karma

although the concept of karma is endlessly abused with unsubstantiable hearsay, foolishness and wishful thinking it is at the very heart of patanjali's conceptualisation of freedom. meditation does not liberate us by magic. it happens through one very simple process. an erosion of the sense of self. the sense of self is constantly being reinforced by every action that we participate in, that we experience as being personal: be it physical or mental. personal experiences always take place within the perceptual split of subject and object. they are an action taken within this split. all the elements of this split are projections: the action, the subject, the object. this only becomes apparent when the mind starts to deeply relax. which is what meditation is for.

within that deep relaxation the inherent and continuous oscillation of awareness in and out of the perceptual split becomes apparent. this oscillation is not generated by meditation, it is revealed. within the slowing down of this oscillation it becomes apparent that life does not stop just because we are not directly experiencing it: when we are absent from the perceptual split. life is still happening. but when no perceiving subject is present to that happening life is without objective   condition or attribute. a falling tree makes sound only to a tympanic membrane in earshot. when the field of awareness is split by a perception into a grid of perceived objects and actions, the sense of self is reinforced. when awareness oscillates out of the perceptual split it is not.

although this oscillation is inherent and continuous, the sense of self is not usually undermined by the dipping back into the unified field of pure awareness. for this dip to undermine the sense of self first it has to be recognised. then it has to draw the oscillation more and more to its pole. finally it has to become the dominant pole. this transformation is essentially a function of familiarity . as the mind more and more often relaxes deeply, wether in formal meditation or daily life, this transition takes place by itself. meditation however greatly facilitates this process. but only when its focus is the inherent activity of the mind. mental activity resulting not from sense contact, but from the stirrings of the soul. thereby the presence, nature and significance of this oscillation, and its transformation become apparent.

when inherent mental activity is focussed on, the mechanism of perception becomes elucidated. within this elucidation the projected nature of actions, objects and their subject becomes apparent and they lose their power. this happens within the oscillating flow of awareness through the transformative states of the meditative mind. first in pratyahara attention is released from the tyranny of the senses, and is drawn to the flow of internal activity . this is a flow of perceptions arising from the soul, or what patanjali calls the action-deposit (karmasayo). as the mind relaxes more this flow becomes suspended on a single perception in dharana . as the mind relaxes more the perception opens out in dhyana . within this opening out the nature and source of the perception are elucidated.

most immediately this is a subliminal perceptual impulse, a pratyaya. this charge of psychic energy is the result of a past experinece trying to resolve itself. it arises from a behvioural impulse, known as a vasana. externally a vasana is a psychological tendency to behave in a given way when exposed to a given set of stimuli. internally it is a configuration of deeper psychic impulses known as samskaras. a samskara is a psychic trace in the memorydepths left over from a past experience. over time qualitatively similar traces coalesce into potent psychic tendencies. these tendencies then drive our actions unconsciously, by way of impulses to act (pratyaya). the nature of this drive is a direct expression of the quality of the originating experience(s) that left their traces in the mind. this is how our mind, and our behaviour is conditioned, moment by moment. each experience leaves its trace and modulates our conditioning and thereby our predisposition to act in specific ways. our future being programmed by our past.

life does not always leave its traces in the mind. traces arise only within the perceptual split. deep relaxation, within which the awarenessfield is not split by perceptions-of, leaves no trace, has no impact on our conditioning, our future behaviour, our karma . however, when that relaxation is a function of deep internalisation it does undermine the sense of self. by virtue of the internal transformation into dhyana the opening up of a perception reveals its origins, as vasana, and as samskara which is the leftover impact of the originating experience.

experience, ocurring within the perceptual split, occurs within separateness. separateness is always dissatisfying, and is a distortion of what actually is. all experiences, no matter how wonderful, leave a taste of dissatisfaction (dukkha) within. the taste of separateness and its symbiotic longing for wholeness. it is this longing for wholeness that drives samskaras together to generate vasanas to trigger actions that might potentially resolve that longing through a return to wholeness. this wholeness becomes accessible during meditation through the elucidation of this process, specific to a particular perception. any perception can lead back to its samskaric source(s). of which, of course, there can be any number. as awareness deepens in dhyana, awareness, now stable, tranquil and far beyond the habit of turning away (vrtti) , absorbs the charge underlying the perception (pratayaya) and dissolves both the perception and its source (samskara) into the open embrace of its undifferentiating light. into this melting the sense of self, as the subject of the perception, also dissolves.

this process is of course not happening within the perceptual split. it is not a question of watching a movie. however movie like impressions can arise. as awareness oscillates in and out of dhayana it can momentarily reopen the perceptual split. an impression related to the originating experience, can then be drawn into the perceptual split, as an image or flow of images triggered by memory. this oscillation can occur rapidly enough to give the impression of reviewing the originating experience(s). when this happens, impressions are left in the memory as understandings of or insights into our behaviour, action, choices and motivations.

