Karma Does Exist Quotes

Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.

Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma exists, chickens do come home to roost, and as my mother, Phyllis, liked to say, “There is always a day of reckoning.” The good among the great understand that every choice we make adds to the strength or weakness of our spirits—ourselves, or to use an old fashioned word for the same idea, our souls. That is every human’s life work: to construct an identity bit by bit, to walk a path step by step, to live a life that is worthy of something higher, lighter, more fulfilling, and maybe even everlasting.

It's already bad. I'm honestly not sure how much worse it's going to get." Notice that I didn't say couldn't get worse. It can always get worse. I know this. And thus I refuse to tempt fate. Superstitious - probably. But magic exists. So does karma, and karma can be a bitch.

There’s no such a thing as karma. Or if it does exist, it sure doesn’t give a shit about people like me. Some of us were born to be used and discarded. We can’t afford to simply go along with the flow of life, because nothing in this world has been created, built, or set up in our favor. If we want something, we have to push back against everything around us and take it by force.

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS I. Suffering does exist. II. Suffering arises from "attachment" to desires. III. Suffering ceases when "attachment" to desire ceases. IV. Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the eightfold path: 1. Right understanding (view). 2. Right intention (thought). 3. Right speach. 4. Right action. 5. Right livelihood. 6. Right effort. 7. Right mindfulness. 8. Rght meditation (concentration). Buddha's fourfold consolation: With a mind free from greed and unfriendliness, incorruptible, and purified, the noble disciple is already during this lifetime assure of a fourfold consolation: “If there is another world (heaven), and a cause and effect (Karma) of good and bad actions, then it may be that, at the dissolution of the body, after death, I shall be reborn in a happy realm, a heavenly world.” Of this first consolation (s)he is assured. “And if there is no other world, no reward and no punishment of good and bad actions, then I live at least here, in this world, an untroubled and happy life, free from hate and unfriendliness.” Of this second consolation (s)he is assured. “And if bad things happen to bad people, but I do not do anything bad (or have unfriendliness against anyone), how can I, who am doing no bad things, meet with bad things?” Of this third consolation (s)he is assured. “And if no bad things happen to bad people, then I know myself in both ways pure.” Of this fourth consolation (s)he is assured.

The thing you know as Karma, does not really exist the way you think. It can only exist through the law of causality, which means, when you make efforts to achieve something, the results do indeed occur, given enough time, resources and above all, perseverance.

Luck does not exist. You do it right, things go well; you do it wrong, things go bad.

Anjin-san, forget the village. A thousand million things can happen before those six months occur. A tidal wave or earthquake, or you get your ship and sail away, or Yabu dies, or we all die, or who knows? Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.

Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose

Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma exists, chickens do come home to roost, and as my mother, Phyllis, liked to say, “There is always a day of reckoning.

There’s no such thing as karma,” I say, enunciating every syllable like I want to crush them with my teeth. “Or, if it does exist, it sure doesn’t give a shit about people like me. Some of us were born to be used and discarded. We can’t afford to simply go along with the flow of life, because nothing in this world has been created, built, or set up in our favor. If we want something, we have to push back against everything around us and take it by force.

When we cease to exist, the world we make dissolves, not the world that other people inhabit. Our perception and the way we view everything ceases with us. If we dissolve our conceptual mind, the underlying purity manifests spontaneously. When we know directly that there is no inherent existence either in our self or the world, then whatever arises in experience has no power over us. When the lion mistakes his reflection in the water for something real, he is startled and snarls; when he understands the illusory nature of the reflection, he does not react with fear. Lacking true understanding, we react to the illusory projections of our own mind with grasping and aversion and create karma. When we know the true empty nature, we are free.

there is in man an immaterial Something (called the soul, spirit, inner self, or many other names) which does not perish at the death or disintegration of the body, but which persists as an entity, and after a shorter or longer interval of rest reincarnates, or is re-born, into a new body—that of an unborn infant—from whence it proceeds to live a new life in the body, more or less unconscious of its past existences, but containing within itself the "essence" or results of its past lives, which experiences go to make up its new "character," or "personality.

Karma is the natural basis of all existence. It is not a law that is imposed from above. It does not allow us to outsource our responsibility anywhere else; it does not allow us to blame our parents, our teachers, our countries, our politicians, our gods, or our fates. It makes each one of us squarely responsible for our own destinies and, above all, the nature of our experience of life.

