The Laws of Causality & Cosmic Harmony
The law of causality states that every thought, word and action has a built in reaction. The cycle of action and reaction creates impressions which we hold in a reservoir deep within our mind known as, “karma-ashaya.” Our held impressions within this reservoir influence the way in which we view ourselves and the world.
This vast reservoir of karma governs our major life decisions and, therefore, shapes our lives. If this repository continues to dictate our choices, we are bound to repeat our past. Thankfully, the mind is capable of retaining a long chain of events and their corresponding consequences. This retentive power of the mind enables us to disrupt our habitual patterns by observing our experiences with discernment.
The rain is the cause and the seed sprouting is the effect.
“The reservoir of karma is rooted in afflictions and is to be experienced in seen and unseen lives.”
Karma & The Afflictions
Due to the affliction of spiritual ignorance, we live our lives confined by our outer identity and unaware of a higher reality. Our false sense of self is hypnotized by its desire to experience pleasure and avoid pain. Our mind is ever restless and entangled in this pursuit as the acquisition of one desire breeds countless more.
Worry, fear and anxiety are inevitable when we relate to the objects and experiences of the changeable world. However elusive it may be, we are aware that what we care about, including our own life, will eventually come to an end. Instead of embracing a mature relationship with the transitory nature of our experiences, we choose to cling to them and foolishly live in a state of denial of their changeable nature. This denial hardens our fear of letting go and builds yet even more impressions within the karmic reservoir. As we grow older, our accumulating impressions constricts our mind ever further into a narrow conduit of conditioned patterns. The afflictions veil our mind’s ability to recognize that the choices we make today are powerfully influenced by the actions of our past.
Skill In Action
“Perform work in this world without selfish attachments, alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind.”
The experiences of our current life and the lives to come are an expression of our karmic reservoir. Many of the impressions within this reservoir are resting in a latent state. When an impression does come into fruition, its quality will influence the overall karmic repository and, in turn, the way that we receive and react to our circumstances. If the ripening impression is tainted by selfishness, then it will cloud the mind with qualities of fear and anger and ultimately prompt damaging behavior. In contrast, impressions which are of a selfless nature will produce a clear and harmonious mental field which will then engender constructive action.
Due to our actions being rooted in the afflictions, our karmic repository is mixed with both positive and negative qualities. Even when we preform selfless acts, our ego’s longing for recognition and reward colors our action with varying degrees of self-serving motivation. Although the gravity of our karmic repository is extremely strong, we do have the capacity to attenuate the afflictions and nullify our karmic strands, but this requires discernment.
Establishing ourselves in the discerning witnessing state endows evenness of mind and with equal vision, we see through the veil of our spiritual ignorance. No longer deluded by the self-serving motivations of the limited self, we realize that the our life’s purpose is to perform actions in service of the welfare of all. We skillfully begin to make choices which align with our purpose and this, in turn, supports the fundamental law of the unity of life which is dharma.
Support from Within
Dharma is the underlying law which supports all that is. It implies support from within or support which arises from the core or the soul of the world. It is understood by the yogis that it is incumbent for each one of us live in accordance with this law of cosmic harmony. Yoga is the practice of dharma, for the yogi lives to bring higher consciousness into the world to help alleviate the plague of selfishness, prejudice and injustice which rules our planet.
The yogi understands that their karma-ashaya is their starting ground from which they must learn and eventually liberate themselves from through self awareness and selfless service. The yogi also understands that each one of us has unique gifts to offer the world and these inborn traits and talents are a result of our past karmas. Ultimately, the yogi perceives that when we align with our personal dharma, svadharma, we are fulfilling our role to support the cosmic law of harmony.
As we have seen, when we are rooted in spiritual ignorance, most of our actions will be motivated by our false sense of identity and, therefore, tainted with selfishness. But when our actions are motivated by selfless love, service and devotion, we create a powerful karmic field which can dissolve the effect of our negative karmas and frees us from their binding nature. Free of our conditioned past, we alleviate the potential of future suffering for ourselves and live to serve the soul of the world.