Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Have you ever wondered about the law of karma and how it really works? We will be diving into that in this third lesson of the Raja Yoga Foundation course today on the spiritual American. Welcome back everyone. Today, as you heard, we're gonna be talking about karma, but we have done karma at least twice on the channel already. So I'm going to refer you back to episode eight and episode 32, the Red Pill of Karma, and. Karma 2.0. I'm gonna cover those today. Usually it takes me about an hour and a half to cover the basics of the law and philosophy of karma. But today to do the third lesson of the course, I'm going to cover three main ideas and it's going to be quick, but I, like I said, please go back and review those other videos to get more depth of understanding. The first point is the red pill of karma. Normally when people talk about karma, they talk about maybe negative things and negative outcomes for people like, you did something to me you're gonna get karma back for that, and so forth. The first point about karma is that karma is a machinery. It's not about right and wrong or punishment or getting back. It's a machinery. Whatever energy and action and thoughts and attitudes I generate that go out into the world, I'm gonna get them back in exactly the same quality and quantity that I created them. It's a law like gravity, so it's not really a punishment. It is a law. So I can say, I wouldn't say that if gravity is bad. Like if I fall down, I wouldn't blame gravity. 'cause gravity is a law that we need to work within. So first of all, that's the law of karma. It's a machinery. It works whether we're aware of it or not, whether we're paying attention to it or not, it's working. So what's the red pill of karma? The red pill of karma means that I'm 100% responsible for my life. I would like to give more gravitas, but this is, this episode is gonna be an outline. You gotta go back to the other episodes to get deeper explanation. But the first point is the red pill, which is I'm 100% responsible for my life. Does that mean I'm responsible for other people's behaviors? No. Am I responsible like I deserved to get abused or something like that? No, not like that. Whatever is in my life. Whatever I'm living with in my head in circumstances, I created it along the line somewhere. The other thing about the law of karma, the machinery, is that whatever energy I put out there, it doesn't have to come back in the same way that it was put out. So let's say, in the Bible it says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Usually, we think it's pretty even karma's really not like that. It's more like a feeling for a feeling and an experience for an experience. But the circumstances don't need to be the same for you to have the same feeling. So if I hit you and you felt really humiliated, then maybe later on I would feel humiliated, but maybe not because somebody hit me. I might feel humiliated for some other reason. So that's how that works. So the red pill, I'm a hundred percent responsible. So what's the benefit of taking a hundred percent responsibility? So, for instance, if I'm in an unhappy marriage, I'm the one that said I do. It's good to take responsibility because then I'm facing the circumstances squarely with the idea of mastery. I want to be able to master my life and my situations. Now, the a hundred percent responsibility, if I have stage four pancreatic cancer and I say, okay, I'm taking a hundred percent responsibility, does that mean that the cancer is gonna be cured? Maybe not. But I would say that if you take this red pill and you say, I'm gonna be a hundred percent responsible for myself, my life, my feelings, my attitudes, my behaviors, and so forth, that you're going to be able to change some aspect of your experience for sure. So that's the first point. Second point of karma is taking responsibility for my feelings and my inner world in the moment. So what does that mean? We had a student one time who was taking the class and she took the karma class and she was having a fight with her husband. Normal for her. She was having a fight with her husband and in the middle of the fight she realized like she saw that she was the one that started the fight. She really noticed it for herself and in the middle of the fight she stopped and said, you know what? I'm really sorry. I did this. I started this and I apologize. Her husband was shocked. So what was happening in that moment? This is the second point of karma. She's taking responsibility for her behavior, her feelings, her thoughts, her intentions in the moment that they're happening, and she's able to make a choice. Do I keep doing this or do I stop or do I shift it? This is a little bit deeper level of karma. Because the first level, you're looking at it like, okay, what's going on in my life? The second level, it's like in real time. I'm noticing what I'm doing and taking responsibility for myself. Another example is, let's say I had a fight with somebody at work and then afterwards I have some hard feelings and maybe I'm walking down the hall and I see that other person, and then I turn the other way quickly and I walk away. This happened to me, so I'm giving this example. But I remember turning away and thinking, wow, am I like letting myself be scared of this person? What's going on with me? So it was kind of after the fact, but I was still in the moment that noticing what I was doing and saying, wow, I really don't wanna be afraid. And what is going on? Well, I had to look and see. I was feeling jealous, I was feeling nervous. I was feeling a little bit humiliated. For whatever reason, whatever had gone on with us before. But then I was able to start taking care of my own feelings and realizing I don't wanna walk down the hall afraid of people. So I can start taking responsibility for my own karma, my own thoughts, my own experience. So that's the second point. Those two points are much more in depth explained in those two episodes. So if you're interested in listening to it a little bit more to get a more of a handle on it, go listen to those two episodes. The third point is the one I'm gonna focus on in this video, and that is Finishing Karma. How do I finish Karma and what does it mean to finish Karma? Karma. The word karma just means action. So it's not like I'm finishing anything physical, but usually when we talk about karma, we're talking about something that's burdening me. Like, let's say I'm in a bad relationship. I break up with the one person and then I end up being in another relationship with this different person, same type of relationship. So I'm perpetuating the karma. I'm perpetuating the feelings and the attitudes and the thoughts and the experiences in the next