Essay Edition
Community and the Study of Karma
Sangha, satsanga, is important because it helps support us in our practice. We live in a world that is not very spiritually focused, for the most part. When you have a community of people who are studying the teachings together, we support each other psychically. It is really important to have sangha.
Karma is a Sanskrit word. It means action. But it is a deeply complex concept that is extremely integral to spiritual practice and the sentient condition of a human being. It is something you can start applying in your life today, and you will get instant relief from some of the ways we suffer because we do not attend to the mechanism of karma.
Action and the Cultivation of Consciousness
Essentially, every time we do something, every action we take has an effect on our state of mind. If you drive like a crazy person to the store and honk at everybody, you are going to move into a divisive state of mind that is not very happy. But if you are like a Taoist sage and drive to the store completely detached, very graceful, with gentleness, kindness, mindfulness, and all the beautiful spiritual principles, then you generate that state of mind. This is an essential way of transforming your consciousness. Every action we take has results. It affects our state of mind. That, in essence, is what karma is.
When considering karma, we are more interested in the state of mind that results from our actions than the results of our actions. This is a giant transformation in the way we relate to life. Most people are doing things for the results, but if we do things for the state of mind that we enter into as a result of the action, we can become a beautiful state of mind.
For example, I have a banana peel. I just ate a banana. What am I going to do with that banana peel? I could mindlessly throw it in the garbage, or I could place it in the garbage with gentleness and gratitude for the sustenance, for the food. This is an opportunity to feel gratitude. It is an opportunity to place it down, not throw it in. How does that transform how you feel when you engage with everything as if it is your beloved, even the banana peel?
The way we do anything is the way we do everything. If I love the banana peel and I am gentle with the banana peel, I may be gentle with the most important people in my life because I will embody that gentleness.
Karma is the cultivation of the energy I embody, making every action a consecration of divine intentionality, becoming a more sacred, beautiful, prophet-like individual with every banana peel you throw away, every bed you make, every dish you wash, every right turn or left turn you take in the car. Carry a thread of integrity through all actions, like a garment woven of the principles that we want to embody.
The fun part about karma is that you can bring a collage, a collection of principles personal to your predilection. Almost like an artist, you decide that you want to be graceful, or you want to be really austerely mindful. There are many different ways you can weave the way that you take actions into your life.
You get to ask: How do I want to be? How do I want to feel? How do I want to show up in the world? Not in my actions, but in the way I take my actions, the intention behind the actions. Karma is the opportunity to apply all of those principles, particularly kindness, positivity, mindfulness, gentleness, and gratitude. How can you make it not about the results of your actions, but about the way you do those things and the state of mind you enter through those actions?
Karma also has a lot to do with energy work. When you do things, you can pay attention to the astral body. How is your heart chakra? How is your navel center? How is your third eye? You can pay attention to the way your heart is evolving, the way the energy of your heart is structured in this moment.
Every action can be an exercise in heart chakra meditation. You can strengthen your heart field with every action. Karma is an opportunity to practice your energy work from moment to moment, not simply during meditations, but between meditations.
To become enlightened, we have to meditate and be mindful. In mindfulness, we apply the principles of karma. That way, when we sit down to meditate, we are not in such a bad karmic state of mind that we cannot meditate for an hour. Instead, we go right into light. We go right into blissfulness because we have lived the day that way.
Think of karma as an inner momentum. When we act a certain way, we build an inner momentum that will have its own inertia. It will want to continue, and we will have to move its direction when we sit down to meditate. Between meditations, be mindful and consider karma. Then your meditations will be more profound.
This takes work. You can begin by picking one thing you do every day. Every time you sit down to eat, do it with such consecration, such mindfulness, applying all the principles you can, or maybe one at a time, and eat beautifully.
Eating has been, for me, one of the most important places where I practice karma. I like to eat and give my full attention to my food. I like to eat with gratitude. I like to open my heart, open my third eye. I like to feel the food with my mind.
I like to listen to the intelligence that the food embodies. A strawberry knows something about the universe. It is an embodiment of a kind of intelligence. A blueberry knows something else. You can learn from food by listening to the food. You are learning to love your food, to feel grateful for your food, and when you eat, you will enter into a more beautiful state of mind.
Speech is another important place to practice karma. When you speak, can you speak from the heart? Can you speak with gentleness? Can you speak in a way that makes you feel the way you want to feel?
I have worked very hard at this. I did not always speak the way I do. I do not always speak the way I want to speak, but I always try to remember, and I feel the karmic repercussions of how I speak. My teacher would always say to me, “Instant karmic repercussions.” You do something selfish, and you will immediately feel the instant karmic repercussions.
Karma has a colloquial definition we should talk about: if you do something bad, something bad will happen to you. That is what it is usually thought to mean. Really, that is a simplification of a more complex metaphysical phenomenon and a mundane phenomenon.
When you do something kind, you enter into a kind state of mind. Kindness becomes the world you see. You see the world through the lens of who you are, through kindness. Because of that, through synchronicity, you draw kindness into your life. Other people who are resonating on that wavelength will gravitate toward you. You will essentially manifest the result of what you are.
Your actions bring back what you are, what you are becoming.
