No one really knows what karma really is and how it applies to our lives. Some people say good or bad luck is a result of your own actions. They say, ‘here we go, karma strikes again.’

In Sanskrit karma literally means action. Others have a more traditional understanding and say karma is rooted in the laws of causality or the idea that cause must precede effect.

Maybe it is all of these, but how does it apply to us, to you and me, and them in Palestine, at this moment?

Arambha

Arambha is the Sanskrit word for the beginning, so let’s start here.

The sky is grey, thick with clouds.
It could rain anytime, although the past few hours have been sunny.
London, in the autumn, is like that.
Unpredictable.
Like karma.

The traffic signal is green, and I should cross, but I stay where I am, on the pavement outside Russell Square which is littered with gold and red leaves.

I do not move.

The other pedestrians start making their way to the opposite side of the road where there is the grand architectural building, the Kimpton Fitzroy, and around the corner, the underground station.

I can hear an ambulance siren in the distance, coming towards me, down Southampton Row heading towards Euston Station.
It is still a few minutes away.
The cars are pulling over to the side of the road.
The lights have changed to red.
Now everyone is waiting, waiting for the ambulance to pass and the signal to turn green.

All of us are suspended in time.

In the ambulance, it is possible that someone could be dying and that if we did something as simple as stopping in our tracks, the ambulance could pass as fast as possible without any obstruction, and a life could be saved.
Cause and effect. Some say that is how karma works.
It is really that simple, if you think like that.

But right now, I’m thinking about the thousands in Palestine.

Dead.
Wounded.
Because of a genocide.

Who else will be murdered and injured in the coming months?
Is it because of karma?
Yours, theirs or mine?

Vikarna

Vikarna is the word for bad karma.
This is an important word to understand, because we want to establish who has vikarna.

Whose vikarna is causing innocent thousands to die?

I don’t really care whether you say it can’t be you and you point a finger at someone else,
because if you are keeping quiet, you are complicit, and that means your karma is bad.

Vikarna, amongst other things, means that you are easily distracted by irrelevant and wrong information.

And if that sounds like you, it suggests that you are probably missing out on important messages which are being sent to you about your humanity and responsibility.

What is your soul’s higher purpose?
Have you ever thought about that?
Or are you too busy protecting your ego?

One soul, one humanity, one love.

Vikarna means you are unaware of the real meaning of life:
not just yours, but also everyone else’s.

Just to be clear, this journey, yours, mine, and theirs, is not about being a perfect human.
Rather, it is more about becoming a more humane person. Let us just call it an undoing of the ego.

Try to understand what you are not, who they are not and realise who we all are. Does any of this make sense to you, at all? Sometimes, I wonder.

What kind of person doesn’t understand the most basic thing about humanity?

And know this: words themselves have karma.
Words have their own power.

I’ve heard many of you speak words endlessly, talking and talking, saying this and that and debating about if this is a genocide or not, and some of you even believe you are great orators.

But after listening carefully, I’ve concluded that you are experts in empty words.
Worse than meaningless, your statements have no positive effect on the world.
In fact, your endless, vacant talking is causing more and more death, destruction and devastation.

What kind of person has such bad karma that when they open their mouth and say things, people suffer, and people die?
No one wants to have bad karma, do they?
Have you ever wondered about the impact of your words?

Maybe, sometimes when you can’t sleep and you’re tossing and turning in your bed, you ask yourself:
Do I say anything good?
Do my words help any person to sleep easier at night?

I’m trying to imagine that your conscience would tell you the truth, loudly, ‘No, no, no you do not, your words do not.’

And then you should ask, why is that?

But maybe your conscience does not give you any reason.
But it should warn you about your bad karma.

You wake up feeling uneasy, so you divert your mind to something else as quickly as possible. Now you think about what to say next that will make people fear you, to build mistrust, and to make yourself look good.

However, there is a karmic explanation for that reply,
one that will come from your own conscience.

If you listened carefully enough, you would hear it.

It is this: Your words are your vikarna.
Your words are without positive, constructive intentionality.
You’re not interested in helping anyone.
In any way. Except of course, yourself.

You think life is just a game of power and politics, and you want to be the one on the top.
And you think that is fun?
You think it’s funny that people are dying because of you?
What about those who accept what you say and do nothing?
That is their vikarna.

As for me, I want to see things as they truly are.

I don’t know if I have any higher purpose, more than just being aware, right here and right now of what is happening around me, really happening.

