As the world is swept by the collective karma of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that you become aware of the different aspects of karma, and how these aspects play out in your life and the lives of others. The use of seed thoughts, ideas upon which you can meditate and gain insight and wisdom, is one of the varieties of reflective meditation. As you understand how karma operates, you can begin to work with it to change your personal destiny through controlling your thoughts, words, and deeds; as you use a transformational method that transmutes and dissolves your stored karma in your unconscious mind, your Soul moves along its spiritual evolutionary track towards its source and you fulfill the Purpose and Plan for which your Soul was sent forth into Creation.
By George A. Boyd © 2003, updated 2020
Q: Is this pandemic we are experiencing at this time punishment for our collective greed and selfishness?
A: It is important to get beyond simplistic notions of karma and gain a more complete and comprehensive understanding of what karma is and how it operates.
In order to gain a fuller understanding of what karma is and what is its action, it is recommended that you do reflective meditation on the following 17 seed thoughts, which will elucidate the operation of karma.
- Transmutation of karma – karma is dissolved into pure light: the dissolution of karma is the result of the descent of the Spirit through the Grace Bestowing Power of the Divine, through transformational methods, and through living through destiny karma in your life.
- Balancing of karma – equalizing of positive and negative aspects of desire, balancing of aversion and attraction to create detachment (Vairagya) and equanimity.
- Creation of karma – formation of desire seeds that lay dormant until they ripen into manifestation in the unconscious mind.
- Manifestation of karma – the nidana chain, the sequence of cause and effect that leads to birth and death.
- Law of reward – good karma that leads to positive situations and life circumstances: wealth, beauty, health, success, fame, power, virtuous conduct, positive family life, and positive afterlife.
- Law of retribution – bad karma that leads to negative situations and life circumstances: poverty, deformity, illness, failure, rejection, victimization, crime and addiction, negative family life; and tormented afterlife.
- Law of cause and effect – each cause has an irrevocable change on the universe, the planet, the community, other individuals, other species, your personality, and your body.
- Law of change – no karmic influence is eternal, but is released in its time and its season, as executed by the Lords of Karma.
- Group karma of nations – each individual, born in a national grouping must share in the political and economic destiny of his/her nation.
- Karma of racial groups – each individual, as part of a racial group must share in the karma of that race.
- Karma of ancestral groups – each individual, as part of a lineage of ancestors, must share in the cultural, psychological, and genetic transmission of that lineage.
- Law of purification – meditation upon the light and sound current (Nada) dissolves the karmic impressions stored in these Nadamic channels and eventually leads to liberation from all karmic bondage for your spirit.
- Law of thought – thought is a creative force; as a man/woman thinks, so he/she becomes.
- Law of reaction – joy and misery are the emotional experience of karma; suffering and reward are experienced emotionally.
- Law of incarnation – karma is stored physically in the tissues of the body.
- Law of remembrance – every thought, word, and deed is indelibly recorded in the Akasha (etheric matrix).
- The four states of karma – active, fantasy, latent, and vacuum.
When you study the stored karma embedded in your unconscious mind, you find that karma dwells in four states:
Active karma operates on the physical level. It is behavioral; compulsive behavior and addiction mark its expression. It may also appear as chronic genetic and constitutional illness.
Fantasy karma operates on the astral level—while no overt behavior is present, you experience strong craving and your mind is obsessed with the object of desire. Unresolved life issues that dwell as latent karma may also be expressed by psychosomatic conversion, resulting in unexplained pains or acute inflammation, for which no medical cause can be identified.
Latent karma, which operates on the causal level, is marked by lack of behavior, fantasy or craving, but seed impressions (samskaras) continue to remain in the mind. Given the requisite stimuli, these can be reawakened into fantasy or active karma. Constitutional conditions, for example, that are present as latent karma, appear as unawakened genetic latencies.
The Vacuum state of karma is marked by the complete dissolution of karma and the expression of pure, effulgent virtue, grace and power by the Soul in the absence of karmic obscuration and impediment. You turn the other three types of karma into the vacuum state through transformational meditation, which draws down the Light of the Divine Spirit to dissolve, transmute, and integrate the karmic impressions that are stored in the unconscious mind.
Those of you who are interested in learning how to use a transformational method to transmute your karma and allow your Soul to evolve spiritually and your spirit to become free will learn techniques to do this in our intermediate mediation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.