Self-Transcendence and Karmic Momentum
There are two categories of karma. There is the karma that is selfish, that strengthens the center of self and separativity, and there is the karma that is self-transcendent, that dissolves the self and makes you unify with the totality.
When I kiss the banana peel and put it down gently, I feel that I am the banana peel. I am not exploiting it. It is coming through me, and I am giving it honor. I am honoring everything. That is not an action of selfhood. That is an action of self-transcendence. All of karma can be thought of that way.
If you are studying mathematics, getting stressed out, your ego involved, and doing it with harshness and a lack of acceptance, you are generating a state of mind that is not beautiful. Instead, you can do mathematics with complete self-acceptance, not creating a goal that causes dissonance in your field, but allowing yourself to discover the mathematics in a state of mind without resistance.
I have this question, and I do not know the answer. Wonderful. That is exactly where I should start. The very first thing you should be doing when you ask a math question is not know the answer. You dive into the realm of that abstraction, and you start quantifying related concepts until the answer comes into focus.
There is no dissipation of energy in resistance. This can act as a formal practice in everything that you do. You sit down and do math that way. You may do other things that way as a result, but you practice it formally.
If somebody feels a lot of anxiety around math, this is an opportunity to practice karma and let go of that selfhood. If you were completely humble and did not think of yourself as important, or your math abilities as important, you would just do math. It would be a place of safety.
It is kind of fun to realize that you are not being humble enough. That is the problem. It is not that I am not perfect as I am. It is that, as a math person, I am not loving myself enough in my humility, accepting myself, accepting everyone’s abilities in math, not comparing, all of that.
There is also the multi-life aspect of karma. When we incarnate, consider this as something that you can perceive directly and know for yourself, not as a belief system. When you are born, the world feels a certain way. Every child comes into the world, and they are different. Why are they different? They have different inherited karma. Where did that come from? I would say it came from their past actions and past lives.
Do not make that a dogmatic belief. See if you can remember your past lives. See if you can feel the connection between who you are now and what you have done. If you have had many lives as a monk, you might come in and be this magical child because you were practicing karma for many lives, being kind and doing all these things.
It is never too late to evolve your karma, so never feel that your past lives are looming over you, or that they are everything. You always have to do it now. Now is the opportunity. Now is the time to have a good state of mind and do things beautifully.
Blessing things is a very powerful thing to do. When you bless your food, you become aware of something with a certain attitude and intention. It is not always physical actions. It is interactions. In fact, it is more the interactions. The intention is the interaction.
You could sit down and bless your food. That is a very powerful transformation. You are benefiting profoundly because you are moving into a field of gratitude, a field of abundance. You are recognizing that you could ignore your food and be totally entitled to it. How are you going to feel if you do that? Not nearly as beautiful. You are cultivating a beautiful state of mind by blessing it.
There is also the field. We are all connected. Think of it like radio signals. When you improve your karma, you touch humanity, and humanity feels that. When you do it in that benevolent way, there is some mechanism. Physics may or may not understand it, but there is something you are doing. You are spreading good vibes.
There is a collective karma that we also inherit. Each one of us can move the needle in a more positive direction. We can cultivate our karma collectively, but it is important to recognize that, through association, your karma is also affected. If you spend time at the temple, where many sincere practitioners are, or with the sangha, you are going to be lifted. Your karma is going to be lifted. If you go into solitude in nature, you can do more with your karma because you are not facing the party line of resistance.
It is important to recognize the pressure from others. One great thing you can do is read books written by people. Then you are, in a way, cultivating your cultural exposure and lifting yourself. It makes your karma easier.
You do not need to hold a whole bunch of things in your head. That activity is not the activity of stillness, spontaneity, or freedom. Karma is momentum. Every action you take builds the momentum of your inner asteroid. You are an asteroid flying through space. You have momentum and inertia.
Karma is the inner momentum of your energy. Instead of trying to hold all these things in your mind, simply be beautiful every time with intention. All you can do is intentionally act with a particular attitude, with a particular intentional principle. Do that over and over, consistently, and you will become different. Then, when you walk, you will naturally be mindful.
When somebody cuts you off in traffic, you will naturally forgive them or want them to go. Go, go, go. You must be in a rush. You will feel from love. There will be a different attitude. You want to move your momentum in a different direction. You want that parabolic orbit to start turning and turning.
Scriptural Foundations of Action
The Bhagavad Gita is a very special book. It says:
“No one can remain, even for a moment, without performing action. All are helplessly made to act by the qualities born of nature.”
“He who sees inaction in action and action in inaction, he is wise among men. He is a yogi, and he is the doer of everything.”
“Perform your prescribed duty, for action is superior to inaction. Even the maintenance of your body cannot be accomplished without action.”
There is no such thing as non-action. Manifestation is action. Transience is action. As long as one is manifest, there is breathing, there is ATP production in muscles, there is evolution.
There is no such thing as non-action, but one can realize transcendental agency. One can observe the great wheel of Dharma as it is, as an expression of cosmic concurrence from moment to moment. It is impossible to renounce action. One must instead seek to see that action occurs of its own accord.
On acting without attachment to fruits, the Bhagavad Gita says:
“You have the right to action alone, never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.”
