Unlike the popular use of the term Karma, which means ‘what goes around come around’, Karma yoga strictly means yoga in action. The world karma derives from the root Kr in Sanskrit meaning ‘to act’, ‘to perform’, ‘to sacrifice’. Another Sanskrit word that I use in a similar context to karma is seva, which means selfless service. Both Sanskrit terms refer to working on your self by devoting your time and effort to someone other than yourself. The Bhagavad Gita particularly advocates selfles service as a way to rid the self of the ego.
There are many ways to dedicate the self to something outside of yourself. This week I am reading ‘How Bad Are Bananas?’. It is a book about how much carbon everything on earth uses up. Obviously it doesn list everything, but it covers a wide range of goods and things we use. Carbon dioxide is emitted by almost everything we consume and the average Brit consumes 12 tonnes of carbon every year. The author suggests taking on a 5 tonne target, and slashing your carbon footprint in half. This would be an example of karma yoga. For me, karma yoga means being vegan. This save a tonne of carbon every year and there are no farm animals kept in captivity to feed me.
By practicing karma yoga we can purifiy our chakras. Chakra one is purified as we get to know the self in a new environment. Chakra two purifies the emotions, how do we come into contact with the other in a giving or even subservient role? Chakra three is opened as we put the needs of others above our own. Sometimes this can be painful and creates tapas, or the feeling of austerity. Chakra four, the heart, is likewise cleansed by serving others before the self, the act of giving can open our hearts to a feeling of generosity and abundance. Chakra five is benefitted by honing our communication skills, getting closer to our true self opens the throat chakra and we can speak with a more authentic voice. Chakra six opens as we encounter new perceptions of the world. How do others see things? How does my perspective change by what I experience? And chakra seven is empowered by the light that we find in others. Universal consciousness means the light of consciousness that is in everyone. How do others face the world? How do they communicate? How do they care for me?
When we work on one chakra, we work on all the others at the same time. The seventh is at one end of the seven chakras along the spine. It is said to open us to the higher realms of the spiritual universe. This can include discovering higher realms that aren’t widely known about. I have to thank Barabra Brennan for my latest insight from her book Hand of Light. The idea that there is a spiritual reason for all the physcial, emotional and mental problems that we face can be a relief. The world is beyond our understanding, and it is not necessarily anyone’s fault that things are like they are. I find this makes it easier to accept things as they are, and easier to forgive.
Past lives are often associated with the word karma because it is from past lives that we are working out some of the knots that get tied. Astrology can be insightful as to what the themes of this lifetime represent, and what we are working on in this incarnation. In yoga, the philosophy of karma yoga is extended into future lives. In the Islamic faith there is a philosphy whereby if you don’t get to do something in this life, you can leave it to the next life. I treat the idea of my futue lives in a similar vein. If something feels unresolved and is eating up my energy, I say to myself that it needs to get parked for a future life.
The law of karma affects everyone that you meet, maybe you met them in a past life and in this ife you are working out some unresovled issues, maybe things left unresolved will recur in future lives. Karma has the effect of turning things around. If you feel poor in this life, maybe you were ostentatiously rich in a previous life? Like headstand the ultimate in seventh chakra alignment, karma turns things on its head. Instead of giving, you receive, and vice versa.
Karma yoga, yoga in action, helps to strip down the self by removing the surface level of desires that we automatically function from. What remains as we serve the other? Where are we stuck? Maybe you find yourself asking, Who am I? What makes me tick?
Barabra Brennan states that our life intention, for this life, is held around the head area, close to the seventh chakra. Working on the higer chakras may help activate your innate knowledge of this area.
It is believed that with enough training, a yogi can access information about their past lives, enlightening them as to what remains to be processed in this life. We can function without consciously knowing this information, but it canbe helpful to have a clue. For me, chakra yoga gives me a way in to this awareness. The more I absorb the philosophy of the ancient yogis and the more I focus on each chakra, the more I can tune my body to its life’s course.
The seventh chakra is often overlooked in yoga classes, who wants to teach a class of headstands? There is something scary about approaching the highest chakra. We know so little about it that it can be difficult to teach with the same assurance as say the first chakra when we deal with the physical realm that we can see is right in front of us. It is only by working more on the seventh chakra that I have begun to learn from it, and the books that I read support my growth in that area too. Life is a wonderful, mysterious thing. Too much focus on the higher chakras are somtimes accused of being ungrounding, but through karma yoga we can experience the self in action, action in its true spirit of universal bliss.
Sarasvati Flow 