Karma vs Dharma: the Importance of being Self-honest

When a devotee or yogi makes a life decision, how can he know whether he is impelled by past karma (including desires, fears, biases and the like) or whether it is truly the right thing (dharma) to do?

This is a difficult question to answer, especially when in the grip of emotions that surround the impulse to make an important decision. After all, a positive outlook, faith in God, and, indeed, good karma, can make a spiritual silk purse from a "sow's ear." We can find the good in anything that we do. But by the same token, we can also self-justify about anything we do from a spiritual perspective! We might fall back upon Krishna's promise in the Bhagavad Gita, to the devotee, "I will make good your deficiencies and render permanent your gains," to bail us out!

Yes, true enough: we can learn from our mistakes. Yes, we can use up some of our good karma as a devotee, too! But is it dharma to make spiritual mistakes? No, of course not. It is karma--obviously.

On the subject of karma, there's really no such thing as good or bad karma: only what we make of it. "All conditions are neutral," Paramhansa Yogananda, would counsel.........it is only our response to outward conditions that determines whether we grow spiritually (and work out karma in the process) or not.

For all of these reasons, therefore, it can be difficult to know karma from dharma. This is not an excuse, however, to do whatever one likes and call it "spiritual growth" or "my path" (which, of course, it also is). Having lived most of my adult life in one or the other Ananda intentional communities, I have seen my share of creative spiritual justifications for all sorts of behaviors.

It would be better, then, to calmly admit that one's desires or fears are compelling one to act a certain way rather than to imagine there's some deeper spiritual inspiration behind it. Yes, we'll be able to salvage some wisdom and grace from just about anything, but let's call it what it is.

Krishna explains to Arjuna (in the Bhagavad Gita) that it is very difficult to know what is right (dharmic) action. As Swami Kriyananda put it when the subject of whether a person should take one job or another, "God doesn't really care what you do. It's not WHAT you do but HOW (with what attitude) you do it!"

But again: do you see how tricky that can be? All I am saying, here, is that it is wiser (and more honest), to be calm enough to distinguish desire (or fear or bias) from inspiration or guidance. If your sincere attempt to do so fails to clearly yield an answer, well, fine: do the best you can. But you will grow in discernment immensely if, over time, you bring to bear the laser lens of introspection and intuition upon your actions and motives.

The big decisions are the ones I'm thinking about but, in truth, a million small ones are just as worthy of our attention --- short of being overly scrupulous. Discovering your desires and ego motivated actions isn't the end of the world: these are, in fact, our starting point. There are even times when it's simply easier to indulge than to make a big deal about it. But at least you do so consciously and in that, alone, you will gain the calmness and clarity that self-acceptance bestows. Acceptance can also help stave off the temptation to indulge first and then afterwards to wallow in guilt, thus imagining that guilt substitutes for reform and thus perpetuating a bad habit! (Furthermore and as a potential alternative, there's no point pointing out that suppression "availeth nothing," to quote Krishna.)

When more important issues are at stake, this habit of introspection and self-honesty might well "save" your spiritual life from a karmic bomb from which even lifetimes could be sacrificed before you pick up again spiritually where you left off. Paramhansa Yogananda said of a disciple who left the ashram after yielding to temptation when only one more day of resistance would have brought success, "It will take lifetimes" before he returns to the path.

Leaving the spiritual path to follow the will 'o the wisp of desires masquerading as inspiration is a tragedy all too commonly encountered. Abandoning dharma in the name of a "higher" but desire-driven karma is a self-delusion too easily and all too frequently indulged.

If you err and later discover your error, then, that's the time for making a silk purse out of the sow's ear.

As a spiritual counselor to others, I am tempted to add the advice to seek counsel from someone you trust and feel has your highest, spiritual interests in mind. But in my training from Swami Kriyananda in regards to counseling others, I am cautious about going beyond what I sense a person is open to hearing. I'd rather have the person himself express insight into the right action because it comes from the person himself. I can then add my support.

But if I feel a person isn't yet self-aware or self-honest enough to see how his desires are influencing his decision (and even the questions he asks), I might say nothing at all. Or, I might only hint though this carries the obvious risk that the person might not get the point at all. So while counseling is of course a good thing, we can only "hear" what we are ready from within to recognize. There's no substitute, in other words, for introspection, self-awareness, and the habit of self-honesty.

The ounce of prevention, then, that I wish to share is the suggestion to develop the practice of introspection in minor matters in order that when the big ones come you will have the tools to distinguish dharma from karma!

Blessings!

Nayaswami Hriman

Thy Faith Hath Healed Thee – Law of Success

In the New Testament, the gospel of Luke (Chapter 8), we read of the woman who was healed by simply touching the hem of Jesus’ garment as he walked past. The story tells us that many people were crowding around Jesus, reaching for him, hoping also to be healed or blessed at least in some tangible way.

Jesus stopped suddenly and exclaimed “Who touched me? Power hath gone out of me.” His chief disciple Peter protested, pointing out (the obvious) that there were people all around him and many had touched him!

Was she just lucky, like having a winning lottery ticket? Why did her faith heal her when the “faith” of so many others did not heal them? What makes a “winner?” What is “luck?”