Only for a person who is living with duality there is good and bad karma. For a person who is thinking in terms of transcending life and death, good karma is as useless as bad. To him, karma is just karma; any classification does not matter. All karma is bad for a spiritual person. Good or bad, it’s bad for him. For that person who wants to transcend duality, become one with existence, there is no good and bad. All karma is a barrier, a burden for him. He wants to drop all burdens. It’s not like, “If you give me gold, I’m willing to carry even one hundred kilos, but if you give me one hundred kilos of garbage, I will not carry it.” That’s not the attitude. For a seeker it is, “I want to drop the load.” Whether it’s gold or garbage, both are heavy, but the other fools think carrying gold is great. Do you understand the difference, Nicholas? A man, who has become wise enough, sees that whether he carries gold or garbage, it is anyway burdensome. The other man is thinking gold will be better than garbage because right now he’s carrying garbage.

Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.” He found himself beguiled by her serenity, and by her words. He looked westward. Great splashes of purple-red and black were spreading across the sky.

Like modern science, Buddhism talks about the existence of billions and billions of galaxies. The consciousness of a person born on earth may have come from a galaxy far away, drawn here by the force of karma, which connects that person’s mental energy to this planet. On the other hand, the consciousness of a person dying on this earth may at the time of death be karmically directed to a rebirth in another galaxy, far from here. If more minds are being drawn to earth, the population increases; if fewer, it declines. That does not mean that brand new minds are coming into existence. Each mind taking rebirth here on earth has come from its previous life—perhaps in another galaxy, perhaps on earth itself, but not from nowhere.

The "I" principle has reached the "Does not matter- need not be" state, and is not related to form. Save and beyond it, there is no other, therefore it alone is complete and eternal. Indestructible, it has power to destroy- therefore it alone is true freedom and existence. Through it comes immunity from all sorrow, therefore the spirit is ecstasy. Renouncing everything by the means shown, take shelter in it. Surely it is the abode of Kia? This having once been (even Symbolically) reached, is our unconditional release from duality and time- believe this to be true. The belief free from all ideas but pleasure, the Karma through law (displeasure) speedily exhausts itself. In that moment beyond time, a new law can become incarnate, without the payment of sorow, every wish gratified, he[9] having become the gratifier by his law. The new law shall be the arcana of the mystic unbalanced "Does not mattter- need not be," there is no necessitation, "please yourself" is its creed.[10]

Whatever arises in and through the body does so, as we have seen, in accordance with the operation of karma. Karma holds our locked-up awareness, the larger buddha nature, of which we are only partially aware. Whatever of our karmic totality has not made its way into conscious awareness abides in the body. At any given time, a certain aspect of that totality begins to press toward consciousness; the totality intends that this come to birth now. It might not be pressing toward awareness until just now because, before this moment, it was not ready to do so, having been held at some deep level of enfoldment. Again, it may not have appeared in consciousness because, though ready to emerge at a certain moment as a step in our development, we have resisted it and pushed it back into the body. Either way, at a certain point, there is a pressure from the body toward consciousness, to communicate whatever, in the mysterious timing of our existence, is needed or appropriate. If we resist what is appearing in the body, at the verge of our awareness—and most of us modern people do habitually resist in order to rigidly maintain ourselves—what is trying to arise is pushed back, denied, and again held at bay in the body. There it resides within the shadows of our somatic being, in an ever-increasing residue—as that which our consciousness is in the continual process of ignoring, resisting, and denying. Residing in the shadows, all those aspects of our totality that are being denied admittance into conscious awareness continue to function in a powerful but unseen way, being reflected in the nature, structure, and activity of our ego. This process roughly corresponds to the psychological concept of repression, but there are some important differences. For one thing, the activity of the ego in “repressing” experience is seen here as ultimately not negative, but dynamic and creative in function. In our life, the ego emerges out of the unconscious as the field of our conscious awareness, the immediate domain in which our experience can be received and integrated. At the same time, the ego moderates what it takes in, resisting that which it is unready and unable to receive. There is much intelligence in this. An ego that is too rigid and frozen cannot accommodate the experience that is needed in order for us to grow. But an ego that is simply overwhelmed and pushed aside by experience cannot integrate the needed experience either. Spirituality, it would seem, depends on an ego—a field of consciousness—that can change and grow with the needs of our journey toward wholeness. Thus it is that spirituality is not about “getting rid of” or obliterating the ego, but rather about enabling the ego into a process of openness, increasing experience, death, and rebirth, as it integrates more and more of the buddha nature and itself becomes more aligned with and in service to our own totality. A buddha is not a person who has eliminated or wiped away his or her ego, but someone in whom the ego has integrated so much that there is no longer any room for individual identity at all.

