Karma the Mechanism

Author(s): Hermann Kuhn
Publisher: Crosswind Publishing Germany

Page 74

SUTRAS
ATTRACTION TO KARMA
73
karma (attitudes). The beauty of an attractive form may inspire us to strive for the underlying grace this form symbolizes and thereby attain the respective positive karma. We will feel untouched if we already completed the lesson a particular form represents.29
If our own body is subject to attachment or rejection, we receive even more immediate information.
As long as we do not consciously recognize this educational function of karma, our progress in learning will be dominated by this effective, yet slow and cumbersome process. It is the purpose of scriptures (Tattvarthasutra, Dravya Sangraha etc.) and their teachers to explain the corresponding processes so that we may take conscious control of our karma and prevent its acquisition - if this is our intention. Any conscious understanding of the karmic mechanisms we are involved in accelerates our progress towards ultimate freedom considerably.
We may at any time influence our bodily form by simply changing our desires, attitudes and actions. The point in time this change becomes visible certainly depends on the intensity of our presently active karma. Yet this needs not necessarily take long. Any fundamental departure from e.g. a general negative attitude will almost immediately be recognized and appreciated by our social environment. How much time we need for stabilizing new (positive) attitudes and how many difficulties we have to overcome in this process, depends how deeply we were emotionally attached to our previous undesired attitude and how much energy we invest into dissolving it. The
prompts an emotional reaction like attraction or rejection, this always indicates the presence of karma within us. Attraction and rejection can only happen when the respective form - and the attitudes associated with it - cause the corresponding karma to resonate within us. The less karma we have, the fewer forms will cause positive or negative reactions. A state of natural equanimity (brought about by the lack of any karma) is free from likes or dislikes, but accepts all forms - positive or negative ones - as part of the comprehensive tapestry of our life.