Gurudeva’s Toolbox for a Spiritual Life

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Wishing your karma was better?

The wise never blame God, for they know misfortune to be the return of man’s self-created karmas, difficult but necessary experiences for his spiritual evolution. Whenever we are injured or hurt, we understand that our suffering is but the fulfillment of a karma we once initiated, for which our injurer is but the instrument who, when his karma cycles around, will be the injured. §

If you take responsibility for all that happens to you, then you will have the power to deal with your karma through the grace of Lord Siva. He will give you the intelligence to deal with it as you worship Him in the Siva temple, contact Him within as the Life of your life and find Him in meditation. Let’s take an example. Say I am holding a plate of rice and curry and I pass it to you. All of a sudden the plate drops on the floor between us. I blame you, and you blame me. I don’t want to be responsible for dropping the rice and curry, and you don’t want to be responsible either. So, we blame each other. The rice and curry is scattered there on the floor. No one is going to clean it up until one of us takes responsibility and says, “I’m sorry I dropped the plate of rice and curry,” and gets down on hands and knees and cleans it up. In the same way, only by taking responsibility, by recognizing what we have done as our own doing, can we begin cleaning up the results of our actions. Those who do take responsibility for their own karma have all the help in the world. §

The sages say, “Bear your karma cheerfully.” Each time you blame another person for what has happened to you, or cast blame in any way, tell yourself, “This is my karma which I was born to face. I did not come into a physical body just to blame others for what happens to me. I was not born to live in a state of ignorance created by an inability to face my karma. I came here to spiritually unfold, to accept the karmas of this and all my past lives and to deal with them and handle them in a proper and a wonderful way.” Then a sense of strength will come up within you, a sense of independence and peace. Mental arguments will stop. Arrogance will vanish.

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MORE TOOLS FOR
FACING KARMAS
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  • Accept all your experiences, good and otherwise, as the result of your own karmas in this and past lives.

  • Avoid blaming others and instead take responsibility.

  • Express gratitude for all that you have in life. Be thankful for the simple blessings that fill each day.