattern.
Our yoga helps us blend the ideas of fate and free will. It cultivates awareness through svadhyaya or self-study. So we become aware of our karmic patterns. Perhaps one recognizes that he overeats compulsively as a response to stress or maybe another finds herself romantically drawn to men who can be unkind to her. Once the patterns our recognized, we make a sankalpa, or a resolve to change. This is simply putting an intention out in the universe. Now we have the power and energy to make changes. This isn’t to suggest that such changes are a walk in the park. Karmic patterns have deep roots. But in yoga we believe people have the strength to make big changes. And claim the peace and freedom in our lives that we all deserve.
So now if someone says, “karma, baby,” you know LOT more about karma to explain to them. Which, er, may be your karma to work on that.