Actions taken that strengthen the ego with its agenda, the mechanisms of selfhood, produce isolation and separativity. Actions taken with humility, with sincerity, without attachment to the fruits of those actions, but rather as an allowance of the expression of the will of Dharma, acceptance of what is, acceptance of oneself as one is, and the natural actions that can be observed as cosmic transformation and translation, as a true expression of oneself. This is the heart of integrity. This is the door to dispassion. This is the key to liberation.
One must neither be attached to the fruits of their actions nor to inaction, but rather to the results of Dharmic expression. Make it about the state of mind you enter into, not the results of your action, not the fruits circumstantially, but the fruits inwardly. Think of action as offering and sacrifice. I am taking action, but it is sacrifice. I am giving away my attachments.
One is essentially making action an act of devotion, an act of offering, an act of sacrifice. We are sacrificing the center of self, the ego and its mischief, to the faith and trust of our endowment for each moment of what is. Let every action, let every moment, be sacrificed. This is the key to freedom.
Meditation and Inner Absorption
Artists are very good at this. Artists understand that it is how they say the words in the song. It is how they move when they dance. They value an embodiment of an energy. A painter wants to share the energy in the painting. It is not the result, but the act that matters.
Bring your attention to the heart center. Just observe yourself as you are. Rather than having the intention to change, allow yourself.
The eternal side of existence is now and here. Let that eternity radiate. Who you are is now. The actuality, the reality. One can submerge into that, without the reflection, absorbed in the bliss of existence.
Open your heart to radiate from this place of Source, of absorption. Become a benediction to existence by being a channel, a window. Beauty is woven in the fabric of existence itself.
Let go of all your notions of self, past and future. They can only be what they are. In the truth, we are the bliss of existence.
We can uncover that truth. We let all of that encrustation on the soul crack off and reveal that divine, golden truth. We are the bliss of being. We are the bliss of existence. It is our benediction from the universe. We are endowed with that.
The word gospel means the good news. The good news is that we need to do nothing. We just need to reveal our intrinsic nature of wholeness, completeness, divinity, sacredness. That is the gospel, as far as I understand it.
Humility and Silence
Essentially, in humility, we are becoming absorbed in the silence. That is not to say you should not understand yourself or contemplate these things, but it needs some balance. One of the things you can do is observe that a thought comes through. Do not chase the thought. Let it be.
In enlightenment, there are not any answers. We do not care anymore. We become the truth. We become dissolved and absorbed in the truth. We are not really seeking answers because all those formations dissolve back into their essence.
Sometimes you have to navigate the self, so you have to understand the self, but really what you should do is observe. Do not give it so much importance. Humility is kind of like, I am nothing.
Try to become nothing, and then you will become what you are. The Dharma will move through you. Destiny will unfold as a part of you, you as a part of it. You do not need to think so much about it, although contemplation is a part of the practice.
Observe the thoughts. Do not try to stop the thoughts with the thoughts. You will just reinforce them. Observe the thoughts and do not respond to them. Let yourself slow down. Think of it as giant wheels turning with angular momentum.
Stop pushing the wheel. That is all you have to do. It will slow on its own.
If you love the banana, if you love your car door handle, if you love everything that comes to you, you will be better at loving the most important people in your life, the people who need to be loved the most. Let everything be a cute little guy. Personify it. Whatever it takes to open your heart and feel connected.
Full Transcript
Community and the Study of Karma
Adam Wes We're waiting for some more people to show up, so let's just bring our attention to our hearts for a couple moments.
Namaste, everybody. Hi, Sepanta! Nice to see you.
Hi, Sam. Nice to see some new people here. Hi, Brian.
So, namaste. I just want to let everybody know right away, before I forget, we do this every Tuesday at this exact same time.
It's donation-based. The recommended donation is $3 to $33. Even $3 is fine. It's every week, and I invite you guys to join consistently, build the community, build the wavelength. You know, sangha, satsanga, is important because it helps support us in our practice. We live in a world that's not very spiritually focused, for the most part. When you've got a community of people who are studying the teachings together, we support each other psychically, and it's really important to have sangha.
So I invite you to come every week and participate. We've been doing it for some time, but I haven't been promoting it as much until recently. So, namaste. Welcome.
Today, I would love to talk to everybody about something that's a very important part of my practice and very dear to me: karma.
I think we've all heard the word karma before. It's a Sanskrit word. It means action. But it's a deeply complex concept and topic that is extremely integral to spiritual practice and the sentient condition of a human being.
I think it's something that could be taught in elementary school in the detail that we'll be discussing it today. It's also discussed in the Bhagavad Gita, which is the Hindu yoga book of India. I'll even be sharing some commentary I have on what the Bhagavad Gita says about karma.
Really, karma is something that you can start applying in your life today, and you will get instant relief from some of the ways that we suffer because we don't attend to the mechanism of karma.
I actually wrote a 14-page sermon. I can share it with anybody who's interested in reading the whole thing. Thanks, Arielle. Yeah, Arielle, they're getting longer. This one had a lot to include.
Let's get this up.
As you can see, this is quite extensive, but I'm not going to go through it and just read it, because I don't really do that well that way. But I do have an outline here.
Action and the Cultivation of Consciousness
Karma is a Sanskrit word. It means action. Essentially, every time we do something, every action we take has an effect on our state of mind.
