A good friend of mine, Anne McCue was in the country performing a gig last week. (She’s a rock star, look her up!)
She introduced one song by saying: “This next song is inspired by a Confucius saying that goes like this- ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’”
The next morning I read about how a couple killed a number of people in San Bernardino, only to then be shot and killed themselves, leaving behind a trail of pain, suffering and also a young child. Relevant song Annie.
Karma is a sensitive topic. We generally think of karma as a negative force that is here to punish us when we do something wrong.
I saw a young child trip over a step in the footpath the other day and I heard his sister say to him: “There’s your karma for being mean to me.”
Radiohead sang in their cult song Karma Police: “This is what you get when you mess with us.”
I prefer to think of karma as a scientific law of cause and effect. It never ceases to amaze me at how simple this is when I watch it play out in my life. Many times in my life I have been slapped and whipped by karma and many times I have had a life flow with abundance and joy by karma. It never fails or falters. It might take some time to respond, but respond it will.
Every action is motivated by energy, a vibration, or a feeling. The feeling level that motivates the action will cause a chain reaction of events to occur in response to that feeling. Based on that vibration, a reciprocal action will occur in your life.
In my past, if my actions were driven by hate, anger, fear, selfishness or other low-grade feelings, then interestingly I experience events that inspire more of those feelings. I would get parking tickets, end up in arguments, fights, get sick or things go ‘wrong’ in my life.
If my actions are motivated by love, kindness, compassion and selflessness, then my life flows effortlessly with lightness and abundance. From there joy and love flow through each day and life is smooth.
Karma plays out in our lives every day. It’s transference of energy. Everything is energy. It has become a trendy word that you see splashed across yogi’s t-shirts and on Instagram images daily (over 1,600,000 karma hash tags!) But in essence, it’s a simple flow of energy creating a ripple effect.
We frequently try to change our 'actions' in our lives without realizing that the action is motivated by energy. Our actions are determined by how we FEEL. When you are angry, you behave in a very different way than when you are calm and kind.
The Dalai Lama wisely once said, ‘My religion is kindness’. Kindness is not an ideology, it’s not a belief, it’s not a principle.
Kindness is a feeling, an energy.
You either feel kind or you don’t. The basis of kindness is love.
Each day I observe an escalation in global turmoil. More hate, more separation, more anger and of course more chaos. The way I see it is only one thing will change this…not ideologies, not regions, not politics, not guns and not warships.
That one thing is HOW WE FEEL. There are only so many feelings we can have. Is it fear, anger, hate, shame, guilt, or is it love, kindness, compassion and joy? (Or variables of these?)
The only true power we have is how we feel. This alone is our source of power.
When my life is chaotic, when I am suffering, I know it’s time to pause, and look within. I ask myself, “Heck Tom, what feeling are you emitting to have attracted all this mess!?” Then I know it’s time to step back, calm everything down, and work on shifting my energy.
One simple technique I find helps more than anything else, is meditation. It’s not the cure-all, but it sure helps re-centre me and shift my feeling level.
Karma will always play out in your life. It’s up to you to shift…
From chaos to calm;
From sickness to health;
From tired to energised;
From heaviness to lightness;
From war to peace.
The choice is yours.
