My experiments with Karma

I have been doing a lot of thinking around the concept of 'Karma'. Its really 'Karm' (कर्म) but the 'a' at the end is appended when an Indian word becomes widely used and popular in the west, like with 'Yoga' (really 'Yog').

As a child, growing up in India, one encounters this word just about everywhere, be it sunday morning Mahabharat on Doordarshan that taught me that most famous line from the Gita ('Karm kiye ja, Phal ki iccha na Kar' ), or those morning school assembly songs and of course those mandatory MI/MS (Moral Instruction/Moral Science) classes at school. Even the odd Bollywood film preached Karm.

But of course as a child I had filed Karm at the back of my mind somewhere, together with all the other good stuff I was taught.

Surprisingly, it is in the last couple of years, that I have been drawn to this concept, almost by an invisible force. There is something very attractive about Karm, I think the attraction lies in how simple and easy it is to understand Karm, yet how hard it is to practice it in one's everyday life.

I have started an experiment. If all the bad deeds I do and all the bad thoughts I think are indeed bouncing off the cosmos somewhere and coming back to me, then applying Karma, I should be able to stop this recurring ricochet.

So bit by bit, one thought at a time, one deed at a time, if I was to keep adding to the good Karm scales, all the while making those bad Karm scales lighter and lighter, I should start to feel and see the effects of my experiment in my everyday life.

With any bit of luck, I may not get that Flu this year. :-)