Karma & Dharma

A free video tutorial from Thushyanthan A
Teacher, Leadership Life Coach, Jyotiṣa
4.3 instructor rating •
6 courses •
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Lecture description
Two main concepts within the Vedas are "karma" and "dharma." Karma is a law of the mind just like gravity is a law of matter. Learn about how karma is a certain level, vibration and comprehension of intelligence and the resultant actions.
What is the quality of thought that is available to you? How will you know?
Learn more from the full course
Successful Meditation- 10 Minutes For Rich Inner JourneysSuccessful Meditation In As Little As 10 Minutes A Day - Learn The Vedic Frameworks Underpinning Rich Inner Journeys
03:11:48 of on-demand video • Updated January 2016
- Learn about the basic Vedic Frameworks that form the foundation of classical yoga and meditation.
- Learn how "meditation" fits into classical yoga training.
- Master the #1 skill for a successful meditation practice: attention!
- Direct awareness consciously to notice thoughts and emotions.
- Learn about the ideal meditation pose and how to adjust yourself to it.
- Improve your Sanskrit vocabulary.
English
Karma + Dharma Now within the Vedas there are
two main concepts and that is that of dharma and
that of karma. Karma is the expression of
dharma in an individual's life. And one of the meanings
of karma is action and I want to invite you to
consider that in the highest sense karma is a law similar
to the law of gravity. So on this physical plane— you know?—gravity is going to
affect form and physical matter. So those was living in a physical
body on this physical planet, well, we have to obey the laws of the physical
world which just happens to be gravity. Now karma is like that. Karma is a law of the mind. Just like the consequences
of gravity are immediate— for example, when
we drop an apple the consequences of that gravity are
immediate when applied to the apple. Similar to that, the consequences of the law of
karma are just as immediate. What's interesting,
however, is that with our sense of time, with
our linear sense of time, we may not actually quite
understand that immediacy of the application
of the law of karma. Those consequences of karma
that we're supposed experience may come later in
this incarnation, or in a future incarnation. And when that karma comes it manifests itself as thought. And that thought is
translated through, understood by, that level of
comprehension in your mind using your conscious intellect. It's your intelligence and those
intellectual capabilities that you have that allow that karma to
manifest through your action. So that unique observer that you are,
that being that looks out from your eyes, that's that divine being that's
participating in the law of karma. And that divine being has a certain level of vibration, a
certain level of comprehension; it's a certain frequency. It's kind of actually like
tuning into a radio station. And so if you listen to radio
stations, you'll realize that rock music stations will have
a certain group of listeners. Classical music stations—you know you have
to tune the band to a different station— they'll have another
group of listeners. And then country music another group of
listeners and so on. So every individual, yourself
included myself included, we each of us have a
certain level of frequency that we are tuned into. And so karma works on
this cycle of time where that intelligence, that level
of comprehension that you and I have, it creates a series of
thoughts that lead to action, that produce certain results. So since we know that the law of gravity
affects an apple or a feather equally, the law of karma works in the same way; it
affects the quality of thought equally. So for example, and
is just an example, if you cause harm to another divine being—I'm not
saying that you're going to— but if you cause harm to another
expression of the divine being, it's because you want to
test out this hypothesis through a scientific process. So you actually wanted to experience what it would
be like to give harm. Now this law of
karma is unfailing in that when you give harm you actually get to experience
that harm in return. And the reason is that
everything is divine. Everything on this
planet is divine. You are divine
expression of God. And so if you harm another, because that other is
another expression of God, another divine being, you are in fact actually
harming yourself. And so this law
of karma applies. Now the way we
manifest this karma: because of that intelligence that
took that particular level of action, that karma may not manifest until several lives from now, or even several different types
of comprehensions later. What I mean to say is that: if the result of your action— this action was created at a certain
frequency of thought and a certain frequency
of comprehension— and this action resulted in
somebody else breaking their leg, at some point later this hour, maybe tomorrow, maybe this year,
maybe in 10 years, or even 10 lives, you get to actually experience
the results of that karma. Now your experience however is limited to that highest expression
of your intelligence at that point. So here's just example
continuing on with giving harm. So maybe last life, or last ten lives,
or maybe when you were a child, you did something that caused
somebody to break their leg. And at some point you're going to have
to experience those consequences. That is to say you at some point will
have one leg broken. OK? That's- those of the consequences
that you actually have to experience so that you can balance
out these karmas. But during your life you've gone into meditation, you've been