It is attributed to Gautama, the Buddha, that he spoke of “desirelessness.” When he said “desirelessness,” he is not stupid to think that people can exist here without desire; he knows that without desire there is no existence. You being desireless means you have no identification with your desires; your desires are only about what is needed. You have no personal identity with the desires that you play with. Desires are just things that you play with. Without desire, there is no game at all, but now the desires are not about you anymore. It is just the way it’s needed for this moment, for this situation. Once that awareness is there – once you are desireless in that sense, there is no karmic bondage for that person. Whatever he does, even if he fights a war, there is no karma for him because he has no desire to do anything like that. It’s not coming out of his love for something or hate for something. It is just coming because simply, that’s the way. That is the whole Gita. See, Krishna is constantly talking about nishkarma – not performing any karma, but insisting that Arjuna should act. He is talking about the same desirelessness with a different language and a different connotation, but nevertheless it is the same thing. Here we are just talking about simply accepting. Just accepting everything is desirelessness, in a certain way. It does not mean you will become still and you will become incapable of activity or anything like that. It’s just that, once you are truly accepting what is there, you’re not identified with anything. Everything is there the way it is, do whatever you can do about it. That’s all there is. You can be deeply involved with everything, but still not be identified with it any more.

12 Many uninformed persons speak of yoga as Hatha Yoga or consider yoga to be “magic,” dark mysterious rites for attaining spectacular powers. When scholars, however, speak of yoga they mean the system expounded in Yoga Sutras (also known as Patanjali’s Aphorisms): Raja (“royal”) Yoga. The treatise embodies philosophic concepts of such grandeur as to have inspired commentaries by some of India’s greatest thinkers, including the illumined master Sadasivendra. Like the other five orthodox (Vedas-based) philosophical systems, Yoga Sutras considers the “magic” of moral purity (the “ten commandments” of yama and niyama) to be the indispensable preliminary for sound philosophical investigation. This personal demand, not insisted on in the West, has bestowed lasting vitality on the six Indian disciplines. The cosmic order (rita) that upholds the universe is not different from the moral order that rules man’s destiny. He who is unwilling to observe the universal moral precepts is not seriously determined to pursue truth. Section III of Yoga Sutras mentions various yogic miraculous powers (vibhutis and siddhis). True knowledge is always power. The path of yoga is divided into four stages, each with its vibhuti expression. Achieving a certain power, the yogi knows that he has successfully passed the tests of one of the four stages. Emergence of the characteristic powers is evidence of the scientific structure of the yoga system, wherein delusive imaginations about one’s “spiritual progress” are banished; proof is required! Patanjali warns the devotee that unity with Spirit should be the sole goal, not the possession of vibhutis — the merely incidental flowers along the sacred path. May the Eternal Giver be sought, not His phenomenal gifts! God does not reveal Himself to a seeker who is satisfied with any lesser attainment. The striving yogi is therefore careful not to exercise his phenomenal powers, lest they arouse false pride and distract him from entering the ultimate state of Kaivalya. When the yogi has reached his Infinite Goal, he exercises the vibhutis, or refrains from exercising them, just as he pleases. All his actions, miraculous or otherwise, are then performed without karmic involvement. The iron filings of karma are attracted only where a magnet of the personal ego still exists.

If God exists, then Karma is His bitch "You don't need a reason to live, you just live" -Nero Vanetti, 91 Days Life doesn't exist for a reason. It just does. Though, would've been nice if the human race was never created. "Reality is just a shitty game." - Katsuragi Keima (TWGOK) "This world is just a shitty game." - Sora and Shiro (NGNL) "Real life is just a shitty game." - Serinuma Kae (KHNM)

No action exists in isolation. Every decision impacts the ecosystem. Karma is often mistaken for the adage, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” The assumption then is that if we sow good deeds, we will reap good rewards. But who decides what action is good or bad? The desire to qualify an action, and its consequence, as good or bad, right or wrong, is a peculiarly human trait. Nature does not do so.

