“The very existence of the seen is for the sake of the seer.”
Patanjali
Karma is a word bandied about by well-meaning people who may not know its original definition. Not that its meaning is so easily understood. Even “breaking the alliance with karma” is not so easily understood! That’s because Patanjali was a pretty clever dude. The esoteric realms of yoga are certainly illuminating, so stay with me.
Some of the most profound yoga concepts, although liberating and inspiring, take a bit of study. Allow me to do my best as your “guru for the moment” to translate the true depth of freedom from karma.
What karma actually means
First, let’s define karma. Some think of it as payback, but it is a Sanskrit word that roughly translates as “action.” Deepak Chopra, in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, describes the Law of Karma as the idea that every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind: what we sow is what we reap. When we choose actions that bring happiness and success to others, the fruit of our karma is happiness and success.
The principle of karma is often described as a combination of three things:
- Causality, which may be ethical or non-ethical
- Ethicization: good or bad actions having consequences
- Rebirth
Once we get into the theory of karma, its meanings become more nuanced. Karma means action, work or deed, but it also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect, in which intention also influences a person’s future. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, from the 7th century BCE, teaches that as a person acts and behaves, so they become: good by good deeds, bad by bad deeds. It adds that a person consists of desires; as is the desire, so is the will; as is the will, so is the deed; and whatever deed they do, that they will reap.
The more common version you may know goes like this:
You are what your deepest desire is. As is your desire, so is your intention. As is your intention, so is your will. As is your will, so is your deed. As is your deed, so is your destiny.
So we see that desire and intention are part of the formula of karma, not just action! That makes how we think and how we feel potent elements of the equation.
Breaking the alliance
This is where we can see the root of how to break our attachment to the cycle of cause and effect. This is the key to understanding true liberation from samsara: the eternal cycle of birth, suffering, death and rebirth.
How we think and how we feel are less tangible than how we act within what we call “reality.” Patanjali addresses this in Book Two of the Yoga Sutras. In paraphrase:
- 2.14 Because they carry the nature of merit or demerit, birth, span of life and experiences may be felt as either pleasure or pain.
- 2.15 A wise, discriminating person sees all worldly experience as painful, because every experience leads to more consequences, anxiety and deep habits (samskaras).
- 2.16 Because of this, it is the pain that is yet to come that is to be avoided.
- 2.17 The union of the seer (the one who experiences) with the seen (that which is experienced) is the cause of that pain.
- 2.20 The Seer is pure seeing itself, appearing to experience whatever is presented to it.
- 2.21 The objects we know exist to serve as the field for pure consciousness.
- 2.22 For one who has realized their true, formless nature, objects no longer bind, yet they continue to exist for others who still see them in their grosser forms.
- 2.23 The alliance between the Self and objects is the very means by which the Self comes to realize the true nature of those objects.
- 2.24 Avidya, ignorance, is the underlying cause that allows this alliance to seem to exist.
- 2.25 When avidya is removed, the alliance dissolves, and this freedom is liberation, the enlightenment of the Seer.
If you hung in there with me this long, I applaud your concentration! It brings us back to the quote at the top of this article, which I believe sums it up: the very existence of the seen is for the sake of the seer.
You are the One
Ignorance means to ignore. What do we ignore in our trying to be? We ignore the true nature of reality. We forget that reality is malleable, that we, the ones who can think and feel as well as act, can co-create this divine experience on earth, or wherever we are in time. What is the purpose of consciousness if not to see?
The challenge is to see the world through the eyes of observation: your observation of the One that is your Higher Self, the Silent Witness, the Over-Soul, whatever you want to call it. It is the “I” who is not “I,” the One who knows infinite connection, the One who transcends the mundane into the spiritual realm and merges with divine essence. The One who is, yet ceases to be, and can be reborn. The One who is pure consciousness itself, the holy embodied in matter. Love expressing itself over and over again.
You are the One!
Meredith Zelman Narissi, MS, BCPP, of Meredith’s Healing Arts, is a board-certified polarity therapist, meditation, yoga and dance teacher, and the author of 7 Veils: Mystical Secrets of a Feminine Path to Enlightenment.
