Cracking the Karmic Software

Inner Realm

“Karma” literally means “action.” We are referring to past action. From the moment you were born till this moment, the kind of family, the kind of home, the kind of friends, the things that you did and did not do, all these things are influencing you. Every thought, emotion and action comes only from past impressions that you have had within you. They decide who you are right now. The very way you think, feel and understand life is just the way you have assimilated inputs. We call this karma.

In modern terms, I would say it is your software. It is the current software on which you are working. Your whole system – your body, mind, energy and emotions – is programmed because of the impressions that you have taken in. A complex amalgamation of all these impressions is your karma. Whichever way your software is, that is the way your mind, emotion and body function. Even your energy moves that way. Whatever kind of karma you have, it is a limited possibility and that is what makes you into a limited person.

Once you allow this karmic structure to build beyond a certain point, there is really no such thing as freedom. So if you want to move in the direction of liberation, one of the first things that you need to do is to loosen the grip and shackle of karma. Otherwise, no movement will happen. So how do you do that? One simple way is to break the karma physically. In the morning if your karma is to wake up at 8 o’clock, you set your alarm for 5 o’clock. Your body’s karma is that it will not want to get up. But you say “No, I am going to get up.” Even if it gets up, your body will want to sip coffee. But you give it a cold shower. Now, you are just breaking the old karmic process by consciously doing something.

Doing what you like arises from your karmic process. Since you naturally reject anything that you don’t like, for a certain period of time, do those things that you don’t like. This is not the only way, there are other subtler and more effective ways, I am just telling you the crudest possible way. Break all that your body and mind like. What you dislike, you have to do it consciously.

What you like you can do it unconsciously, isn't it?
Suppose you have to speak to your enemy, you will be conscious of every word that you utter and every step that you take. But while chatting with your friend, you will simply blabber without knowing what you are talking. Your enemy, you can’t stand that man, his very sight creates all kinds of things in you but you go and talk to him. Now this is breaking the karma.

- Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic and visionary, and a prominent spiritual leader. www.ishafoundation.org