And at this moment, all I can hear in my ears is an ambulance’s loud wailing siren.

Sakarma

Sakarma is the word for good karma.
It is about being compassionate, patient, and tolerant of all beings equally.

Sakarma reinforces how karma is a cycle of cause and effect,
because it focusses on the action of one person – for instance, you or me – and the consequence of that action on another.

Let’s think about your actions, and words and their effect on the world.
Is this the first time for you to do this?
Have you ever really reflected on your actions objectively?
Or are you completely blinded by your own ambitions and needs?

In the meantime, I am here, stopping for an ambulance to pass.
I am not worrying about the result.
I am just thinking of thousands who have died in Gaza.

Is this because of your bad karma that you have turned a blind eye to a genocide?
It is your choice to do that.

Many don’t like the word genocide, because if they accepted it to be true, they would have to take responsibility for what is happening in Palestine.

If you do nothing, you are complicit.

According to the rules of karma, each and every one of our souls bears its own karma.

After you die, the soul carries on, and what you do or didn’t do, will stay with you.

It matters.
Every single thing you do, say, or didn’t do, or didn’t say, counts.
You are here, and this is happening.

Think about your karma.

What are you doing right now, right this very moment,
while children are dying, being killed, being murdered in Gaza?

What are you doing?
Nothing.
You are just talking and talking, uselessly.

Your karma is bad beyond words.

Tyu

Tyu is the Sanskrit word for death.
I don’t suppose you’re thinking of your own mortality right now, but you should be.
Think about it, and your karma.

I’m preoccupied by your bad karma. And the effects of it, on all of us.

Incidentally, why are there no ambulances rushing through the streets of Palestine.

Why? Why? Why?

Pranah

Pranah is the word for life force. Energy in motion.
This includes actions, thoughts, and emotions.

I wonder, will the emotional energy of my words have any effect on you?
You don’t care what I think or say.

My opinion doesn’t count for you.
But I will say it anyway.

Why should I keep quiet?

Why? Why? Why?

The ambulance is drawing closer. Someone is on the bed, lying there, eyes closed, leg bleeding, heart pounding, sweating. Someone is beside them, praying, asking them to keep taking deep breaths, telling them not to worry – the hospital is not far.

The driver is speeding down the road, weaving through the traffic, honking.

Someone on the pavement is using their life force, their energy, their pranah, to step into the middle of the road.

They gesture with their hands and block the ambulance.
They want it to stop.

Who is the mad person doing this?
While someone inside the ambulance is dying?
The driver shouts from his window, What the fuck are you doing?

Meanwhile, you are talking, as usual.
Using your pranah for more futile words.

Do we need names to make it real?
Do we need photographs of the children, so they are not just a number?
Do we need a map of the road where they lived, so you can see their houses with their olive trees?
Do we need to listen to stories about them?

And when we do, we say:
– oh, we can’t relate to their lives anymore,
because our minds tell us:
it’s them, and not us. –
And does it feel too much to say,
we are them, and they are us?

We are the same, all of us.

Can we say that, and believe it?
Or will it always be you and them?

For you, it is always I, I and I.

Use your pranah.
If you dare.
Try and imagine what it must be like to be them.

Do you have the courage to do that?

I doubt it.

Kriya

Kriya means action, effort, or deed. It implies these actions are good.

I am here at the traffic signal, waiting for the ambulance. It is now only a few metres away. I step into the middle of the road, raise my arms and start waving. People shout at me and tell me to move out of the way. The ambulance comes to a halt. The driver is swearing.

Everyone knows that life is precious and at a time like this, every second counts.

And there I am wasting time.

The driver asks me, ‘Are you crazy?
Don’t you know because of you, a person could die?
What the hell is wrong with you?’

‘I know,’ I say, ‘that is exactly the point I’m trying to make.’

This is how it works with karma.

We are all responsible.
You are my past, my present, and my future.
I am yours.
What happens to you and what you do is also about me.
And about them.

You have to own your karma.

If you do not examine your actions or conscience, you should be ready to face the consequences of your choices.

Akarma

This word means non-action or non-reaction.

Am I a fool for thinking you will listen?

I can see from your non-reaction: you don’t really care at all.

Please tell me, in as few words as possible:
According to you, why is one person’s life more valuable than another’s?
Why is there an ambulance for this person and not for that?
Why should we make way for this ambulance so that this life can be saved, and keep quiet when we talk about protecting another, in Palestine?

I don’t understand.

