(1) Inner psychological structure of Human
being
To feel
& understand the meaning of Karma and its effect on one's life &
destiny, first we need to briefly understand the structure of human psyche in
nutshell from any one point of view. Human being is made up of three aspects
(1) the conscious, (2) the sub-conscious and (3) the unconscious.
The
conscious aspect here means visible &
known aspect of one's life, and it includes activities of Thinking faculty,
Emotional faculty and Physical Impulse.
The
Sub-conscious means that which is stored up deep down in one's psyche and is
not visible or known directly, but manifests as one's inherent tendencies,
nature, or roughly what Gurdjieff calls as the Essence (However, the Essence
encompassed many other aspects), and which determines the destiny & quality
of one's life.
The
Unconscious is that about which one has no direct experience though it is a
part of one's overall being, that is, realm of one's Soul or Atman, which in
its purest form is untouched & uncontaminated by one's conscious &
sub-conscious.
Vikarma, Karma & Akarma
Let
us try to understand The Bhagwad Geeta's concept of Vikarma, Karma &
Akarma. Vikarma means any human action
originating from one's like, dislike, learned psychological programming or
tendencies of one's inherent nature, be it propelled by thinking faculty,
emotional faculty or physical impulse; and it encompasses almost entire
spectrogram of human activity. If one's entire life is filled with Vikarma,
then one's inner richness & inner quality will not change, even though the
circumstance of life may change.
Karma
means action coming from one's intentional & deliberate decision,
overcoming one's inner psychological compulsions of like, dislike, programing
or tendencies of one's inherent nature, etc. For example, if one has
deep-rooted tendency of, say angrily reacting or cheating or lying or over
self-indulgence or of lethargy (be such tendency is developed either by
pressure of life situations, childhood grooming or inherent nature), and one
decides to act against that tendency and successfully carries out that decision
in real life situation, at critical moment, then this would be a example of
Karma, and such accumulated Karmas have power to effect & modify, little by
little, one's inner richness, one's sub-conscious & one's destiny, over a
period.
Akarma
means transcending Karma, it is not merely an inactivity; it becomes possible
only for one who has complete mastery over Karma. For us, at present, it is
difficult to even feel & understand the true meaning of Akarma.
Practical Application of this knowledge
The
practical question is, how to move from Vikarma to Karma. First one need to
think & feel that this is possible for me. Then, one need to gain control
of one's attention, and try to be aware of oneself, try to be aware of one's
inner & outer activity, try to bring back one's attention to oneself,
whenever & wherever possible. This is what the 4th Way teaching describes as the
practice of dividing attention (dividing attention means, keeping part of one's
attention on oneself, and simultaneously keeping another part of one's
attention on whatever one is doing in the moment); this is the chief thing, and
is so important that everything else depends on this. If this becomes the way
of life, it would bring about the self-remembering, and one would experience
moments of different level of consciousness, where unconditional love, wisdom
& spontaneous joy happens on its own.
Generally,
one's action is propelled & dominated either by thinking faculty, or by
emotional reaction, or by physical impulse depending on one's Center of
Gravity, that is, one's general outlook towards life & inherent
predominance of any one of the three in one's psyche. Chief weakness of human
action is that it is unduly dominated either by thinking faculty, or by
emotional reaction or by physical impulse, and it does not involve the harmony
of thinking, feeling & physical impulse. If one realizes this fact by one's
own inner observation, and try to bring harmony & simultaneous involvement
of all three in one's actions wherever and whenever possible, it starts
becoming Karma and would touch one's Sub-conscious or Essence, and little by little
this would bring about the Unity in one's being.
One
way for this is to let go & loosening of one's too much, unnecessary &
uncontrolled thinking, if one is predominantly a person of thinking-type, and
letting the fine emotion to emerge, this will lighten the heaviness of head,
and little by little new emotional perception will open up.
If
one is predominantly a person of emotional-type, one need to let go &
loosen the inner emotional reaction that arises moment to moment, by seeing it
in perspective and realizing & verifying that this is not real and is only
my subjective reaction, and there is nothing to loose in letting it go and in
not acting it out. This will bring inner peace, and new level of emotional
depth & sensitivity will open up, which we all need for inner richness.
If
one is predominantly a person of physically impulsive-type, one need to let go
the impulse arising in the moment, and think & feel before acting, and
bring attention in one's day to day physical activity; by this one's thinking
& feeling faculty will start participating in one's action. Irrespective of
one's type, at some point time, one need to work on all three practices.
Above
practices will bring about little by little the harmony & simultaneous
functioning of all three faculties, and one's action will start becoming Karma,
touching the core of one's inner being, the sub-conscious. the Essence, and
would little by little start altering the destiny, in the sense of developing
new possibilities & new capabilities in one's being.
Still
another simple way is to be aware of oneself, not to brood or worry much about
anything, keep one's eyes open, not to complain, doing one's best, and then
leaving the rest & results on the Invisible, the Almighty. Though
simplicity needs much more consciousness & harmony, fortunately, it is
possible for all of us, if approached rightly.
-
25/08/2014