If it be said that it is the mind that produces Karma (I ask), what is the mind? If you mean the heart, the heart is a material thing, and is located within the body. How can it, by coming quickly into the eyes and ears, distinguish the pleasing from the disgusting in external objects? If there be no distinction between the pleasing and the disgusting, why does it accept the one or reject the other? Besides, the heart is as much material and impenetrable as the eyes, ears, hands, and feet. How, then, can the heart within freely pass to the organs of sense without? How can this one put the others in motion, or communicate with them, in order to co-operate in producing Karma? If it be said that only such passions as joy, anger, love, and hatred act through the body and the mouth and enable them to produce Karma, (I should say) those passions—joy, anger, and the rest—are too transitory, and come and go in a moment. They have no Substance (behind their appearances). What, then, is the chief agent that produces Karma? It might be said that we should not seek after (the author of Karma) by taking mind and body separately (as we have just done), because body and mind, as a whole, conjointly produce Karma. Who, then, after the destruction of body by death, would receive the retribution (in the form) of pain or of pleasure? If it be assumed that another body is to come into existence after death, then the body and mind of the present life, committing sins or cultivating virtues, would cause another body and mind in the future which would suffer from the pains or enjoy the pleasures. Accordingly, those who cultivate virtues would be extremely unlucky, while those who commit sins very lucky. How can the divine law of causality be so unreasonable? Therefore we (must) acknowledge that those who merely follow this doctrine are far from a thorough understanding of the origin of life, though they believe in the theory of Karma. 2.

Without freedom, both the possibilities for people to love and to destroy would be eliminated. The problem of evil is the problem of freedom. God is Love incarnate (1), and despite the high amount of choice that He allows, He also is bursting to lavish His Love not merely on the perfect, which existed solely in Christ, but on the imperfect who could never deserve it by virtue of their imperfection (2). He does not completely shield the more deserving, not even the sole perfect One in all of human history, from destruction, yet He loves to redeem and restore, even through death at times as with His only begotten Son (3). His love is completely undeserved for the imperfect, despite their notions at times of amassing karma by their good deeds, yet He loves to pour out grace on the undeserving (4). Everything good in our existence, including the very life that we have, the air that we breathe, and even the good things that we do are by His mercy and grace (5). May all praise be to the One who has lavished loving-kindness on us in times of plenty and in times of want, who even seeks to grow us in the darkest of times when the cost of freedom is most clear, who remains with those who have found Him even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death (6). 1: 1 John 4:16; 2: Romans 3:9-31; 9:16, 23-29; 11:5-6 3. Job, Isaiah 53:3-6, 11 (prophesied centuries before Christ), Romans 3:24-26, 2 Corinthians 5:21 4. Romans 5:6-8; 11: 35-36, Isaiah 64:6, Ephesians 2:7-9, Psalm 50:7-15 5. James 1:17, Romans 2:4 6. Romans 8:28, Ephesians 1:3-10, James 1:2-5, Philippians 4:4-9, Psalm 23, Deuteronomy 31:8

Nothing happens by chance. Luck does not exist. Whether it's good or bad luck or karma, everything has a because behind it.