any pain that is experienced during this process is not a reliving of original pain. it is always a function of resistance to its release, of the mind turning away from that which is actually happening, on the basis of habit or expectation of more pain. eventually this elucidation of the source of perceptions resolves the underlying traces, or samskaras. this always involves a deep swing out of the perceptual split and its sense of self into an effortless expanse of selflessness. in this way the sense of self is undermined through meditation. as a result of this process the vasanas generated by aggregating samskaras slowly dissolve also. then the compulsive behaviours that they generated no longer have a psychic foundation, and no longer arise.

in this very simple way, meditation can relase us from our karma. but this process can also be accessed in the opposite direction. eventually going far enough in one direction triggers the other, and then the process quickens. for our vasanas and their component samskaras constitute the base of our identityfield. the psychological structure through which our sense of self defines and asserts itself. moment by moment this assertion takes place as a personalising of actions through identifying with them. this identification is a function of limited awareness, that is originally inherent in the bodimind. however meditation, as it reveals the inherent oscillation of awareness, and the mechanism of perception, elucidates the nature of all actions and all objects as being nothing other than projections: conditioned, limited and distorted extractions from the inherently unified field of awareness. within this elucidation it is no longer possible to attribute any action exclusively to any object. all actions are seen to be caused by the endless interaction of all objects without exception. all actions are seen to have an endless matrix of causation. each action has exactly the same matrix as its cause, even though it looks different from the perspective of each action, and each object. this elucidation deeply undermines the habit of personalising actions, wether of the socalled self or the socalled other. this elucidation is another aspect of dhyana, whereby the essence of any object of perception turns out to be nothing less than the attributeless oscillation of consciousness from which all objects and actions are extracted.

this awareness is reached by way of the elucidation of the context of any perceptual object/action. which context is always exactly the same for any and all perceptions: the infinite and indivisible matrix of objects and actions of which any object or action is   simply a viewing of the matrix from a unique spacetime perspective. which perspective, of course, belongs to another object, and is an expression of its innate conditioning or karmic tendencies.

when an action is no longer personalised it does not reinforce the sense of self. if this happens consistently enough the sense of self atrophies through disuse, like any muscle. as the sense of self weakens it no longer calls as it did on the identityfield to confirm itself. the sense of self is the centre to which the elements of the identityfield: memories, preferences, assumption, knowledge, fears, hopes, dreams, compulsions, behavioural tenedencies, vasanas and samaskaras all point. it is their integrating centre. as this centre begins to dissolve, so too does the identityfield itself. this generates a selfperpetuating cycle of relaxation and insight that deepen more and more. then more and more often and easily the soul gives up its unresolved traces (samskaras) into the healing resolution of the light of awareness. with or without formal meditation.

within this process it soon becomes clear that there is actually no self. that the self is simply an impression of personal identity, imposed by continuity of awareness and similarity of perceptions in a single locus of consciousness: the locomind with its unique spacetime coordinates. the human being.   simply the deluded result of identifying actions with their instruments. thereby it becomes clear that while experiences always leave a trace in the subtle depths of their instrument, and must perpetuate themselves into the future until they are resolved, that karmic traces (nor their impulses and actions) neither belong nor point to any personal entity who must be reborn to resolve them.

while sometimes requiring conscious instruments to bring them about perceptibly extractable actions do not indicate the existence of any independent, personal entity capable of making decisions and taking actions. all actions and decisions are made by the totality of all actions, which is nothing other than the perceptibility of pure consciousness in selfexpression. of no action is there an individual doer. of no experience is there an individual experiencer. of no life is there an individual liver. there never was anyone born, there is noone ever to die or be reborn. there is just an endless coming and going of impersonal impulses to action coalescing by resonance into action-instruments, such as human beings, by which the undifferentiate singularity of consciousness inherently expresses itself. life is but a play.

a play that if it could be said to have been written would have to have been written by god. a play that if it could be said to be being directed and produced would have to be being directed and produced by god. a play that in its being watched is being watched only by god. a play within which, likewise each and every part is always and only played by the one consciousness named god.it is in this way exactly that both the writer and the reader of these words can also only truly have that very same name, or, more truly, none whatsoever.

for that by which both reading and writing occur is not only one and the same, but also in being that alone which brings about every single action,   has no inherent qualifiable attribute. all atributes, every existent and nonexistent condition, are its instantaneous, simultaneous and continuous expression. other than this by which you read, i write there is no thing. and that itself can not accurately be said to be a thing. there is only the singularity of undifferentiate, attributeless consciousness in inherent selfexpression. consciousness all pervading, all expressing, all creating, all seeing: or god. all else is simply its appearance to itself. the substantiality of any aspect of that appearence being only that of a shadow or reflection, having no independent, absolute existence of its own.