If you drive like a crazy person to the store and honk at everybody, you're going to move into a divisive state of mind that's not very happy. But if you're like a Taoist sage and you're driving to the store, completely detached, very graceful, and doing it with all the principles, gentleness, kindness, mindfulness, and all the beautiful spiritual principles, then you generate this state of mind.
You know, I want to see you guys' faces. Why is it so small?
This is an essential way of transforming your consciousness. Every action we take has results. It affects our state of mind. That's just, in essence, what karma is.
All right, so I'll go through the bullet points here.
Oh, nice. All right.
When one is considering karma, we are more interested in the state of mind that results from our actions than the results of our actions. Now, this is a giant transformation in the way we relate to life. Most people are doing things for the results, but if we do things for the state of mind that we enter into as a result of the action, we can become a beautiful state of mind.
For example, I've got a banana peeled. I just ate a banana. What am I going to do with that banana peel? Well, I could mindlessly throw it in the garbage, or I could place it in the garbage with gentleness and gratitude for the sustenance, for the food. Arielle is like, "Yeah, I get what you mean." Yeah, exactly.
This is an opportunity to feel gratitude. It's an opportunity to place it down, not throw it in. How does that transform how you feel when you engage with everything as if it's your beloved, even the banana peel?
The way we do anything is the way we do everything.
If I love the banana peel and I'm gentle with the banana peel, I may be gentle with the most important people in my life because I will embody that gentleness.
Karma is the cultivation of the energy I embody, to make every action a consecration of divine intentionality, to become a more sacred, beautiful, prophet-like individual with every banana peel you throw away, with every bed you make, with every dish you wash, with every right turn or left turn you take in the car.
Carry a thread of integrity through all actions, like a garment woven of principles, the principles that we want to embody.
Now, the fun part about karma, in addition to everything I've said, is that you can bring a collage, a collection of principles that are personal to your predilection. Almost like an artist, you're like, "Okay, well, I want to be graceful," or, "I want to be really austerely mindful." There are all different ways you can weave the way that you take actions into your life.
You get to say, "Well, how do I want to be? How do I want to feel? How do I want to show up in the world?" Not in my actions, but in the way I take my actions, the intention behind the actions.
We've discussed principles in a prior week. Karma is the opportunity to apply all of those principles, particularly the principles that I've outlined as very important for Bhakti, and maybe principles we connect on, which are kindness, positivity, mindfulness, gentleness, and gratitude. Independence is a little different. It doesn't really apply here as much.
So, what are some of the ways that you can not make it about the results of your actions, but about the way that you do those things and the state of mind you get into with those actions?
Karma also has a lot to do with energy work. When you do things, you can pay attention to the astral body. How's your heart chakra? How's your navel center? How's your third eye? You can actually say, "Okay, I'm going to pay attention to the way my heart is evolving, the way the energy of my heart is structured in this moment."
Every action can be an exercise in heart chakra meditation. You can actually strengthen your heart field with every action. How would you do this otherwise? Karma is an opportunity to practice your energy work from moment to moment, not simply during meditations, but between meditations.
To become enlightened, we have to meditate and be mindful. In mindfulness, we apply the principles of karma. That way, when we sit down to meditate, we're not in such a bad karmic state of mind that we can't meditate for an hour. Instead, we go right into light. We go right into blissfulness because we've lived the day that way.
Think of karma as an inner momentum. When we act a certain way, we build an inner momentum that will have its own inertia. It will want to continue, and we'll have to move its direction when we sit down to meditate. So between meditations, be mindful and consider karma, and then your meditations will be more profound.
This takes work, and some of you might say, "Well, this is a lot of work." What you can do is pick one thing you do every day. So, Sean, if you said, "Okay, every time I sit down to eat, I'm going to do it with such consecration, such mindfulness, and I'm going to apply all the principles I can, or maybe one at a time, and eat beautifully."
Eating has been, for me, one of the most important places where I practice karma. I like to eat and give my full attention to my food. I like to eat with gratitude. I like to open my heart, open my third eye. I like to feel the food with my mind.
I like to actually listen to the intelligence that the food embodies. A strawberry knows something about the universe. It is an embodiment of a kind of intelligence. A blueberry knows something else. You can learn from food by listening to the food. You're learning to love your food, to feel grateful for your food, and when you eat, you'll enter into a more beautiful state of mind.
Speech is such an important place to practice karma. When you speak, can you speak from the heart? Can you speak with gentleness? Can you speak in a way that makes you feel the way you want to feel?
I've worked very hard at this. I didn't always speak the way I do. I don't always speak the way I want to speak, but I always try to remember, and I feel the karmic repercussions of how I speak.
My teacher would always say to me, "Instant karmic repercussions." You do something selfish, and you'll immediately feel the instant karmic repercussions.
Now, karma has a colloquial definition we should talk about. If you do something bad, something bad will happen to you, right? That's what it's usually thought of. Really, that's a simplification of a more complex metaphysical phenomenon, and also an exoteric phenomenon, or mundane is what I mean by that.
When you do something kind, you enter into a kind state of mind. Kindness becomes the world you see. You see the world through the lens of who you are, through kindness. Because of that, through synchronicity, you draw kindness into your life. Other people who are resonating on that wavelength will gravitate toward you. You will essentially manifest the result of what you are.
