Daily Quote, Saturday August 22, 2009.
Good morning everyone,
Hurricane on the way!
The mind which merely gathers experience remains very shallow.
Being aware does not mean learning and accumulating lessons from life; on the contrary, to be aware is to be without the scars of accumulated experience. After all, when the mind merely gathers experience according to its own wishes, it remains very shallow, superficial. A mind which is deeply observant does not get caught up in self-centred activities, and the mind is not observant if there is any action of condemnation or comparison. Comparison and condemnation do not bring understand-ing, rather they block understanding. To be aware is to observe - just to observe - without any self-identifying process. Such a mind is free of that hard core which is formed by self-centred activities.
The Collected Works, Vol. X - 17
Here are my reflections.
Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras refers to samskaras in the same way that Krishnamurti refers to accumulated experience. It constitutes our karma, the experiences we will repeat until the light of self-awareness dawns. The signs of akrma are there when we see ourselves comparing and condeming, and these self-idemtifying processes surely deepen the samskaras. Can we. indeed, just look?
Best wishes
Robert
I always thought karma was outside of everyday thinking and had more to do with the direction of your thoughts, rather than be affecting by them. Can we change our karma by not indulging in these self-identifying processes, or is karma causing these changes?
ReplyDeleteThe saying around karma is that "as I act, so I am; as I am, so I act".
ReplyDeleteSo being and acting, doing, thinking, etc. are inseparable. By not observing our actions, we dig a deeper grove in which our being runs; conditioning deepens over time. We can change our karma but we must change ourself to do so. Karma is certainly not an independent force that acts upon us, and it's also not arbitrary.
The laws of karma, that I mentioned above, are independent of any human design; they apply to all beings, and even to the Gods in Hindu mythology, without discrimination.
We are subject to them but through an awareness of them in self-observation (svadhaya), we can create positive or negative karma, and then, in a final state of non-attachment, transcend all karma, so that we repeat nothing of the past and exist in a timeless present: samadhi (or love in Krishnamurti's terminology).
Thanks for the explanation, Robert. I always equated karma with the idea of fate and the fact that it can act on human design but not be influenced by it.
ReplyDeleteI know. It's something that a lot of people do. Karma has been translated in a very irresponsible way by many who use it; I'm not thinking of you here. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's used to avoid responsibility for our own self-transformation; the inner revolution that Krishnamurti speaks of.
For many people, karma means that if life sucks it's just too bad, let's wait for the next one!!
If people really took karma seriously, the entire world would change just like that; in an instant there would be an end to conflict.
Imagine if people took seriously the idea that how they act in this life will directly determine who they are in the next.
Imagine what energy there would be for self-observation?
I appreciate your comments (all of them) it creats more investigation for me. I agree with Robert's comment that if we all knew karma as how I act in this life will directly determine who i am in the next, We would be continually on watch.
ReplyDeleteThank you,
mary