We are sent into this life with many things to work out. Some traditions call it Karma, translated precisely by Thomas Húbl as “an overwhelming or postponed experience that creates a chain of cause and effect in the future.” Whatever it may be for you, it is clear that you have a specific composition of characteristics and qualities from your lineage. Hence, you are predisposed to certain thought patterns and behaviors.
Not only this, prior to the impact of our lineage, we are predisposed to the collective body-mind. Meaning, we come in with millions of years of data informing how we relate to the world. Some of this data is useful. Some not. However, all of it is intelligent – i.e. there’s a reason for it all.
You are a fundamental part of evolution. The information transferred from generation to generation is how life has developed to host more complexity. So, just through your existence, you are part of creating the next stage of development. This means that part of the reason you are here is to find out what processes in you are outdated and to update them.
Therefore, your soul is both the thing that incarnated here to be updated and the power to update itself. I say this because the specific karmic makeup you have – the family, culture, time period, and other conditions you were born into – has a huge weight on how you perceive and interact with the world. And these conditions are necessary for your soul’s development.
At the same time, your soul is also the power that can integrate all of your experiences because it is energy, or light, that can transform darkness, or postponed experience. The light of the soul is the catalyst for change.
Any transformation we have is due to seeing clearly. In other words, infusing the unconscious with light. Placing awareness on what is stuck so that it starts to melt. Through this, we onboard frozen layers of development and free the energy that was used for the pattern to persist.
Thus, we take care of what keeps us re-experiencing the past and expand into the future, which is a more integrated state than the one we are currently in. More connected and aligned with the wisdom and power of the soul. Hence, the more we transform our karma, the more access we have to the soul as a resource and we can bring that resource into our life.
Transforming karma creates a flywheel effect. The more we become aware of unconscious processes, the more energy comes into our life to use creatively. However, this compounding does not necessarily mean that our life looks better. There’s a false notion that the better our life looks the more spiritually developed we are. This is a highly inaccurate representation of the path, in my opinion, and if someone is selling you this run the other way.
On the contrary, our practice often brings us into contact with many of the ways life has been incoherent all along. It may be painful to consciously experience what has been happening unconsciously for many years. But this is an essential step in the transformation of unprocessed energy.
This is one of the ways it might look like we’re still stuck if we don’t pay close enough attention. If we have an idea of what life is supposed to look like when we have healed, the subtlety of the process is missed. Then, we may find ourselves saying “I thought I already worked through this!”
In the end, only the person within the process can truly know about their progress. Yes, the outer world has its reflections that can show us our progress. We shouldn’t completely dismiss them. What’s more important though, is that we witness our relation to the world.
Constancy of relation is what starts to flow more as we transform. Even in the challenges we face, we are resourced enough to handle and even stay connected to them. So life doesn’t become effortless because it’s easier, it becomes effortless because we are less reactive to our circumstances. The past no longer travels so much with us into the present moment.
Like this, we embrace the challenges as a part of the path and slowly manifest our soul in the world. What we are here to do becomes self-evident. Living in our purpose is natural and without question. Our resource starts to extend to the people and communities around us, supporting those in need.
Eventually, it seems that we get to a place where our purpose is a living service project. We get massive amounts of energy from it, but so do others. This is what the traditions call Karma Yoga. I believe that we are all on a Karma Yoga path by bringing our purpose to life. By purpose, I of course refer to a vocation but moreover, embodying the soul. The prior manifests as an effect of the latter.
“Your problems are not in the way, they ARE the way.”
For me, this is a difficult statement to live by. Especially in a culture that emphasizes progress and is always looking toward the horizon, at the potential. Maybe we’re so lost and disembodied because we are looking too far into the distance. Maybe if we saw that our path was also right here and not just the future we arrive at, we would have an easier time seeing what we are here to do.
The most challenging practice of the (post) modern times, as I see it, is to give ourselves to how things are. Yes, there’s a higher potential. Yes, we can most likely feel it. Yes, it most likely feels more expansive than the current state we are in. But how would we ever get there if not through this moment?
The future is nothing but an ideal if we are not willing to live and experience what’s here. The soul is both the resource we can use to move toward the future we intuit and the future itself. The path is not-two.
There’s a great verse in the Tao Te Ching that sums all of this up in the eloquent, concise, and simple way Lao Tzu always does. The TLDR, if you will:
“Act without doing;
work without effort.
Think of the small as the large
and the few as many.
Confront the difficult
while it is still easy;
Accomplish the great task
by a series of small acts.
The Master never reaches for the great;
thus she achieves greatness.
When she runs into a difficulty,
she stops and gives herself to it.
She doesn’t cling to her own comfort;
thus problems are no problem for her.”