KARMA, FREEDOM AND DESTINY

Part I

What it is and what it is not

Karma means Action; from this point of view, it is every action—mechanical, natural, governed by the laws of cause and effect—that surrounds us. In fact, many of our behaviors are governed by this law of action and reaction, of which we are often unaware. It is enough to observe our thoughts, our seemingly spontaneous ideas, to realize that our freedom of thought, and therefore of action, is limited. In this, Science is right: since we are beings immersed in a material world, we are influenced by hundreds of natural factors. This detail is well known to advertisers, politicians, and sellers of all kinds, including sellers of ideas and behaviors. I am not saying that free will does not exist, that there is not a certain freedom to think and make decisions, but it is a very conditioned freedom. In fact, the conquest of authentic human freedom consists of knowing how to direct inherited karma and liberate oneself from those influences in our thoughts and actions. This is what turns us into authentic human beings and distances us from the conditioned brute.

Human Karma

However, the Karma to which we refer goes beyond the concept of natural action-reaction studied by science. “Human Karma,” that is, the evaluation of our human acts and their consequences, has to do with ethics and morality, and above all with our intentions. I must say, first of all, that we must abandon as soon as possible the idea of karma as the punishment or resulting penalty that I suffer at this moment. For whatever the current condition in which I find myself may be, it is precisely my starting point for changing the future. Many people tend to think of Karma as a kind of “floating curse” over our heads, which one day or another can fall upon us, shattering our lives. Or like someone stationed behind the door equipped with a stake, ready to give us a good blow when we least expect it. Karma is contemplated as if it were an external entity, a threat hovering over our lives. And yet there is nothing of that, because the most important thing is to understand that “KARMA IS YOU,” what you are, what you have achieved, what you have made of yourself, and what you can do in the future. Whatever the facts were in the past, remote or near, you are the result, and your way of being, your thoughts, your entire being—more fortunate or less fortunate according to the criteria of the external world—is the fundamental tool with which you have to work. Let us change our point of view then; karma is not a heavy slab that crushes us, Karma is a Great Opportunity, a great possibility to manage our destiny, a starting point from which to undertake, with the weapons we have, the adventure of the coming years of our life. It is accepting oneself in order to be able to move forward.

Human Karma is not Universal Balance

In reality, these are similar concepts applied to different planes. Human Karma is not Universal Balance, that is, the Great Adjustment of Accounts, which is something much larger and rather has to do with great beings, gods, or mechanisms that govern the Law and Justice in the Universe. The ancients trusted in that Great Universal Balance and represented it in relation to the gods. Thus, the Hindus and Tibetans pointed to the existence of the so-called Lipikas, the great “adjusters of karma,” those who “adjusted” the Divine Ideation or Thought, according to terms used by Plato, so that the plan of creation would be carried out in the most orderly and just manner. The Ancient Egyptians had their equivalent in the god Thoth, who along with his feminine aspect, the goddess Seshat, adjusted the “mathematics” of things, cared for the laws, ordered the cycles of time, etc., etc. Thoth appears in representations of the Judgment of the Heart, holding a papyrus upon which he recorded internal facts, or facts of consciousness, and this is the main point to keep in mind.

The previous vignette is usually accompanied by the recitation or prayer 30B from the Book of the Dead:

"My heart, my mother's heart, my heart of my mother, and your terrestrial heart of my successive transformations. Do not oppose me in the Judgment; let the Divine Judges not reject me. Be not hostile to me in the presence of Him who maintains the Balance… Do not make my name stink and rot among the Almighty Lords who model the Destiny of Man. Do not utter lies about me before God, but let the ears of the gods rejoice and their hearts be satisfied when my Words are weighed in the Balance of Judgment".

That is to say, my celestial heart (from my celestial mother Mut) refers to my inherited consciousness, where I come from, and my terrestrial heart is my consciousness in perpetual transformation in this world. Both are witnesses of my true INTENTIONS, beyond what my actions apparently mean; that is why "do not betray me before the judges," meaning I ask my consciousness not to denounce me, not to say that I did things for other, different, and selfish reasons, thus discovering that there were actually hidden intentions. I may help someone or give money, but to “look good,” to accumulate supposed merits, to influence those in charge… That internal consciousness is what, if the case arises, can denounce us and expose that false mask.

Karma and Intention

Conscious, intentional action is not the same as unconscious action; the karma or action studied by scientists, of a mechanical type, is not the same as action driven by cognitive, intentional, and voluntary impulses of the human being. The human Karma that we will treat from now on will be the karma related to my:

behavior
thought
and emotions which are the factors for which I am responsible.

For example, I can cause an accident inadvertently, apparently unintended, although intentionally prepared, because I have always used the car in an irresponsible manner, exceeding speed limits, disregarding signals, enjoying danger as personal amusement. If with these precedents I hit someone inadvertently, nevertheless said accident has been prepared long before. The intentional seed was there.

