“What you think you are doing to another being, you are really doing to yourself.”From El refugio del corazón
Ever since I was a mischievous, imaginative boy, I wanted to be an airplane pilot. Every time I heard the sound of planes flying over the house, I would run to watch them from the window. I built my own cockpits out of chairs and blankets, and many times we went out as a family to watch them land. I called them birds of the air.
Life took me away from that great dream. It set a spiritual path before me: first, to heal the upbringing I had; then, to transform my pain and my feeling of separation into a process of illumination I never believed possible for an ordinary person like me. After that, it led me along a path of solidarity and surrender, to help other people in their own awakening. Only years later was I able to take up my flying lessons again.
Many will say that all of that was karma. The truth is that it is dharma, because the destiny of the individual becomes a collective destiny. A simple way to put it is that the universe needs more beings awake to the truth than pilots of any aircraft.
Karma has to be understood with the heart, not with the mind. It is intuition, not reason.
There is no other
The law of karma still holds, as it always has, because we are one single Being in Consciousness. That is why whatever we do to another will inevitably have an effect on ourselves, even when the person in front of us seems to deserve the harm we do them or wish on them.
We need to understand that we cannot harm our neighbor, and not only as an act of kindness, but because we are literally doing the harm to ourselves. We are all expressions of the Divinity, and it dwells in everything you see.
There is no other. The other is my own self, with another face, another identity. But the same gaze dwells in us, and we beat with one and the same heart: the heart of the Divinity. There is no break and no division; not for the heart. It is the mind that fragments and divides.
If the Divinity is sacred to you, relate to everything in your life as something sacred, because it is. