When you think of the word “karma,” what feelings come to mind? For many people, it evokes a sense of worry, perhaps even dread. In many popular understandings, karma refers to the idea that past mistakes or misdeeds will come back to haunt us one day, and they may even affect our present or future chances for happiness. We might imagine it primarily as a sort of cosmic mechanism for punishment. But unfortunately, thinking of karma in those terms may make it seem more like a looming threat than a possibility for growth or liberation.
But what if that understanding of karma is inaccurate or even misguided? Is there a more nuanced way to think of it, and if so, how? If karma is indeed some kind of record of our past actions, then perhaps it is linked in some way to memory. If so, then what, if anything, is the relationship between karma and memory? Similarly, we might also ask how we become the way we are, and what are the roles of memory and karma in that process? Sadhguru elaborates:
“See I want you to understand, everything in your life is run by memory. Not just your computer stick, everything in your life. When I say memory, it’s not just what you carry here, your very body is a body of memory. Why, if you eat a banana, it becomes a masculine body and if she eats a banana, it becomes a feminine body, is simply because of the memory that it contains, isn’t it? The information that is stored in this body and that body is different. Same banana, it becomes a man; same banana, it becomes a woman.”
“Do you remember your great great great great great grandfather? You don’t but his nose is sitting on your face. Your body remembers, isn’t it? You may not have no idea who it was but your body remembers even today. A million years ago how your forefathers were, still it remembers, isn’t it? So what you call as my body is just a body of memory.”
He continues: “This is what traditionally we are referring to as karma. It is there in your body, it is there in your energies, it is there in the way your chemical reactions happen, it is there in your brain, it is there in your mind, it is there in everything. In the very physical energy that you carry, there is memory because you will see each person’s energies behave differently from the other simply because of the type of memory it carries.”
“So this process of what we’re looking at is, the memory imprints itself on all levels right up to the elemental level. From the five elements which function here, from just after that memory’s work starts. So when we uttered the word karma, it is not one simple formula or it’s not …you know people are saying theory of karma; we are not talking about any theory. We are referring to a certain reality. Karma means memory – action and memory. Past action exists only in the form of memory. Isn’t it so? Yes? Memory is not just what you carry here; every cell in the body carries its own memory. Why one atom behaves differently from another atom though the same ingredients is, it has a memory. A hydrogen atom has one kind of memory, oxygen atom has another kind of memory – unless you mix them up, they will continue to behave like that. It is in a small circle, you are in a little larger circle; the universe is in a much larger circle but the same memory rules all of it.
So when we said karma, we are not talking about some concept or philosophy, we are referring to a certain reality which is finding manifestation as who you are. The very shape of your body is because of memory. If a bird eats a mango, it becomes a bird; if a worm eats a mango, it becomes a worm; if you eat a mango, you become a human being. Same mango, how many things it’s doing, depending upon what kind of memory it carries, isn’t it?”
“In the same soil if you plant an apple seed and a mango seed, this will only produce apples, this will only produce mangoes because seed is a certain amount of memory, isn’t it? Whether it is a seed of a plant or your father’s seed which entered your mother’s womb, it is just memory and memory and memory. Isn’t it so? This is karma and this goes right back. Right up to the elemental level, everything is memory. Only the pure element is free from memory.”
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