In Swami Kriyananda’s autobiography, “The New Path,” and in many of his lectures, he describes how he intuitively hit upon the law of luck by feeling “lucky!” Wanting to go to Mexico one summer during college, and in this state of serendipity, he caught a ride in a car from Philadelphia to Mexico City—three thousand miles!

No one would ordinarily associate someone down in the dumps with being on a lucky streak, right? Obviously, being lucky means being upbeat and confident: holding a positive expectation. Yet no one likes a boastful person, either. Such shallow ego-centeredness contains the seeds of its own undoing. We know that, too, intuitively.

Thus it was in the story in the New Testament that the woman at last came forward, “trembling” the Bible says, when Jesus demanded that the person who had been healed identify him/herself. Clearly for her to have drawn that healing power she could not have been a wimp! So, by “trembling” (and given the evolution and translation of languages) this must have been a reference to humility.

And, by “humility” we don’t mean the self-deprecating or self-abnegating “Aw shucks, fellas” kind of self-conscious humility. Spiritual humility is “self-forgetful” in the presence of or in the state of divine awareness. A true devotee, as this woman obviously was, she felt God’s presence in the person of Jesus. Besides, we’ve already acknowledged that the “lucky” or “successful” person is upbeat and confident! How else, then, can we make sense of the story and of this person?

In general, we find that one who serves a just or higher (or spiritual) “cause” draws sustenance, strength, courage and confidence from a higher (non-egoic) source. One example of this is the form of calm righteousness exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr in the face of persecution and violence. The power that results from self-forgetfulness in the presence of divine consciousness is like a lamp being plugged into the circuit so the current can flow and the light can shine forth.

In our times a “new dispensation” has been given for those seeking to know God. (This term was used by Paramhansa Yogananda, author of “Autobiography of a Yogi.”) Instead of God being distant and even aloof; instead of Jesus Christ being distant in time and space (2,000 years ago in Palestine), it is given to us in our time to know that the divine presence is “within you.” The vehicle for this discovery is meditation. In meditation, we can know God through direct, intuitive perception. "The ever-new joy [of meditation]," Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in his autobiography," is evidence of His existence, convincing to our very atoms." (He then added: together His inner guidance, in times of difficulty, bestowing calm acceptance and confidence.) God can be known in the silence of meditation. 

That silence opens us up to another aspect declared by this new dispensation: super-consciousness. We know of the subconscious and the conscious mind, but there is a higher mind (mind you) from which the other two descend, as it were. 

Subconsciousness is inarticulate and hidden, a mishmash of images. It's "worldview" revolves around the ego; the conscious mind is, well, “conscious:” it seeks to define, defend, affirm or serve the ego incarnate in its vehicle, the physical body. 

But the superconscious mind is beyond the articulation of reason and the senses: it is, in one way, inarticulate because not dependent upon language and reason but super-articulate in that it is intuitive and “sees” reality as a unity, unbounded by body and ego. 

When we are super-conscious we are not “thinking” yet we are super-aware. Just as we can’t be “conscious” in the subconscious state and thus we don’t “control” the subconscious mind in the way we like to believe we command our conscious state, so, too, the superconscious mind isn’t under our conscious control either. 

But unlike the subconscious and because it is super-conscious, it brings to us greater awareness which has the long-term effect of greater self-control and power over objective reality.

Superconsciousness is the source and Being of consciousness. Further, it is an axiom of metaphysics and Vedanta that Consciousness is the Source of creation itself; it is the string that links the beads of all atoms and galaxies, all emotional states and all thoughts and perceptions. From superconsciousness comes true inspiration, healing, vitality and intuition. These gifts flow like "oil from a drum" (silently but powerfully, to quote the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali).

Not surprisingly, therefore, we cannot “own” superconsciousness. Any attempt to use it for ego gratification will, in time, diminish our access to it, for selfishness is "out of tune" with the higher vibrations of superconsciousness. Thus while I’d like to say that the spectrum of superconsciousness begins with the state where random or conscious thoughts have vanished like clouds, revealing the clear blue skies of pure awareness, superconscious states of mind can come upon us anytime, anywhere and in an infinity of forms! Nonetheless: silence of mind is the doorway to superconsciousness.

But because infinity is too large a subject for this article, let us say that superconscious has, as Yogananda taught, eight distinct aspects, like facets of a diamond: peace, wisdom, energy, love, calmness, subtle sound or light, and joy (leading to bliss).

A meditator can hasten the approach of superconscious by “attuning” (by imagination or feeling) himself to one or more of these aspects; or, to that form of divinity to which he is devoted; or, to quote Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, “to any form that inspires him.” Bear in mind that if one uses imagination or feeling it is only a tool. Superconsciousness is not an imaginary or emotional state.

It helps, however, for the meditator to clear the mind using whatever meditation technique(s) are his and then to consciously strive (often in conjunction with breath control or focusing on currents of subtle energy (“prana”)) towards stilling all thoughts and holding his awareness, love, feeling, or intention up to the Superconscious Mind. It is through this door that the divine grace of guidance, inspiration and self-transformation via ego transcendence pour.

Let every meditation bring you at least moment of pure stillness. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, ”Even a little of this practice will save you from fear and suffering.” Are not the qualities of calmness, confidence, and positive attitude the antithesis of fear?

In superconscious attunement, therefore, lies victory!

Jai Guru!

Nayaswami Hriman