relationship. That's what I want to finish. I don't want to bring that forward anymore. So how do I finish these things? And by the way, karma's not only negative, karma can also be positive. Meaning that karma also is a good thing. If you have wealth. That's also your karma. If you have health, that's also your karma. If you have a good job or good relationships, that's also your karma. So again, we're focusing on the negative because that's the one we really wanna transform, but I'm sure we enjoy all our positive karma aspects, each of us. So when we're talking about finishing, I've noticed that there are certain areas of my life that I don't wanna continue. How do I finish them? How do I finish those patterns? Well, I need to watch them, first of all. And one thing I wanted to say here is that we have to get part two. The second one where I'm watching it in real time and being able to shift my attitude or shift my energy or shift my behavior in real time, that's the practice that's going to shift the karma and finish it. So for instance, for me. If you're watching this channel, you know that one of the big things at work was that I had a big disappointment at work years ago when I didn't get a promotion that I was, um, trying out for a job and I didn't get it. And it was very, very devastating because I had a lot of negative self-talk. Had nothing to do with the job necessarily. One job shouldn't necessarily make somebody feel devastated for five years. But for me, I had a lot of negative self-talk. And that is the karma that I needed to finish, and it took me a long time. I was blaming the job. I was blaming my boss. I was feeling sorry for myself. I was brooding. I was all that negative internal turmoil was going on for a long time. What helped me to get over that was to watch it. Was to do meditation, was to try to work through each of those feelings and try to transform them. Is it true that I'm no good? No. Is it true that they hate me? No. Is it true? Like I really had to little by little work through to gain my strength. It took a while. That was a, that was a heavy one. There are lighter ones that maybe won't take too much time, but one thing I can tell you is there are two ways of knowing if the karma is finished. One way of knowing is your mind becomes very quiet about it. So if something changes, like with this situation at work, after the five years of working through, my mind became very quiet about work. About those aspects of work and those people, it didn't bother me anymore. And the second thing that you know, that the Karma is finished is that the situation usually changes. In this case, I got a different job, so it kind of worked out. I spent my time dealing with that shift and then another job became available, which I'm still in, and I'm very happy in that job. So it worked out great. One is that you, your mind is quiet. The second is that the situation may shift and that means that you're kind of finished with that or the third way. Actually, there's three. The third way is that in the moment there is something that I like to call a sweet spot. The sweet spot of karma and the sweet spot of karma means that there is an action that I can do in any moment, that's going to be the right action for me and simultaneously, the right action for everyone else. Now, maybe we never even thought about this before because we're so worried about getting our needs met or being right or winning the argument or something. Maybe that's our mindset in a moment or protecting myself perhaps. But there is a way and there is a sweet spot where the action that you're going to do and the attitude that you have is the right one for you and for everyone else. And I'll share an example of this. I was in my office at work and I had three of the nurses at work and we were meditating at lunchtime. And one of the clerks came into the office and started making a lot of noise, and it was very, you could say disruptive, based on the lights were low and the music was playing, and we were all meditating. But she came busting in and saying, I was doing all this work with this patient, and she was complaining and very loud and very animated. And so in the moment I had to decide what to do, and I was aware of two things. One thing I was aware of was that the students were watching me to see what I was going to do. Second thing was I knew that I, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know, I knew that by saying like, oh, you're disrupting. Could you come back later? I knew that wasn't the right thing to do, so I didn't really know what to do, so I went silent. I used the power of silence, and in the power of silence, I just went silent and I just listened. And as I was listening, subtly I could hear what she wanted. And what she wanted was to be validated. So whatever her behavior was and whatever the circumstances were, she wanted to be validated. And when I heard that, it was very subtle. I said, I am so happy that you came in here. You did such a great job. Thank you for telling me that. Wow, you really went above and beyond. Thank you so much for coming in and letting me know. And she said, okay, bye. And she walked out. So if you've been listening to the podcast, you've heard me tell these stories over and over again, but they're very good examples of different principles. And in this case, this story is a good example of accommodation and cooperation certain powers, which is the next, lesson. But it's also a good example of the sweet spot of karma. That action, I'm gonna say took care of the students, took care of me, and took care of the person. As soon as she left, it was like it never happened. That's how you know it's a sweet spot. When you get that sweet spot of karma, when you move past that moment, it's like it never happened. It's completely silent in your mind. I just took maybe 15 minutes to describe some very, very deep ideas about karma. I highly recommend that you go back and watch those two episodes also, that you maybe consider getting in touch with Brahma Kumaris Center. Looking at the online classes in the description below, and if you're interested in this, if you're interested in gaining some mastery, karma is one of those topics and one of those laws and philosophy that if you get a good grasp on it, it is completely transformational, life changing. You're able to transform every aspect of your life and also take responsibility. Mastery, which feels a lot better than being emotionally helpless and suffering. Right? So I'm gonna leave it there. I didn't go too much into explanation, I just did the points. Feel free to review them, take some notes, look in the description for more resources, and we will be back next time with lesson four, which is the eight powers of the Soul. So until next time, take care.
