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How to free yourself of karma

Please also read:
Is there karma?
What is God's work?

The law of karma is just: we do one action and we get one equal reaction, as adjusted according to time, place and person. We humans, however, have a tendency to feel guilty about our actions and thus repeatedly punish ourselves emotionally through our negative thinking. Guilt is not what we’re talking about here at all. The law of karma is precise, and its ultimate intention is not to punish but to teach, or rather re-experience the Divine Being Who we intrinsically are. In essence, the universe is God studying Himself, and you are God learning to be God.

One can look at a sam’ska’ra (reaction in potentiality) influencing the mind in this way: the mind is like a volleyball, which has a characteristic tendency to come back to its natural round state. The impressions in this ball, created when someone hits it, are like the karmic impressions on the human mind waiting to be expressed. The mind has a natural tendency to be pure and whole, as the volleyball has a natural tendency to be round. That is why expression of each of your sam’ska’ras is guided by your soul’s desire for its own welfare—the wish to be whole and pure again.

Let us compare the sam’ska’ras present in the mind to the water in a swimming pool. If you want to empty the pool, you need to, on one hand, close the inlet that brings the water into the pool, and on the other hand, open the drain so the water will go out. In other words, to rid yourself of karma, you need to, on one hand, stop creating karma, and, on the other hand, release it. It should be noted that is more important to stop creating sam’ska’ras because karma will find expression even if you are not making a special effort to do so—human beings who significantly slow or completely stop the creation of karma will sooner or later become free of it altogether.

(There is another way to get the water out of the swimming pool of karma—a thoroughly tantric way. But we will reserve the talk about blowing the water out of the pool for a later time.)

How to stop accumulating karma.

1. Offer the results of your actions to God—you have no control over results anyway. In other words, become disinterested in the results of your actions.

2. Do not be proud of the actions themselves. In other words, do not be emotionally involved in your actions. If you are proud of your action, it shows that you are still the owner of the action.

3. Become an instrument of the Divine. Let the Supreme work through you, use you as Its willing agent. In other words, stop acting—let God act through you. This way, karma, which is always being formed as a result of any action, will go to God, who can handle it, not to you.

How to accelerate release of karma.

In order for the expression of a sam’ska’ra to take place, it must first surface from the unconscious mind. This happens only in the state of temporary suspension of the mind, which happens during death, coma or deep meditation. The first, naturally, is not practical. The second is painful and dangerous. The third is safe, practical and relatively simple. (Incidentally, most people have to wait until their next incarnations for their sam’ska’ras to express themselves because they do experience coma frequently and do not meditate.)

Meditation, among its other functions, slows the mind down for a period, which results in some amount of karma being released to the surface for expression. In fact, it is a self-regulating process: when your mind is undisturbed, your meditation will be deep and mental suspension close to total. This will let some karma out, which will disturb the mind with some positive or negative event. Consequently, your meditation will no longer be deep, which will slow the expression of sam’ska’ras and allow you to rest, so that once more your mind will be calm and ready for another round of deep meditation.

Thus, meditators always have interesting, full and certainly not boring lives. Something is happening all the time as their karma gradually unfold due to their spiritual efforts. This is the main benefit of meditation and the best indication that you are doing your meditation properly. Indeed, this is what the spiritual path is about.

Meditation not only accelerates the expression of karma, but it also encourages the realization that ultimately God controls everything, thus helping the pratitioner become His instrument, which is the only way not to create new sam’ska’ras. Indeed, the process of freeing yourself of karma, contemplative practice (meditation) and the spiritual path are all one—all three lead to one and the same end result.

— Anatole