Your actions bring back what you are, what you're becoming. Does that make sense?
Self-Transcendence and Karmic Momentum
There are two categories of karma. There's the karma that is selfish, that strengthens the center of self and separativity, and there's the karma that's self-transcendent, that dissolves the self and makes you unify with the totality.
Really, that's a good way to determine how to do things. When I kiss the banana peel and put it down gently, I feel that I am the banana peel. I'm not exploiting it. It's coming through me, and I'm giving it honor. I'm honoring everything. That's not an action of selfhood. That's an action of self-transcendence. All of karma can be thought of that way.
Any questions? Ariella? Anyone?
I would actually like to add something for anybody that's in the math program. When you study math, it's important to consider karma. If you're studying math, getting all stressed out, your ego is all involved, and you're doing it with harshness and a lack of acceptance, you're generating a state of mind that is not beautiful.
Instead, you can do mathematics with complete self-acceptance, not creating a goal that's causing dissonance in your field, but allowing yourself to discover the mathematics in a state of mind that is without resistance.
"I have this question. I don't know the answer." Wonderful! That's exactly where I should start. The very first thing you should be doing when you ask a math question is not know the answer. You dive into the realm of that abstraction, and you start quantifying related concepts until the answer comes into focus.
No dissipation of energy in resistance. This can act as a formal practice in everything that you do. You sit down and do math that way. You may do other things that way as a result, but you practice it formally.
If somebody feels a lot of anxiety around math, this is an opportunity for you to practice karma and let go of that selfhood. If you were completely humble, Sean, and you didn't think of yourself as important and your math abilities as important, you would just do math, right? It would be a place of safety.
It's kind of fun to say, "Oh, wow, I'm not being humble enough. That's the problem." It's not that I'm not perfect as I am. It's that, as a math person, I'm not loving myself enough in my humility, accepting myself, accepting everyone's abilities in math, not comparing, all of that.
There's also the multi-life aspect of karma. When we incarnate, consider this as something that you can perceive directly and know for yourself, not as a belief system.
When you're born, the world feels a certain way. Every child comes into the world, and they're different. Why are they different? Well, they have different inherited karma. Where did that come from? I would say it came from their past actions and past lives.
Don't make that a dogmatic belief. See if you can remember your past lives. See if you can feel the connection between who you are now and what you've done.
If you've had many lives as a monk, you might come in and be this magical child because you were practicing karma for many lives, being kind, and all these things. It's never too late to evolve your karma, so never feel like, "Oh, my past lives are looming over me," or they're everything. You always have to do it now, right? Now is the opportunity. Now is the time to have a good state of mind and do things beautifully.
All right. I talked a lot. Hi, Ariella!
Ariella Yeah, I have a question. When I sit down and eat, I bless my food that's in front of me, and I bless all food and water everywhere. Is there any part of karma in that?
Adam Wes Absolutely! That is such good karma. What you're doing when you bless it, correct me if I'm wrong, is becoming aware of something with a certain attitude and intention.
It's not always physical actions. It's interactions. In fact, it's more the interactions. The intention is the interaction. You could just sit down and bless your food. That's a very powerful transformation. You are benefiting profoundly because you are moving into a field of gratitude, a field of abundance. You're recognizing that you could ignore your food and be totally entitled to it, right? How are you going to feel if you do that? Not nearly as beautiful.
You are cultivating a beautiful state of mind by doing that. Blessing things is a very, very powerful thing to do. Yeah, absolutely.
Ariella I was guided to bless all food everywhere, and that is very expansive.
Adam Wes Yeah. This is something else I wanted to discuss. There's also the field. We are all connected. Think of it like radio signals, right? When you improve your karma, you touch humanity, and humanity feels that. When you do it in that benevolent way, there's some mechanism. Physics may or may not understand it, but there's something you're doing. You're spreading good vibes, right?
There's a collective karma that we also inherit. Each one of us can move the needle in a more positive direction. We can cultivate our karma collectively, but it's important to recognize that, through association, your karma is also affected.
If you hang out at the temple, where a lot of sincere practitioners are, or at the sangha, you're going to be lifted. Your karma is going to be lifted. If you go into solitude in nature, you can do more with your karma because you're not facing the party line of resistance.
In the world, if you sit down at a restaurant and eat very mindfully and slowly, people might have an attitude about it, especially if you're sharing a meal with people. If you're not efficient enough for the person behind you in line, they might yell at you. I've had people do that to me.
"Why are you taking so long?" I'm like, "Man, I'm just flow, man."
It's important to recognize the pressure from others. One really great thing you can do is read books written by people. Then you're almost, in a way, cultivating your cultural exposure and lifting yourself. It makes your karma easier.
Hi, Brian!
Bryan V Hey, Adam. You mentioned this idea of loving yourself in your own humility?
Adam Wes I really like that.
Bryan V I appreciate that a lot. I think I'm just trying to connect different pieces in my life, and sometimes I feel like I journal too much, or I write little things down as a reminder. I don't know if that's just an ADHD brain, but then you say you have to embody that idea in every small action of your life, whether it's eating a banana, being in line at the grocery store, or with math, being able to accept humility and know that you don't know anything, and that's okay. That's a good starting point.