What distinguishes us above all from Muslim-born or converted individuals—“psychologically”, one could say—is that our mind is a priori centered on universal metaphysics (Advaita Vedānta, Shahādah, Risālat al-Ahadiyah) and the universal path of the divine Name (japa-yoga, nembutsu, dhikr, prayer of the heart); it is because of these two factors that we are in a traditional form, which in fact—though not in principle—is Islam. The universal orthodoxy emanating from these two sources of authority determines our interpretation of the sharī'ah and Islam in general, somewhat as the moon influences the oceans without being located on the terrestrial globe; in the absence of the moon, the motions of the sea would be inconceivable and “illegitimate”, so to speak. What universal metaphysics says has decisive authority for us, as does the “onomatological” science connected to it, a fact that once earned us the reproach of “de-Islamicizing Islam”; it is not so much a matter of the conscious application of principles formulated outside of Islamism by metaphysical traditions from Asia as of inspirations in conformity with these principles; in a situation such as ours, the spiritual authority—or the soul that is its vehicle—becomes like a point of intersection for all the rays of truth, whatever their origin. One must always take account of the following: in principle the universal authority of the metaphysical and initiatic traditions of Asia, whose point of view reflects the nature of things more or less directly, takes precedence—when such an alternative exists—over the generally more “theological” authority of the monotheistic religions; I say “when such an alternative exists”, for obviously it sometimes happens, in esoterism as in essential symbolism, that there is no such alternative; no one can deny, however, that in Semitic doctrines the formulations and rules are usually determined by considerations of dogmatic, moral, and social opportuneness. But this cannot apply to pure Islam, that is, to the authority of its essential doctrine and fundamental symbolism; the Shahādah cannot but mean that “the world is false and Brahma is true” and that “you are That” (tat tvam asi), or that “I am Brahma” (aham Brahmāsmi); it is a pure expression of both the unreality of the world and the supreme identity; in the same way, the other “pillars of Islam” (arqān al-Dīn), as well as such fundamental rules as dietary and artistic prohibitions, obviously constitute supports of intellection and realization, which universal metaphysics—or the “Unanimous Tradition”—can illuminate but not abolish, as far as we are concerned. When universal wisdom states that the invocation contains and replaces all other rites, this is of decisive authority against those who would make the sharī'ah or sunnah into a kind of exclusive karma-yoga, and it even allows us to draw conclusions by analogy (qiyās, ijtihād) that most Shariites would find illicit; or again, should a given Muslim master require us to introduce every dhikr with an ablution and two raka'āt, the universal—and “antiformalist”—authority of japa-yoga would take precedence over the authority of this master, at least in our case. On the other hand, should a Hindu or Buddhist master give the order to practice japa before an image, it goes without saying that it is the authority of Islamic symbolism that would take precedence for us quite apart from any question of universality, because forms are forms, and some of them are essential and thereby rejoin the universality of the spirit. (28 January 1956)

The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. The narrator of this story is Steve Jobs, the legendary CEO of Apple. The story was part of his famous Stanford commencement speech in 2005.[23] It’s a perfect illustration of how passion and purpose drive success, not the crossing of an imaginary finish line in the future. Forget the finish line. It doesn’t exist. Instead, look for passion and purpose directly in front of you. The dots will connect later, I promise—and so does Steve.

Advaita   You may be asking: how am I responsible for my karma? How can I change it? One popular Western theory is that when we are born, our lives are like a clean slate where nothing is written. Each life develops as a result of its surroundings and the forces acting on it such as parents, friends, society, their dominant culture, etc. However, TransZendental Introspection teaches the eternity of life – that I’ve lived countless lives before this current manifestation. This means that when I am born, I am not a collection of blank pages, but rather pages with countless impressions. In TransZentalism, life is forever existing in the cosmos. At times, it is manifested; at other times, latent. When I sleep and awaken, my conscious mind awakens and my body is refreshed. My consciousness carries on in a sub-conscious state between sleeping and awakening. Similarly, my life continues eternally in alternating states of life and death. Therefore, death is a part of the process of living.  Karma is a Sanskrit word that means ‘action.’ It is the accumulation of effects from the positive and negative causes I brought with me from my former lives, together with the causes I make in this life, thus shaping my future. My thoughts, words and deeds are manifested in my appearance, behavior, attitudes, good and bad fortune, where I’m born or live - in short, everything about me is the effect of my karma. Unlike some philosophies, TransZendental Introspection does not consider one’s karma or destiny to be fixed; since my mind changes from moment to moment, even the habitual and destructive tendencies I possess can be altered. In other words, I have in me the potential to change my destiny.  Last but not least, Advaita is the non-duality - The Oneness, the fundamental quality of everything conscious.

In succeeding chapters we will explore the emerging evidence that matter alone does not suffice to generate mind, but that, to the contrary, there exists a "mental force" that is not reducible to the material. Mental force, which is closely related to the ancient Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and karma, provides a basis for the effects of mind on matter that clinical neuroscience finds. What is new here is that a question with deep philosophical roots, as well as profound philosophic al and moral implications, can finally be addressed (if not yet fully solved) through science. If materialism can be challenged in the context of neuroscience, if stark physical reductionism can be replaced by an outlook in which the mind can exert causal control, then, for the first time since the scientific revolution, the scientific worldview will become compatible with such ideas as will-and, therefore, with morality and ethics. The emerging view of the mind, and of the mind-matter enigma, has the potential to imbue human thought and action with responsibility once again.