Jivana

Jivana means life and the balance of it.

Karma is about loss and gain.

You can’t debate what it means to be awake without mentioning dreaming and sleeping.
You can’t talk about life and not hint at dying and death.
You can’t think about dark without seeing it as the absence of light and the sliver of it.

Let us say that we stood there and did nothing like you are doing now.

You are just watching and soon every flower, insect, and animal will be dead. Every rose, jasmine, tulip, bee, spider, mosquito, ant, cat and dog will not be left alive in Palestine.

Stories, films, art, music and poems from Palestine about kites and narcissus, olive trees and a white dove, a distant sea and hills, oranges and carob trees, dawn and a lantern, a bird of prey in flight, a thief running from his lover.

A long list of beautiful names.

I could name each person here, but will it make any difference to you?
Or do you prefer just numbers so that it stays separate from you?
You prefer abstract statistics on a page, don’t you?

Nothing about you is human.

In the end it will balance out.

Marichi

Marichi is a ray of light. A twinkling of enlightenment. A spiritual epiphany.

I imagine you asleep in your bed. And in your dreams, you are far away.

There is a brief second of illumination. It comes through the dislodged brick in the wall of a collapsed building, and for a moment you can read something flickering on a blue neon sign.

More than 100,000 Palestinians Dead.
150,000 Palestinians Wounded.

The numbers flash, the sign becomes brighter, and bolder.
Then abruptly, it goes out.
Now remains only darkness.

You sit up in your bed. Your heart is racing. You are sweating. Your stomach is in a knot. You feel fear and panic.

It is already too late.

You know it is.

You have destroyed the light in your own soul with your own two hands.

You have no marichi.

Atha

Atha means being present. To be aware of now, is to see an injustice being done to another and believe it is being done to yourself.

It is to imagine that person dying in an ambulance racing down Southampton Row.

It is to know that, in that same instant, in Gaza, countless are dying,
while there is not a single ambulance to help them.

It means to stop, and stand still, and to be present to now.

To allow the ambulance to pass so that it can save that one life.

It means to pray for them, Palestinians who are hurt and injured and have no help.

An ancient holy teaching says, if you save one life, it is as if you saved all of humanity.

Are you present enough to realise that?

Tamas

Tamas is obscurity, ignorance, and inertia. These are the qualities of people with bad karma. People like you.

I am on my knees now and peering through a keyhole. I can’t separate the one from the whole. The person in the ambulance is all of humanity.

Please, could you tell me this: in which dark hour of the night did the one become distinct from the other?

When did that become true?

Maybe it is not that dark yet.

I must learn patience.

The truth will reveal itself.

Sattva

This is the word for illumination, enlightenment, and knowledge.

The rules of karma say we are each born with a special gift, a mission, or a purpose. Every single one of our actions or intentions affects the world.

The one is the whole. The whole is the one.

All are the same.

You can’t choose one and ignore the other.
Because the one will not survive on its own.

What is a person’s true purpose?

I don’t know.

But sometimes, like now, I stop thinking.

I stand in my living room and look at the crow sitting on the balcony ledge observing me. It cocks its head sideways and fixes its black eye on me.
I am trying to gauge its expression. An intense stare full of meaning.
It turns its head, stares into the distance and then looks back at me again.
Its blue-black feathers are trembling in the wind. Its head is smooth, its beak pointed and sharp.

What is it trying to tell me?
The bird is pure energy.
It is just being itself.

What is a bird’s destiny?

What is its karma?
To be a crow.
To only be itself.
Fully, and completely.

Do you understand what I am saying?

Saucha

Saucha literally means purity of mind, speech, and body.

Please explain to me honestly, chronologically, and in as few sentences as possible.

What does this all mean?

And what is the significance of anything, if in the end, you don’t see me, like how I see you?

We are the same, aren’t we?

Why don’t you recognise it?

Is it your karma that is stopping you from seeing the true reality of things? Don’t use your karma as your excuse.

I hear the ambulance siren ringing in my ears all day and all night.

Samaapti

Samaapti is the word for the end. Imagine this. You’re lying somewhere, far away under rubble, listening to the bombs, your hands covering your ears, praying that someone will save you.

Are you thinking of your family and friends?
Are you afraid of dying?
Are you waiting for an ambulance?
Are you sure there is one coming?

Maybe there is.

But will it come in time to save you?

This is how karma works.
It is about the here and now.
It promises us one thing only – in the end there is a balance.

No one can escape their karma.

End