Almost everyone has heard of karma. Some people think that karma is almost destiny. But have you ever wondered what karma really means?
The truth is that most of us have a misconception about what karma really is. When you really understand what karma means, then it can be used as a tool for personal development, a philosophy that will give you more freedom and control over your life.
Karma has nothing to do with "fate." If you do something terrible, it does not mean that something terrible must happen to you to "balance" things in the universe.
Karma is, in fact, the basis of all your actions and thoughts in every moment. The word karma means "action," not "fate." In Buddhism, karma is energy created by intentional action through thoughts, comments, and deeds. We all create karma every minute, and the karma we create affects us every minute. It is common to think of "my karma" as something you did in a previous life that sealed the fate of this one, but this is not a Buddhist understanding. Karma is action, not result. The future is not set in stone. You can change the course of your life by changing your volitional acts and self-destructive patterns.
Why does society misunderstand karma?
Karma in pop culture often means that people get what they deserve. So how did we come to this conclusion?
Because we have this misconception, we need something outside of ourselves to be happy. Because of this misunderstanding, we want to transform karma into a kind of ATM-based on our ethical and spiritual behaviors.
However, if we can get rid of this understanding of happiness, we will see that we all need to live consciously in the present moment and discover our true nature.
Karma is just energy. These are our thoughts and actions. The energy they generate now and in the future will affect us. It has nothing to do with reward or punishment. Karma is impartial and out of our control. The best way to understand karma is to understand it as the energy you create every moment. Every deliberate action or thought generates this energy. We feel this every day, and it is not something we keep for future rewards or punishments.
However, if you react with anger all the time, you are "programming" the mind to rage. Similarly, you are "programming" your mind to calm down by responding to things in peace and tranquility. All these qualities like anger, dissatisfaction, joy, harmony can be seen as flowers and the seeds from which they sprout. When we are born, all these qualities and emotions are just seeds. Now imagine that these seeds are resting in the garden of your mind and are constantly "watered" or neglected by your thoughts.
You are watering the good or bad seeds depending on what you do. These seeds can grow into flowers, or they can wither. It is essential to understand that the energy we give to these flowers is our karmic energy. Conscious living can observe the karmic mind, which becomes conditioned in our mind and can change the way we react in everyday life. Awareness allows us to choose which flowers to "water" and which not. Without consciousness, we are simply reactive to the process of conditional thoughts.
So, to use karma as a force for our personal and spiritual development, we just need to be aware of our life to identify our karmic energy and work to "heal" the karmic energy that holds us back.
By living with this knowledge of karma, we will be able to let go of the mental baggage and worries we think are assigned to us and instead regain control of our lives.
Of course, there will be external factors that will affect our lives. But if we deepen our understanding of what inner peace means, we will have the ability to live fully, no matter what happens around us. Karma shows that we have the freedom to decide what will happen to us. These are our intentional actions and thoughts that govern our lives.
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