The ‘I’ principle has reached the ‘does not matter, need not be’ state, and is not related to form. There is nothing but it, and nothing beyond it, so therefore it alone is complete and eternal. It is indestructible itself, but has the power to destroy – therefore it alone is true freedom and existence. Through it comes immunity from all sorrow: therefore its spirit is ecstasy. Renounce everything by the Neither-Neither meditation, and take shelter in the Neither-Neither state. Surely it is the abode of the Kiã? It is our unconditional release from duality and time: it is effective even if only symbolically reached. Once the belief is free from all ideas except pleasure, the Karma of displeasure speedily exhausts itself through Karmic law. In that moment beyond time, the ego becomes its own gratifier by its own law, its every wish gratified without the payment of sorrow. Here, there is no necessitation; ‘does not matter-need not be’ and ‘please your self ’ are its creeds. In that state, what you wish to believe can be true, without subjection to beliefs from outside. The Ego has now become the Absolute, and can be pleased by this imitation of the means of government: he uses these means, but is himself ungoverned. Kiã is the supreme bliss; this is the psychology of ecstasy by non-resistance.

the Centrist approach of presenting mere conditionality without analysis is in clear opposition to any reifications of asserting arising from the four extremes. Hence, the Centrist way of presenting the two realities is highly superior to any such approach by realists, since it expresses the knowable objects of all persons from ordinary beings to Buddhas in a way that does not contradict common worldly consensus. As was said before, to abstain from reifying things such as karma, cause and effect, ethics, and the means to achieve liberation in no way makes these things lack their justification or functioning. To the contrary, it is precisely the fact of their emptiness-their lack of solid and independent existence-that allows for the unimpeded and dynamic flow of the dependent origination of conditioned phenomena.

In the third chapter of this “Song of the Lord,” Krishna instructs Arjuna—and us—in what is called “skillful action.” Krishna argues that activity is an inseparable attribute of finite existence. Nothing that exists in the realm of Nature is, in the last analysis, inactive. The cosmos (prakriti), which is composed of three types of primary qualities (guna), is a perpetual motion machine. If it ceased to move even for a moment, the cosmos would collapse. This view coincides with the findings of modern physics, which has revealed to us a universe that is continually vibrating. Therefore, concludes Krishna, it does not make much sense to want to abstain from action. Mere inactivity is not the answer to our existential problems. It is fine to renounce the world and dedicate one’s life to contemplating the Divine, providing one can really do it. But few people have the necessary stamina for the rigors of such a solitary lifestyle. Besides, argues Krishna, there is a better way to Self-realization (or God-realization) than renunciation. And that is to continue to be active but to act free from egoic attachment. In this way, the continuation of human life is ensured, while at the same time it is being transformed by one’s self-transcending disposition. Krishna’s activist gospel, then, does not ask us to carry on as usual. True, the karma-yogin continues to get up in the morning, use the bathroom, eat breakfast, go to work, interact with people during the day, return home, eat dinner, spend time with the family, read, listen to music, make love, and sleep. But he endeavors, by degrees, to do all this with a subtle yet significant difference: All of these actions are engaged in the spirit of self-surrender. In other words, they are all opportunities to go beyond mere egoic preferences and fixations and to cultivate instead quiet awareness and communion with the Divine. An important aspect of the practice of Karma-Yoga is the nonneurotic disinterest in what Krishna calls the “fruit” (phala) of one’s actions. Ordinarily, our actions are governed by so-called ulterior motives—those mostly hidden expectations that would see us rewarded for our deeds. For instance, by putting in an extra hour at work, we secretly, or otherwise, hope to impress the boss. By taking our children to sporting events on Saturdays, we hope for them to share our own excitement, or by sending them to medical school, we seek to live out our own dreams through their lives. By helping an elderly or blind person cross the street, we expect, below the threshold of our conscious mind, to be thanked and thus receive an emotional boost. Or, more subtly, we may do things out of a sense of duty, but without heart. In that case, our actions remain as self-involved as ever. Grim determination is no substitute for the spirit of self-transcendence.