For someone who's trying to build a good practice of meditating daily, or I don't walk and I haven't really walked in a while, little things like that, how do you balance all of that in your head? A mental bottleneck builds up. Is that where meditation comes in? When you reach that point, is it good to pause and meditate? Is that the gentle aspect you're talking about? Or do I have to remind myself in a mantra? It seems like there are a lot of ways to do this, what you're saying.
Adam Wes You don't need to hold a whole bunch of things in your head, right? That activity is not the activity of stillness, of spontaneity, of freedom.
Karma is momentum. Think of it like this: every action you take will build. This is a really good question, Brian. Every action you take builds the momentum of your inner asteroid.
You're an asteroid flying through space, right? You've got momentum and you've got inertia. Now we're really talking about physics because Jacob showed up. Jacob's a grad school physicist. He just got done teaching a bunch of undergrad students physics.
Karma, Jacob and Brian, is the inner momentum of your energy. Instead of trying to hold all these things in your mind, simply be beautiful every time with intention. All you can do is intentionally do it with a particular attitude, with a particular intentional principle.
Do that over and over and over, consistently, and you will just become different. Then, when you walk, you will naturally be mindful.
When somebody cuts you off in traffic, you'll naturally forgive them, or want them to go, "Go, go, go. You must be in a rush," right? You'll feel from love. There'll be a different attitude.
You want to move your momentum in a different direction. You want that parabolic orbit to start turning and turning, right, Jacob?
All right. Yeah, you're welcome. Namaste. Good questions.
How about you, Sepanta? That's so nice to see Sepanta. Sepanta's got such great energy. See, I think Sepanta has really good karma. He's lived his life. Look, we're going to make Sepanta the center now. Look at his face.
Look how pure he is! Look how beautiful that face is. Good energy. Now, how did he get like that? I would argue that you've taken a lot of beautiful karmic steps, and those karmic repercussions are embodied not only in your energy but in your physicality.
I could do that for everybody here, of course, but I'm looking at Sepanta, and every time I see Sepanta, I see him glowing. His countenance is glowing.
Sepanta M Thank you so much. I think it's because of the light that is received here.
Adam Wes You're right. Never mind. It was just the window. I take it back.
Sepanta, do you have anything to add? Then we'll start our meditation.
Sepanta M I'm just enjoying, and it's amazing. I'm thinking deeply about everything that you're saying and about the conversations that you have with other people. I got very, very good information. I'm so appreciative. Thank you.
Adam Wes You're welcome. Thanks for being here. Thanks for holding the wavelength with us of the importance of karma. It's hard to do it by yourself. It really is.
Scriptural Foundations of Action
Just one more thing before we get started. I want to look at the Bhagavad Gita for a moment.
The Bhagavad Gita is a very special book. I have four different things from the Bhagavad Gita. Here you can see an actual quote from the Bhagavad Gita:
"No one can remain, even for a moment, without performing action. All are helplessly made to act by the qualities born of nature."
It's a very cosmic book, very philosophical.
"He who sees inaction in action and action in inaction, he is wise among men. He is a yogi, and he is the doer of everything."
"Perform your prescribed duty, for action is superior to inaction. Even the maintenance of your body cannot be accomplished without action."
Here's some commentary. There is no such thing as non-action. Manifestation is action. Transience is action. As long as one is manifest, there is breathing, there is ATP production in muscles, there is evolution.
There's no such thing as non-action, but one can realize transcendental agency. One can observe the great wheel of Dharma as it is, as an expression of cosmic concurrence from moment to moment. It is impossible to renounce action. One must instead seek to see that action occurs of its own accord.
I'll just go quickly, maybe read one of these. Acting without attachment to fruits:
"You have the right to action alone, never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction."
What I said is: actions taken that strengthen the ego with its agenda, the mechanisms of selfhood, produce isolation and separativity. Actions taken with humility, with sincerity, without attachment to the fruits of those actions, but rather as an allowance of the expression of the will of Dharma, acceptance of what is, acceptance of oneself as one is, and the natural actions that can be observed as cosmic transformation and translation, as a true expression of oneself. This is the heart of integrity. This is the door to dispassion. This is the key to liberation.
One must neither be attached to the fruits of their actions nor to inaction, but rather to the results of Dharmic expression.
That was a lot. Essentially, what I was saying is: make it about the state of mind you enter into, not the results of your action, not the fruits circumstantially, but the fruits inwardly.
Right? So, Sepanta did something nice for somebody today. Did he get anything in return? Not really, except for a beautiful smile and a beautiful state of mind, right? Did he do it for the fruits of his actions? This is a part of karma yoga.
I'm not going to do the next ones because we have to get going. But think of action as offering and sacrifice. That's an interesting thing. I'm taking action, but it's sacrifice. I'm giving away my attachments. That's a very, very beautiful thing.
In fact, that's so beautiful, I just have to say: one is essentially making action an act of devotion, an act of offering, an act of sacrifice. We are sacrificing the center of self, the ego and its mischief, to the faith and trust of our endowment for each moment of what is. Let every action, let every moment, be sacrificed. This is the key to freedom.
I won't read the equanimity section. In this document, there are some practices you can have, so I can share this with everybody.
