The Karma-Chakra is created by our own decisions.
For Understanding
the actions of mind through brain (creation of the Karma-Chakra), following
two links are important. We shall try to examine the role of mind in the life.
Mind, a
storehouse of emotions, is a key factor, like an owner of a vehicle, which can have
control over the driver and vehicle. However, brain just like a driver, though
an employed driver of mind, has a direct control only on the vehicle. The body
is just like a vehicle, a medium. Though the impact of emotion equally affects
the body and the mind, its effects on the mind are not always visible. To an
extent, the brain could be called a connecting link between the two as it
physically carries out mind functions.
Inside the
brain, emotions, (processed / un-processed by thoughts), can light up the
action. The emotion associated with limbic brain (emotional brain) is many
times so strong that it does not allow the cortex (thinking brain) to process
it. But in normal case the emotional signal gets processed before the action is
initiated. The action at each moment taken in the life has the origin in the
emotional instinct and thinking rationale.
We create
our own destiny.
If you feel
you are destined to be unfortunate / fortunate, never forget it’s up to you how
to shape your destiny. It’s necessary for us to own up everything. If we take
the onus for something wrong, we can always set it right. As this famous saying
goes:
Watch your emotions
/ desires, as one of it becomes your action.
Watch your
actions, they become habits;
Watch your
habits, they become character; (This is the process of forming sub-conscious
mind based on the individual behaviour each moment.)
Watch your
character, for it becomes your destiny.
Mind: Storehouse of thoughts, desires,
emotions. Thoughts are shaped here based on desires and intellect.
Intellect: Decides the course of action owing
to thoughts
Body: Carries out action as per the
diktats of intellect
Habits: Repeated actions form habits.
Character: Accumulated habits reflect
character.
Destiny: - The cumulative effect of the behaviour.
Our mind
gets emotions. Where from they arise? Can you tell what will be the wishes you
will feel in next 10 minutes? There is a famous sentence. “If I wish I can
smoke a cigar, but I can’t wish to wish!” (In the earlier blog we have seen
that past karma is the basis of your desires/emotions)
Out of
several wishes lingering at any moment, we pick up one and go for action to
fulfill it.
Who guides this selection? And what is the underlying motives? Our
intellect does this selection and mostly it is the motive of self-interest is
the influencing factor. This selection results in an action. Repeated actions
form habits. The bunch of habits acquired over time form the character. This
process at each moment and each step creates imprints in brain/body cells.
These accumulated imprints form the subconscious mind which again has influence
on our decision making. Thus the accumulated behaviour based on the character
results in the destiny at any given moment. And you get wishes as destined.
So for good
destiny the bearing directly lies with the “intellect”; (which is accountable
for the karma of each moment, please see the chart above). A good decision by
an intellect will be helpful for good action, and subsequently for forming habit,
character and destiny in that order. The reverse is the result in case of the
bad decision. So the formation of the destiny (we may say the Karmic Account)
is dependent on the Intellect which decides the Karma.
Training and
conditioning of intellect is of the utmost importance as everything depends on
this. This is the real knowledge also should be the purpose of education.
Once it’s ensured, the rest is assured.
At each and
every moment as the desires crop-up in mind, the intellect decides which
desires to be preferred for action. This is a vital step as it later goes on to
shape the destiny. The intellect has to take a good decision to shape the
destiny properly. The intellect has to be nurtured based on knowledge right
from the early stage of life. This should be the basis of education.
The theory
of karma harps on the Newtonian principle that every action produces an equal
and opposite reaction. Normally a person acts for pleasure which results in the
opposite act of dis-pleasure. Every time we think or do something, we create a
cause, which in time will bear its corresponding effects. It is the intellect
of a human being with its positive and negative actions - that causes karma. As
the process of doing karma goes on and on with the journey of life the karma Chakra is designed resulting in creation of the available options (i.e. the
desires) for the future. (For details refer to my book “Learn to Mind your
Mind” published by M.R.C.)
Let us tress
the evolution of the basic desires and the instincts behind them as human being
evolved from the one-cell amoeba. (Thus the instinct behind the desires
which crop-up in the mind which is the basis of the karma Chakra).
Vijay R. Joshi.