You know the feeling when your Life gets a little bleak, not because of anything lacking but perhaps because of the overwhelming nature of Life itself. When you realise that your soul feels everything so deeply that your mind has found an escape route by shutting the nerves of your heart. And then you realise, your heart is too strong and it could never be stopped from feeling all that is passing you by, plainly the most beautiful emotions that this world abhors. Pain. Grief. Melancholy of the deepest kind. An agony that has no reason at all. Or perhaps there is, only your clever mind knows a way to not let the reason meet your eyes. And in that moment, that fraction of a moment, you choke in your soul and ask your heart why does it beat yet another moment, and then you hear a voice, a slim voice that's always been pushing you to that corner of mad infinite deepness of human cosmos, because you are here to do good, despite all that happens to you, especially for all that happens to you, because your pain is never your weakness but the brightest light that tells you how to remove the pain from every passerby. Your mind gets shocked and your heart doesn't know what to do, so they numb your soul and yet a tiny flicker somewhere screams through the weak tired frame of your bleak existence, asking you to spread that light even to the last of your breath. And then when you open your eyes, a line comes by, All the good you do, will come back one day, they said. Keep it, I said. Love & Light, always - Debatrayee

Although complete removal is not possible, neutralization (abhibhava) is possible. Just as watery liquidity can be neutralized by mixing [water] with earth, or fiery heat by means of mani, mantra, and so on, just so all the fluctations (vritti) of the mind can be neutralized by means of the practice of Yoga. In describing the condition of the jīvan-mukta, the embodied liberated being, Vidyāranya quotes profusely from the Yoga-Vāsishtha. This extensive Kashmiri work, which is presented as a dialogue between the Sage Vasishtha and Prince Rāma, states (5.90–98): He is a jīvan-mukta for whom, even though he is busy with ordinary life, all this ceases to exist and [only] the space [of ultimate Consciousness] remains. He is a true jivan-mukta whose face neither flushes nor pales in pleasure or pain and who subsists on whatever comes his way. He is a true jivan-mukta who is awake when sleeping, who knows no waking, and whose knowledge is entirely free from any vāsanā. He is a true jīvan-mukta who, though responsive to feelings such as attachment, hatred, fear, and other feelings, stands wholly pure within, like space. He is a true jīvan-mukta whose real nature is not influenced by egotism and whose mind is not subjected to attachment, whether he remains active or is inactive. He is a true jīvan-mukta whom the world does not fear and who does not fear the world, and who is free from joy, jealousy, and fear. He is a true jīvan-mukta who is at peace with the ways of the world; who, though full of all learning and arts, is yet without any; and who, though endowed with mind, is without it. He is a true jīvan-mukta who, though deeply immersed in all things, keeps his head cool, just as anyone would, when engaged in attending to other’s affairs; and whose Self is whole. After leaving the condition of living liberation, he enters into liberation after death, on the disintegration of the body by lapse of tenure, even as the wind comes to a standstill. Depending on their operative karma—the so-called prārabdha-karman—the sages look and behave differently. Some, like the famous King Janaka, are very active; others prefer silence and the solitude of forests or mountains. Some let the body drop as it will; others undertake the gargantuan discipline of transmuting the body into light, as is the objective in some Tantric teachings. These external distinctions tell us nothing about the spiritual realization of those sages. All of them, however, can be expected to emanate a palpable peace that, in the words of Saint Paul, “passeth all understanding.

Like modern science, Buddhism talks about the existence of billions and billions of galaxies. The consciousness of a person born on earth may have come from a galaxy far away, drawn here by the force of karma, which connects that person’s mental energy to this planet. On the other hand, the consciousness of a person dying on this earth may at the time of death be karmically directed to a rebirth in another galaxy, far from here. If more minds are being drawn to earth, the population increases; if fewer, it declines. That does not mean that brand new minds are coming into existence. Each mind taking rebirth here on earth has come from its previous life—perhaps in another galaxy, perhaps on earth itself, but not from nowhere.