All right. Lots to cover. We could do a whole course on karma. We could have a whole week of discussing karma. I've studied karma for 14 years, basically, so it's a very important part of my life.
Any questions? Namaste. Wonderful.
Meditation and Inner Absorption
All right, let's play some music.
You know, I think artists are very good at this. Artists say, "It's how I say those words in the song. It's how I move when I dance." They value an embodiment of an energy. Artists are very good about that.
Even a painter, right? "How do I feel? I want to share the energy in my painting." It's not the result, but it's the act that matters.
That was about 30 minutes. I try to keep it to 30 minutes. Let's have a 20 to 30-minute meditation, and we can revel in the energy of good karma that we have built up.
Bring your attention to the heart center.
Just observe yourself as you are.
Rather than having the intention to change, allow yourself.
The eternal side of existence is now and here.
Let that eternity radiate.
Beautiful.
Who you are is now.
The actuality, the reality.
One can submerge into that, without the reflection, absorbed in the bliss of existence.
Open your hearts to radiate from this place of Source, of absorption.
Become a benediction to existence by being a channel, a window.
We'll do one more song. Give your all to this meditation.
Beauty woven in the fabric of existence itself.
Let go of all your notions of self, past and future.
They can only be what they are.
Thank you, God.
In the truth, we are the bliss of existence.
Bring your attention to the heart center.
When you're ready, you can come out of the meditation.
Namaste.
Colleen, Mom, would you like to share?
Colleen Grateful for you, Adam. Thank you.
Adam Wes What did you say?
Colleen I'm grateful for you.
Adam Wes Oh, I'm more grateful for you.
Colleen I enjoyed the talk on karma, and I'm going to try to embody it more. The minute you say, "Meditation," I can hear you talking, but I don't hear what you're saying. I'm not sure if anybody else had a sound issue. I think it's just me going into this space.
Adam Wes Perfect. That's what we're supposed to do. Did you see any light? Any magical experiences?
Colleen I did.
Adam Wes Do you want to share?
Colleen Orange, red, and purple.
Adam Wes You actually saw this light.
Colleen Not imaginative.
Adam Wes Beautiful. I know that. I'm just saying that for everybody else. Orange, red, and purple. That's new for you, or the orange?
Colleen Orange is new, yeah.
Adam Wes How about any astral experiences? Any shapes?
Colleen I just go right into whatever it is, a deep state. It's not sleep, but something.
Adam Wes Absorption.
Colleen A different level of something.
Adam Wes Beautiful. Namaste, Mom.
Colleen Thank you. Namaste, Adam.
Adam Wes How about you, Ariella?
Ariella Yeah, awesome. I went into a deep state. At the end, when you said, "The bliss of existence," you said it so beautifully.
Adam Wes Right? Are we not that? We can uncover that truth. We let all of that encrustation on the soul crack off and reveal that divine, golden truth. We are the bliss of being. We're the bliss of existence.
It's our benediction from the universe. We are endowed with that. The word gospel actually means that, as far as I understand. Gospel means the good news.
The good news is that we need to do nothing. We just need to reveal our intrinsic nature of wholeness, completeness, divinity, sacredness. That's the gospel, as far as I understand it.
Ariella I know that. Thank you.
Adam Wes Did you have a nice absorption or a yin dissolution again? A kensho experience? Sounds like maybe. Yeah? Beautiful.
She goes into kensho. Kensho is a glimpse of enlightenment. I think, Mom, you did that too, like last time.
Well, namaste, Ariella.
Ariella Thank you. I need to leave. I've got another thing to do.
Adam Wes Sure, we'll see you next time. Thank you. I'll send you everything.
Ariella Oh, please. Thank you.
Community Resources and Shared Experiences
Adam Wes Before you leave, I would just like to very quickly show everyone that if you go to my website and click on "More," this is the page for the meditations.
If anybody wants to make a donation, $3 to $33 is the recommendation. You can do it right here. I greatly appreciate it. It supports us, and it's nice for the energy exchange.
Another thing I wanted to share is that I'd like to start sharing the videos for these, the recordings, and also the sermon document on Circle. Circle is a community app platform. There's a free community space and resources. If you click here, you can sign up for the space. There's group chat and all kinds of things here, and it's free.
There are different sections. There's a free section if you click that link. Under "More," click "Free Community Space and Resources." If you join this, it's a really great way for us to stay connected. Then we can support the practice midweek between these meditations.
Ariella Thank you, thank you.
Adam Wes You're welcome. All right, Arielle, I'll see you next time.
I'd love to hear from Sam, actually. Hi, Sam. I hardly see Sam. Then we'll get to Brian.
Good, nice to see you! Thanks for joining. Did you have a good meditation?
Eslam O It was amazing. It was wonderful. It was a whole trip for me. I got to swim in the ocean of my being, and I got to see myself in so many different configurations.
I came back with so much knowledge, with thousands of years' worth of knowledge. I feel like my heart is expanded. I felt this so much more today. I'm like, "I can do that. I'm capable of that." And I'm like, "Okay, amazing."
Adam Wes Oh my gosh, beautiful to hear. Wonderful. Thanks for joining, and please come again. You're welcome to join.