Is My Action Conditioned or Free?

Now then, every action, at any level, begins to develop starting from the moment in which I find myself, although from the very beginning it is a conditioned action: by my conditioned mind, by my conditioned body, by my conditioned knowledge, by my conditioned emotions. That is, my action is subject to the present consequences of my past actions. Let us look at the conditions:

Past actions, whether in this life or another, place me in a specific direction or situation, which I can only redirect or straighten in a limited way.
Upon being born, I am not a bird, nor an elephant, nor a lion; I am a human being. If I am tall, I am not short; if I am a woman, I am not a man; if I am Norwegian, I am not Central African; if I am rich, I am not poor; if I have had an education, others do not have it, etc., etc. That is, I come into life under a series of circumstances that condition my vision of things, and therefore, when I decide to do something, I do it under certain innate impressions.
But above all, I am born with a fundamental ignorance: AVIDYA, which is not the same as Agnyana, according to Hindu texts, because Agnyana is the ignorance of one who does not know something, who is unaware of something simply because no one has taught it to them. It is remedied with study and experience. But Avidya is deeper, because it means NO-SEEING (A-Vidya), that is, not being able to perceive REALITY, not being able to perceive things as they really are. Someone can have several degrees and studies and yet be absolutely blind to seeing the reality of life, despite their multiple knowledge. On the contrary, another person may be ignorant of many things, even illiterate due to lack of education, and yet, in their points of view, in their advice, in their sense of life, they can be wise. For WISDOM is not the accumulation of knowledge, but a deep vision of the MEANING OF LIFE.

Our ancestral conditionings, our educational limitations, or social circumstances—that is, my karma, the better or worse result of what I have achieved through my action—due to all of this, what I perceive is not reality but something similar, that is, MAYA, the worldly illusion that leads me to error. My lack of deep vision (Avidya) leads then to an illusory perception of the world (Maya). I think I see a dangerous snake coiled in the darkness when in reality it is only a coiled rope. I perceive erroneously not only because of that external darkness but also because of my internal darkness, my ignorance, and my fear. My actions, therefore, are MAYAVIC, that is, impregnated by worldly illusion and, because of this, they lead to a whole series of chained errors, of mistaken concepts that follow one after another—in short, to the cascade of “bindings” that they call in the East the “12 NIDANAS,” that is, the chained causes that lead me to pain, to failure, to dying ignorant, and starting again.

THE 12 NIDANAS

They are the 12 causations or “bindings”. They form the concatenation of causes and effects that lead from one form of existence to another. They are symbolized in the so-called wheel of SAMSARA, the eternal wheel of existence, which is a consequence of blind forces driven by erroneous action. It is the great mechanism of which we all form a part, to which this Buddhist text refers:

“Inconceivable is the beginning of this Samsara; never being discovered its first beginning, in which beings, obstructed by ignorance and trapped by longing, hasten and accelerate through this round of rebirths”.

These 12 causes that give rise to Samsara can be summarized into three fundamental blocks:

The first block is that of the ignorance that conditions my consciousness:

Avidya: No seeing, the cause and producer of Maya or illusion, and also of everything that follows.
Sankhara: Mental fabrications and mental dispositions.
Viñana: As a result of the two previous ones, we have a deviated consciousness.
Namarupa: As a consequence, the consciousness of myself is also mistaken, both regarding the concept of my “I,” Nama, and my own body, Rupa.

The second block, once the previous limitations are established, is that of the limited senses, the deviated sense-perception, and the desire that is generated:

Sadayatana: These are the six sources of sensation, that is, the information that reaches us through the 5 senses, plus that of the mind, considered as one more sense.
Phassa: It is Sense-Perception, that is, the union of information from sensations with our prejudices or previous mental attitudes.
Vedana: Based on what is perceived, aversion, desire, or indifference arises.
Thana: It is established desire, the thirst for permanence and for achieving what is desired.

The third block, also based on the previous one, is what makes us attach to things, and consequently cling to life, with all its consequences of illness, death, being born again, etc.:

Upadana: Clinging or attaching to things and existence.
Bhava: As an effect, the becoming or course of life is generated, the chained existence.
Jaramarana: Aging, decay, and death.
Jati: Rebirth to a new life.

Simplifying, of all these factors, three fundamental ones should be highlighted:

Avidya: As the generator and essential cause with which we begin, end, and resume a new life.
Phassa: Sense-perception, because from the information received, united with our mental prejudices, we generate a whole cascade of associated thoughts and images that trap us and are part of the obsessions and mental vicious cycles of every day.
Upadana: Attachment, clinging to desires, pleasant sensations, etc., which leads us to a new rebirth, completing the chain of Samsara.

To be continued…

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