Praśāstrasena’s Āryaprajñāpāramitāhṛdayaṭīkā comments on the Heart Sūtra’s phrase “all phenomena are without arising, ceasing, purity, impurity, increase, and decrease” by using the notion of buddha nature (sangs rgyas kyi ngo bo), which exists without any change in all beings, is naturally pure, and is only obscured by adventitious stains: As for [the sūtra’s] saying “without arising, without ceasing,” the subsequent existence of what did not exist before is called “arising.” The subsequent nonexistence of what existed before is called “cessation.” Since this buddha nature—the dharmadhātu, ultimate emptiness—has no beginning point, an endpoint is not to be found. Therefore, [the sūtra] says, “without arising, without ceasing.” Even when sentient beings cycle on the five paths [of rebirth in saṃsāra], buddha nature does not become stained. Therefore, [the sūtra] speaks of “purity.” Even when awakening to unsurpassable completely perfect awakening, there is no superior purity than buddha nature. Therefore, [the sūtra] says, “without purity.” Despite manifesting in the bodies of ants and beetles, buddha nature does not become smaller. Therefore, [the sūtra] says, “without decrease.” Despite manifesting as the dharmakāya, buddha nature does not increase. Therefore, it is without becoming full. Why? Because it is beyond thought and expression and thus not within the confines of measurement. Since the dharmadhātu does not arise in two ways (through karma and afflictions), it is unarisen. Being unarisen, it is without perishing and therefore is unceasing. Since the dharmadhātu is naturally pure, it is not pure and thus is without purity. Though it is naturally pure, it is not that it becomes impure [through] adventitious afflictions. Therefore, it is pure. Since there is no decrease in the dharmadhātu through the relinquishment of the factors of afflictiveness, it is without decrease. At the time of the increase of purified phenomena, the dharmadhātu does not increase. Therefore, it is without increase.

The Bhagavad Gita presents us with a unitary system of Yoga, one clear and systematic path, wherein all four Yoga techniques of jnana, karma, bhakti and classical ashtanga are - together – all considered crucial for spiritual realization. These four supposedly different paths, in actuality, represent four aspects of one, unified, integral Yoga system. They are akin to the four sides of a square. If one of the sides of the square is missing, then the very structural integrity and being of the square is itself compromised. Indeed, it no longer is logically qualified as a "square" at all. Similarly, the complete and authentic path of Yoga spirituality must include all these four components of Yoga in order to be fully appreciated. It is true that these four Yogas are linked by their common emphasis on devotional meditation upon, and the ultimate loving absorption of our awareness in, the Absolute. However, it is also inarguably clear that Krishna considers bhakti-yoga, or the discipline of focused devotional consciousness, to be not merely one component of these four branches of Yoga, but as the very essence and goal of all Yoga practice itself. Unlike the other aspects of the Yoga path, bhakti (devotional meditation) is distinguished by the fact that it is not only a means (upaya) for knowing God, but it is simultaneously also the goal (artha) of all human existence. As the means, bhakti designates devotional meditation; as the goal, bhakti means devotional consciousness. At no time does one abandon the practice of bhakti, even upon achieving liberation. Rather, devotional consciousness focused with one-pointed awareness upon the Absolute represents the very goal of the entire Yoga system.

Karma is the term that we use for deeds, good or bad. That good deeds lead to a good life in the next birth and bad deeds to a bad life is a belief that many people entertain. But how did the very first life originate? For Karma to originate, a life has to be lived somewhere. Soul and body have to appear together. It is only after that a living being is capable of Karma. Before that no karma can exist. If it does, it is not our karma, but that of God.

Life can be understood, says the Hindu, only on the assumption that each existence is bearing the penalty or enjoying the fruits of vice or virtue in some antecedent life. No deed small or great, good or bad, can be without effect; everything will out. This is the Law of Karma—the Law of the Deed —the law of causality in the spiritual world; and it is the highest and most terrible law of all. If a man does justice and kindness without sin his reward cannot come in one mortal span; it is stretched over other lives in which, if his virtue persists, he will be reborn into loftier place and larger good fortune; but if he lives evilly he will be reborn as an Outcaste, or a weasel, or a dog. This law of Karma, like the Greek Moira or Fate, is above both gods and men; even the gods do not change its absolute operation; or, as the theologians put it, Karma and the will or action of the gods are one. But Karma is not Fate; Fate implies the helplessness of man to determine his own lot; Karma makes him (taking all his lives as a whole) the creator of his own destiny. Nor do heaven and hell end the work of Karma, or the chain of births and deaths; the soul, after the death of the body, may go to hell for special punishment, or to heaven for quick and special reward; but no soul stays in hell, and few souls stay in heaven, forever; nearly every soul that enters them must sooner or later return to earth, and live out its Karma in new incarnations.

Mariko leaned over and touched him compassionately. “Anjin-san, forget the village. A thousand million things can happen before those six months occur. A tidal wave or earthquake, or you get your ship and sail away, or Yabu dies, or we all die, or who knows? Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.