How Does Devotion Help Remove Karma?
Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami beautifully explains how Bhakti or devotion eradicates one's karma.
"Bhakti brings grace, and the sustaining grace melts and blends the karmas in the heart. In the heart chakra the karmas are in a molten state. The throat chakra molds the karmas through sadhana, regular religious practices. The third-eye chakra sees the karmas, past, present and future, as a singular oneness. And the crown chakra absorbs, burns clean, enough of the karmas to open the gate, the door of Brahman, revealing the straight path to merging with Siva."Many of the present day saints have extolled the efficacy of songs of saints of days bygone, that arose out of extreme devotion, in 'melting the heart' as Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami phrases it. The Thiruarutpa of the Siddha Ramalinga Adigal; the Thirumanthiram of the Siddha Thirumular; the Thevaram of the sixty-three Nayanmar; the Thirupugazh of the Siddha Arunagiri; the Agasthiyar Satagam by Kunangkudi Masthan Sahib and the numerous songs by the Siddhas all have helped bring about the right mood whereby even the toughest heart is mellowed down. Only when the heart melts can man see through this veil of Maya or ignorance. Ramalingam mentions seven veils that need to be removed before one enters that state of realization, seeing the Lord in oneself and other beings too.
What Are The Other Means Of Overcoming Karma?
Paramahansa Yogananda in AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI, Self Realization Fellowship, 1990, conveys his master’s (Sri Yukteswar) message.
"All human ills arise from some transgression of universal law. The scriptures point out that man must satisfy the laws of nature, while not discrediting the divine omnipotence. By a number of means - by prayer, by will power, by yoga meditation, by consultation with saints, by use of astrological bangles - the adverse effects of past wrongs can be minimized or nullified."Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami says,
"Planetary changes activate new karmas and close off some of the karmas previously activated. The magnetic pulls and the lack of magnetism are what jyotisha (Vedic astrology) is telling us is happening at every point in time. These karmas then wait in abeyance, accumulating new energy from current actions, to be reactivated at some later time. These karmic packets become more refined, life after life, through sadhana. All of this is summed up by one word, evolution. The sum total of all karmas, including the journey through consciousness required to resolve them, is called samsara."This explains the reason behind the various beneficial and adverse effects encountered and endured by people during the transit of planets as charted in astrological charts. On 19.6.2014 Guru or Jupiter will be moving and as a result bring a myriad of changes to individuals life for a year according to their charts. Similarly people have feared the planet Sani or Saturn who tends to stay longer for a period of 7 1/2 years. As Satguru says "Planetary changes activate new karmas and close off some of the karmas previously activated", here we are given an opportunity to exhaust our past karmas and to either work on more recent ones or move on with a clean slate. The ever compassionate Siddhas by giving us the science of jyotisha, have enabled us to be forewarned about matters and thus take the necessary steps to avoid or overcome them.
Ram Das in PATH TO GOD - Living The Bhagavad Gita, Harmony Books, 2004, shows a way through.
"If we want to get done with it all, its clear that the first step in the process is to stop creating new waves. We’re never going to be finished if we keep making new waves for ourselves everyday. Once we’re acting purely out of dharma and not out of any desire, we’re no longer making waves. When you've totally surrendered to your dharma, when you’re no longer trying for anything, that’s your way through."
Dr Hiroshi Motoyama in KARMA AND REINCARNATION, Piatkus, 1992 suggests,
"Dissolving karma through learning detachment – non-action within action i.e. acting out the unfolding of one’s day to day life continuously but without attachment to the results of the action."Eknath Easwaran in DIALOGUE WITH DEATH - A Journey Through Consciousness, Jaico Publishing House, 2002, advises,
"If we can learn not to act on a samskara by severing the connection between stimulus and response, that particular chain of karma will no longer have a hold on us. Past and future are both contained in every present moment. Whatever we are today is the result of what we have thought, spoken, and done in all the present moments before now - just as what we shall be tomorrow is the result of what we think, say, and do today."Eknath Easwaran says if man learns to say no to his/her samskaras, the decisions will definitely be different. Every time a samskara prompts him to action he should make use of this opportunity to manage not to make the mistake of participating; then the chain can be broken. Easwaran drives the point that the responsibility for both present and future is squarely in man’s own hands.
Similarly both Agathiyar and Tavayogi have told me to be indifferent and to not to respond, retaliate or entertain adverse stimulus on many occasions.
Just as Lao Tze asked that we go with the flow, Annie Besant and Bhagawan Das in SANATANA DHARMA by the Theosophical Publishing House, 2000, write,
"A man who knows the law of nature utilizes those whose forces are going his way and neutralize those which oppose. The laws of nature state conditions under which certain results follow. According to the results desired conditions may be arranged, and, given the conditions, the results will invariably follow. Hence the law of nature does not compel any special action, but only renders all actions possible."To substantiate this fact, an excerpt from Sogyal Rinpoche's THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING, HarperSanFrancisco, 1993,
"Karma, then, is not fatalistic or predetermined. Karma means our ability to create and to change. It is creative because we can determine how and why we act. We can change. The future is in our hands, and in the hands of our heart. As everything is impermanent, fluid, and interdependent, how we act and think inevitably change the future. We must realize that every moment in our life, every joy and every sorrow, can be traced to some source within us. There is no one “out there” making it all happen. We make it happen or not happen according to the actions we perform, the attitudes we hold and the thoughts we think. Therefore, by gaining conscious control of our thoughts and attitudes by right action, we can control the flow of karma."Lama Surya Das in AWAKENING THE BUDDHA WITHIN - Tibetan Wisdom For The Western World‖, Bantam Books, 1997, says,
"Every moment we are presented with the possibility of changing the future. By thorough understanding of karmic causation and skillful means we can become free. We change, and our future changes too. This is the truth. This is karma. We are responsible; the lever of our destiny remains in our hands."Annie Besant and Bhagawan Das in SANATANA DHARMA by the Theosophical Publishing House, 2000 explains further.