Namaste, Sam. Thank you. How about you, Jacob? I'm going to let Jacob go. Jacob's extremely busy, but he made it anyway. Thank you.
Jacob Thank you, Adam. Thank you, everyone, for your very peaceful, energetic energy. It really healed and filled my soul here today. Thank you.
Adam Wes Namaste, thank you.
Jacob One small thing I'd like to add.
Adam Wes Yeah.
Jacob When I go into these meditations, I imagine myself in third person, and I feel like I'm zooming out from my position right now into outer space, very incrementally. It feels very fulfilling, and I feel so complete.
Adam Wes Oh, beautiful. Sounds like you're doing some astral work there. You might actually be doing it energetically more than imagining, even, so it's good to contemplate that. Namaste, Jacob. Nice to see you.
How about you, Brian?
Bryan V How do I describe it? This is more of a practical question, or maybe a technical question, about how you do this, or how other people in the community have experienced this type of meditation.
Just for my own familiarity, because I'm trying to develop this for myself, it's been really impactful. What kind of meditation would we call this? What kind of practice? I had some interesting things come about, which I'd like to share, just to orient myself. What is this called?
Adam Wes I've coined a term, Bhakti mysticism. It's an integration of Bhakti yoga and mysticism, or Raja Yoga.
The energetic light aspect of it is Raja Yoga, or mysticism. The heart-centered devotional love aspect of it is Bhakti yoga. I guess that would be an appropriate description. It's kind of unique.
It also comes from a Tantric lineage. My lineage comes from Tibet, Tibetan Tantra as well, so there's an element there.
Bryan V I find it very fascinating because I just googled a bit of what Bhakti meant before this. It seems like the Hindu traditions are very all-encompassing, and they don't really discriminate on one, at least from what I read. People have different ways of interpreting things, or how to get to enlightenment, which, for me, reinforces that aspect of humility.
I really value that in what you're doing, and I really appreciate what you're doing. While we were doing this practice, I did see or imagine a white, very intense light.
I also got some kind of textual, or more verbal, input. I don't know where it comes from, or if it comes from my brain. It was interesting. It just kept saying, "Adapt to humility," or, "Embody humility," and, in a way, patience.
Then you said that we are the actualizing reality that creates the world. I believe that's how you said it?
Then there was a feeling of negativity, which I found interesting because there was a point where I felt very positive. I think what I heard was that the negative aspect might have been, not a burden, but a sort of weight of responsibility in allowing myself to sit with myself and whatever's coming in.
I've always had a pretty visual, active mind. Having an inner dialogue is something that's developed more in the last 10 years of my life. I don't know if that's just growing up bilingual, or just growing up and coming of age, but I find that interesting.
Adam Wes I want to share a reflection with you. Notice how it feels, the way you've been speaking. A lot of ideas came through very quickly, right? "I'm bilingual, I have..." A lot of ideas of yourself.
Essentially, in humility, we're becoming absorbed in the silence. That's not to say you shouldn't understand yourself or contemplate these things, but it needs some balance, right?
One of the things you can do is observe that a thought comes through. Don't chase the thought. Let it be.
In enlightenment, there aren't any answers. We don't care anymore. We become the truth. We become dissolved and absorbed in the truth. We're not really seeking answers because all those formations dissolve back into their essence.
Bryan V Hmm.
Adam Wes Sometimes you have to navigate the self, so you have to understand the self, but really what you should do is observe. Don't give it so much importance, right? Humility is kind of like, "I am nothing."
Try to become nothing, and then you'll become what you are. The Dharma will move through you. Destiny will unfold as a part of you, you as a part of it.
You don't need to think so much about it, although contemplation is a part of the practice.
I noticed a little bit of a disconnection when you were sharing from that blissfulness, right? We want you to feel that part and that blissfulness. One way you could do it is just observe the thoughts. Don't try to stop the thoughts with the thoughts. You'll just reinforce them. Observe the thoughts and don't respond to them.
Let yourself slow down. Think of it as giant wheels turning with angular momentum.
Bryan V Oh, yeah.
Adam Wes Stop pushing the wheel. That's all you have to do. It will slow on its own.
Bryan V I love that.
Adam Wes Beautiful. I just want you to feel the bliss and the peace, right? Then you can also contemplate, which is important.
Brian, namaste. Thank you.
Bryan V Thank you so much.
Adam Wes You're welcome.
All right, if Jenna or Colin want to share, you're welcome to. If you don't want to, just keep your thing off. That's fine too.
Jenna W I'll just quickly say thank you. I liked what you spoke about at the beginning. It made me think of how we're in such a fast-paced world. To have appreciation for the banana, or treat the banana as you are, is to be mindful and present. Creating spaces like this is helping people do that, so thank you.
Adam Wes You're welcome, Jenna.
Jenna W Appreciate it.
Adam Wes I like that you liked that part.
If you love the banana, if you love your car door handle, if you love, love, love, love everything that comes to you, you'll be better at loving the most important people in your life, the people who need to be loved the most, right?
Let everything be a cute little guy. My headphones. I love your headphones, right? Thank you, little guys. Personify them. I don't know, whatever it takes to open your heart and feel connected.
All right, namaste, everybody. Thank you for staying. I'll see you next time. Bye!