{"id":8795,"date":"2017-02-11T05:45:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T10:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newvinegrowing.wordpress.com\/?p=8795"},"modified":"2022-06-15T11:28:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T15:28:27","slug":"the-law-of-karma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/the-law-of-karma\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: #3, The law of karma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deepak Chopra<\/a>\u2018s book, \u201cThe Seven Spiritual Laws of Success<\/a>,\u201d has been such a touchstone for me that I\u2019m writing about each of the seven laws over the coming weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Law of Karma<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Bumper stickers like “My karma ran over your dogma” and “Karma’s a bitch” are common. One of the numerous variations on a theme I found. This one is available on Amazon: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Karmas-Bitch-But-Like-Her\/dp\/B01IUMF5R2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Karma is the law of cause and effect \u2014 like the old saying, what you sow is what you reap.
\nIn this chapter on the law of karma<\/a>, Deepak Chopra says\u00a0everything that is happening in this moment is the result of the choices we’ve made in the past.<\/strong>
\nI’ve struggled with this idea in the past. It felt both unrealistic, like naive exhortations that “Any kid can grow up to be president!”and punitive, blaming someone for being born into terrible circumstances.
\nMy take has evolved, though. A black girl born in the south in the 1930s had a very different starting point from a white boy born to parents with wealth and influence … well, anywhere and any time … but then based on the initial advantages or disadvantages you were dealt, and the resources you did or didn’t have available, what choices did you make? What did you do to make the most of where you began?
\nKarma isn’t a cosmic judge punishing you for bad behavior. It’s conscious choice making and accepting the consequences for your choices.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You choose how you react to people and circumstances<\/h2>\n

\"seven-spiritual-laws\"Do you get furious when you’re stuck in traffic, irritated by your neighbor or dejected by criticism from your boss?
\nMost of us have repetitious and predictable responses to our environments and we forget we have a choice about whether and how we react, Chopra says. We don’t have to have a Pavlovian response<\/a> to the outside world.
\nFor example, are you offended by an insult or flattered by a compliment? Those are understandable\u00a0choices, but they’re choices. You don’t need to react at all.
\n“If you step back for a moment and witness the choices you are making as you make those choices, then in fact in just this act of witnessing, you take the whole process from the unconscious realm to the conscious realm,” Chopra says.<\/strong>
\nMy husband, John, and I have been doing the Headspace guided meditation<\/a> series on anxiety and one of the techniques for dealing with anxiety, and thoughts in general, is to simply note\u00a0them<\/a>. There’s a thought, it’s negative.\u00a0I’ve\u00a0heard similar advice for labeling emotion<\/a>: observing it and deciding what to call it.
\nI think in both cases, the goal is to become conscious of what I’m thinking or feeling, so I can decide if that’s how I want to continue to feel.<\/p>\n

Trust your heart and your gut when you choose<\/h2>\n

To make a good choice, Chopra suggests\u00a0listening to your body. What do you feel in your belly or heart? Do you feel comfort or is something telling you no?<\/strong>
\nWhen you make a choice, ask yourself what the consequences are and whether this choice will bring happiness to you and those around you.
\nI find it helpful to think\u00a0about a decision in the past tense. My wise\u00a0career coach Kim Ann Curtin<\/a> taught me this technique. Sometimes when a fork in the road is in the future, I can get caught in my head, making endless lists of pros and cons. But years ago, when I had a significant job choice to make, Kim suggested I imagine it’s the moments after I’ve hung up the phone and either accepted or turned down the position. It was astonishing how quickly my stomach gave me the answer!
\nListening to your body can create happiness for you and those around you by guiding you to the right choice, Chopra says. He’s even firmer than that, saying there’s one right choice.<\/strong>
\nI read an article years ago, that I’ve sadly not been able to find, that said instead of stressing so much about making the single best\u00a0choice, we should put more effort into making the choice we made work for us.
\nI don’t believe\u00a0there’s only one true love for each person, or that there’s only one job, one house, one way to deal with your family … I absolutely believe that some choices are better than others, and my body knows which ones they are, but I also believe we can make multiple choices successful if we choose to.\u00a0I don’t want the pressure of searching for one perfect answer. I’m more comfortable accepting that I’ll make a good choice given the information I have available now, and I’ll adjust course as needed<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your past informs your present choices, which create your future<\/h2>\n

“You future is generated by the choices you are making in every moment of your life,” Chopra says.
\nChopra points out this cycle: You take an action, which creates a memory, which can generate desire, which triggers action again.<\/strong>
\nI love to eat and drink, so here’s an example: I eat the delicious mushroom macaroni and cheese at Atlantic Chip Chop<\/a>, which creates a memory of the deliciousness, so I want to eat more.
\nConversely, I resisted green smoothies because I didn’t have a memory of liking them.\u00a0No memory, no desire, no action. Then I actually tried smoothies<\/a>, realized I love them, and created a loop of action-memory-desire-action.
\nI take this as a caution about choice making. Memories are\u00a0limited by my past, so unless I only want to relive my life thus far on a loop, I need to push myself to choose the unfamiliar to build new desires. <\/strong>Try it, you’ll like it.<\/p>\n

Dealing with karmic debts<\/h2>\n

We sometimes make bad choices, which can hurt others or ourselves. This is negative cause and effect. If we’ve created karmic debt<\/a>, we have three choices:<\/p>\n