Life and Death: Ways to Overcome Bondage of Karma

By Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Karma is the accumulated impression of past activity, either of thought, emotion or physical action. The quality of the karma that you gather is not necessarily in terms of action alone; it is also in terms of the volition with which action is performed.

This moment, the very way you think, feel, understand and act, is a deep conditioning of past activity. That's karma.

When there is a clear space between you and your body-mind it is not that you are trying to watch this or that; you are simply here. Whatever karma that is in the mind, whatever karma that is there in the body or energy, everything has become separate from you.

For a few moments, if you experience this separation through the process of Dhyana, you know it's possible. If you can make this a part of your life, karma ceases to exist. Nothing touches you.

If you have an aversion to karma, and you're trying to push it away, in the effort to push it away, you end up building more karma. Once you come to a living experience that, "this body is not me, this mind is not me", then there is a different kind of wisdom and understanding in you.

When you understand only with the intellect, it leads to deceptive states. When you experientially know, it's very different.

A philosophy will give you some semblance of balance in your life, but it does not liberate you from the deeper karma, because you're only trying to avoid it, and in that avoidance you find a little balance in day-to-day life.

But slowly, if a person follows this philosophy, he will become joyless. He will become reasonably balanced and stable, at the same time he will slowly become lifeless. If you bring lifelessness into you, that itself is a very negative karma because you are just suppressing life.

Krishna says: "Hesitation is the worst sin". In hesitation you kill life. Suppression doesn't necessarily mean self- denial. When you hesitate you do not allow yourself to participate in your life; you are neither here nor there.

The ancient concept of "neti, neti, neti" - this is not me - is a process of creating awareness of what is you and what is not you, of what is you and what you have become identified with.

But denying what is happening within you right now is self-denial. If you deprive yourself of any experience, whether it is pain, suffering or joy, if you avoid it, that is big karma.

If you go through it, it is not so much of karma. Denying or suppressing or trying to avoid brings much more bondage whereas willingly going through all experiences of life with absolute involvement will bring a life of clarity and freedom.

Today, in the name of civilisation, education or etiquette, educated people are not able to experience any of their emotions fully. They cannot cry fully, they cannot laugh loudly. For everything, there is etiquette.

With this, slowly, they will become joyless. A deep sense of frustration will establish itself. You will see simple people who laugh and cry spontaneously, are so much more free.

They are less frustrated than the others. The very process of life is dissolution of karma. Every living moment of your life, if you live it totally, you dissolve enormous amounts of karma. Living totally does not mean partying every night or just having fun.

Anything and everything that comes, you just experience it fully, intensely. If one experiences every life-breath with utmost intensity, that one is liberated from the very process of life and death.

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See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul

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