very spiritual, you've been very religious, you've focused on
becoming a better person and following a dharmic path. So all of this time, since your childhood, or since the last 10
births, or the last birth, or whatever, you've been developing yourself, you've
been tuning your mind and intelligence to higher and
higher frequencies. So you've actually tuned
your inner nerve currents to a certain level
of intelligence. And at this level
of intelligence, this is when that karma is
going to come back to you. But because you've developed
yourself so highly to this level, just reading a newspaper article on somebody who broke their leg, that's enough for you to have
understood the consequences of karma. Now it's not as simple as just reading a newspaper article
on somebody breaking their leg but let's say, for example, you
read that newspaper article and there's such a deep,
visceral experience. There's some tingling in your gut, you
like kind of shake and there's like heat and cold that just run
up and down your body. That's a very visceral reaction
that I'm talking about. So according to
that law of karma, those consequences that you set
into motion a long time ago, that action you took
to cause a broken leg, was acted with a certain
frequency of intelligence. And in this current incarnation that intelligence, your frequency
of intelligence was so refined, in fact it was more refined,
based on your previous patterns, that instead of actually
breaking your leg now you only have to read about
somebody else's broken leg and have that visceral reaction in your physical body. And so this causes you and
your refined intelligence to understand the
consequences of that action. The basic philosophy within
the Vedic frameworks is to illuminate the
paths of karma. And your karma is
essentially that suitcase of experiences
that you get to wear while you come as a tourist
to incarnate on this planet. Now when I'm talking about all those
knickknacks within your suitcase— it could be things like hats
and shirts and trousers and MP3 devices and e-readers and books
and knickknacks and all those things that you come to the planet on— this is going to be
your level of comfort and that's your karma
that you get to unfold. So during your incarnation,
basically you're going to like— you know?—check into that hotel
room which is planet Earth, you're going to
open your suitcase, and then you're going
to go back and forth as you live your life. And you're going to take certain items out
of the suitcase, you're going to wear it, you're going to take that e-book reader,
you're going to read it; those kind of things. Those are the experiences and the consequences of your prior
actions that you get to live on this incarnation. So you come into birth with
this suitcase of karma and it gets activated each time. And all of these activations, it happens to an
unfailing process. This is a divine process. It's like clockwork because everything that happens is precisely timed. It also unfolds in
the proper time. Now the whole idea of
living dharmically is to go within yourself— essentially so that you
can minimize the creation of future karmas
to be experienced. It doesn't mean that you're going
to withdraw totally from the world but that those ideas and
the thoughts that you have lead to actions
that are dharmic, that follow this path of dharma so that
you work within the laws of karma. So basically using
that tourist metaphor, the idea is: you have a suitcase,
you come with a suitcase, you get to wear all of those things, you get to use
all of those things that are in your suitcase. But don't buy the knickknacks. Don't buy the trinkets. Don't make a bigger
suitcase on the way back. So the idea is to
manage your karmas by wearing your experiences, learning from them, and
then discarding them. The evolved soul actually packs a lighter suitcase
on the return trip. And so the Vedic frameworks teach us to live in harmony so that our true divine nature is always expressed. And there are rules. Well, they're not actually
rules per se, but it's just things you
don't want to do if you want to work
with the law of karma. And for example let's look
at the law of gravity. You know, we don't step
off a tall building because we know that if the building is
sufficiently tall we get to smash our body and— whoops!—we have to find
another new body to live in. So it's just like
that with karma. These rules, or these laws, that when you transgress them, what you're doing is you're going to cause
yourself to experience the consequences. And so do you see how all
of these Vedic frameworks, the karma the dharma, the reincarnation, the
inner goals, all of these? Do you see how the
integrate together and how they allow you to actually have
the fullness of experience in this life? Do you notice that? So every being on this planet is a divine expression. Every being is
enjoying and learning and maturing through
their karmas. In fact, every being
is like that tourist; they're here to
have a good time, they're here to enjoy
their vacation, they're here to live out their
karmas—the consequences of their karmas. And this is the way that each of these divine
beings, each of us, this is the way we learn. But what is very crucial is when we understand what
the Vedic frameworks are, what we choose to learn and how we choose learn,
that's the critical part. If you do have any questions of
and comments about this video please do post within
the learning community. I'll be there to answer and support
any questions that you may have. So take care, have yourself a beautiful
day and I will see you in the next video.