"The main thing to see in karma is not a destiny imposed from without, but a self-made destiny, imposed from within, and therefore a destiny that is continually being remade by its maker."Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama in KARMA AND REINCARNATION, Piatkus, 1992 examines karma further.
"Karma is basically a result of the spiritual ignorance of the self that mistakenly believes it is an independent entity. As long as the self functions in this state of ignorance it is imprisoned in a continuous process of death and reincarnation within the dimensions of reality that are governed by the law of cause and effect."Paramahansa Yogananda in the BHAGAVAD GITA, Yogada Satsanga Society of India, 2002 says.
"Man has the divine gift of free choice, which he can use properly or improperly, to his benefit or harm. Animals, not subject to individual karma, are under the sway of group or mass karma. An animal’s life is predestined; man’s is not."
Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami,
"We bring just a certain portion of our karmas to live through in this life, called prarabdha karmas. Karmas left to be worked out in another life are in seed stage, inactive. So, here we are, with our two suitcases of karma, and the idea is to go through life and come out the other end without the suitcases. Unless we have dharma, which we are committed to and live fully, which has the restraints, we would fill up the suitcases again."Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami in MERGING WITH SIVA – Hinduism’s Contemporary Metaphysics, Himalayan Academy, 2005 says,
"There are thousands of things vibrating in the muladhara chakra, and from those memory patterns they are going to bounce up into view one after another, especially if we gain more Prana by breathing and eating correctly. When meditation begins, more karma is released from the first chakra (muladhara chakra). Our individual karma is intensified as the ingrained memory patterns that were established long ago accumulate and are faced, one after another, after another, after another. In our first four or five years of striving on the path we face the karmic patterns that we would never have faced in this life had we not consciously sought enlightenment. Experiences come faster, closer together. So much happens in the short span of a few months or even a few days, catalyzed by the new energies released in meditation and by our efforts to purify mind and body, it might have taken us two or three lifetimes to face them all. They would not have come up before then, because nothing would have stimulated them."Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami cheers us up by asking us to "Carry your karma cheerfully". The Swami metes out three ways that one can handle karma.
1. The first approach,
"Then begin the tedious task of unwinding these multitudinous patterns through performing daily sadhana. Each next step will become quite obvious to you as you begin to find that you are the writer of your own destiny, the master of your ship through life, and the freedom of your soul is but yours to claim through your accomplishments of your yoga."
2. The second approach,
"The second way to face karma is in deep sleep and meditation. Seeds of karma that have not even expressed themselves can be traced in deep meditation by one who has many years of experience in the within. Having pinpointed the un-manifested karmic seed, the jnani can either dissolve it in intense light or inwardly live through the reaction of his past action."
Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami continues,
"If his meditation is successful, he will be able to throw out the vibrating experiences or desires which are consuming the mind. In doing this, in traveling past the world of desire, he breaks the wheel of karma which binds him to the specific reaction which must follow every action. That experience will never have to happen on the physical plane, for its vibrating power has already been absorbed in his nerve system."3. The third approach,
"A third way that past actions is re-enacted is through the actual intense reactionary experience and working with you, conquering inner desires and emotions. When something happens to you that you put into motion in a past life or earlier in this life, sit down and think it over. Do not strike out. Do not react. Work it out inside yourself. Take the experience within, into the pure energies of the spine and transmute that energy back into its primal source. In doing so, what happens? You change its consistency. It no longer has magnetic power, and awareness flows away from that memory pattern forever. You could remember the experience, but your perspective would be totally detached and objective. This is the most common way karma is resolved, in day-to-day experiences. The full force of the karmic experience comes, but because of his present goodness and previous blessings earned through control of his intellect, he receives the experience as a minor wound. This seed karma is worked through within himself in this way."
This is what saints have been doing. When the Siddha Pattinathar was accused of stealing jewels belonging to a temple, the local king had him tied to a post and whipped him. The Siddha took it on him without protest. He accepted it as Gods will. When Yogi Ramsuratkumar was set upon by mischief makers and beaten up, he accepted it as God’s will. His constant advice was to remain satisfied with whatever situation one found oneself in, realizing that it was part of the Divine will. He used to say, "In truth, there is only one will at work and that is Father’s will. It is therefore perfect, good for the individual, humanity and the cosmos."
Similarly when thieves broke into Bhagawan Ramana Maharishi’s ashram and beat him up he received the blows without defending himself. Tavayogi has reminded me not to oppose happenings but to submit to it. Annie Besant and Bhagawan Das describe this quietude on one’s part as merely choices to let past choices have their way, and to go in accordance with them. He simply chooses to do nothing. Again Lao Tzu too has reminded us to go with the flow.
From Henry Wei in the GUIDING LIGHT OF LAO TZU, Synergy Books International,
"So much emphasis does Lao Tzu lay on the most important doctrine in regard to spiritual cultivation known as Wu Wei or non-action which is in the sense of non-interference, that is to say, non-interference with the trend of nature or the flow of Tao."The Tibetans accept karma as a natural and just process. Karma inspires them to be responsible in whatever they do says Sogyal Rinpoche.
Sogyal Rinpoche beautifully concludes that,
"Karma, then, is our best spiritual teacher. We spiritually learn and grow as our actions return to us to be resolved and dissolved."