When the karma is done
Letting yourself start again
Endings are funny little things. Like never ending revolving doors; you expect to exit into a new place, but when you go through, you end exiting the same place you entered. But this time it’s different. A 360 degree revolution different. Everything may look the same on the outside, but on the inside you can never be the same again. Micro and macro versions of these inner revolutions happen everyday. There are the big ones, the significant ones we remember and call them awakenings, the ‘no going backs’. But there are also the small ones that come each day, waking from sleep in the morning or taking of a new previously uncharted route to work.
What causes change? Why do things end? What makes life sometimes feel like you just woke up from a long dream? How could you forget so much?
Growing up, we’re told the world is it’s own entity we are all at the whim of it. We hear things life ‘try harder’, ‘what a shame your business failed’, or ‘you’ll make it one day if you just keep pushing.’ Somewhere along the way we separated our inner life from our outer life, and ‘out there’ became dominant. Scared to miss out, we keep moving, keep working, keep keeping up with each other. But where are we all going?
The Veda shares a way of seeing the world that integrates a deeper understanding. It says the world ‘out there’ is the interaction of elements expressing the play of our individual karmas. What happens inside a human being, within their consciousness, is what moves life along and we call it evolution. There is no outer force separate from ourselves. The world is not ‘out there’ and you are ‘in here’. Simply put, life ‘out there’ is the process of you waking up ‘in here’. Each inner realisation creates a wave of change that ripples into our world.
To understand this we need to talk a little about karma. For lifetimes we have all been engaging in action. Action is what we call karma. Karma is cause and effect and is what puts the whole universe in motion. No karma left? No more lives to be lived. Karma guides us to see the impact of thought, feeling, and action. It shows us, through direct experience, what actions are life giving and what one’s are life taking. Karma is not a punitive force; it’s cosmic guidance. Any action has the ability to do good or do harm, to bring us closer to Life or closer to suffering. It’s only through awakening to our inner wisdom that actions naturally and spontaneously become life giving. Meditation is what leads to this inner wisdom, to satya (truth), and from there, action changes.
But because we’ve been acting for lifetimes clouded by ignorance, our karma, our actions, have bound us in some way. It’s why we get born and why we do the things we do, the way we do them. Our karma is playing out; teaching, guiding, sometimes with grace and other times with a big old slap in the face. Thoughts arises, we move into action, and our whole world spins in a cosmic drama, sometimes taking a break to move into a rom-com, and every now and then, when we’re least expecting, a psychological thriller. But we have to remember, the world is responding to us. The world is the play of our thoughts and feelings that have been rippling into existence since the beginning of time.
To realise this, to know it in your bones, will bring such great relief. To know ‘out there’ is not something that will reward you if you ‘get it right’. Instead, ‘out there’ is the play of your inner awakening. When something gets revealed inside, when you come closer and closer to who you are, ‘out there’ changes. It can look like relationships concluding, moving countries, or a business closing (for whatever relative reasons). From outside it looks like an ending, a failure even, something didn’t ‘work out’, if only you had of tried harder. But inside, the new version of you, in deeper relationship with life, is awake. Success is always on the inside, rearranging the elements on the outside to express your new reality.
I like to say, ‘Well, looks like that karma is done then!’ The reason for doing something, the past actions that led to present actions, at some point will be completed. A realisation will be had. And now, it’s time to let the version of reality you were living in, go. Don’t think you have to finish it because you started it. The point of starting ‘out there’ was to finish your karma ‘in here’ Not the other way around.
The feeling you have when you recognise this will be a taste of the freedom you’re continuously discovering inside. People or the world will try to convince you to ‘just keep going… you’re nearly there!’ But you already know you’ve arrived. You went through the revolving door and you’re back. 360 degree refreshed, karma done, ready for the next level.
I thought to finish with a little poem I wrote, as I went through a revolving door and gave myself the grace of starting again. Something I’d highly recommend you continue to give yourself too.
Love Laura x
it’s like a game you play in your own head
everyone is in on the joke:
but you forgot.
you forgot life was an unravelling
the world told you it was a puzzle to assemble
piece to peace.
you forgot out there is made by the in here
out there: an echo in endless time
can’t you hear it calling?
if you listen close enough
you’ll start to hear it fading
and there. you. are.
let someone else lick the plate clean.
as the ground tilts left towards infinity
lean into the fall.
-LP
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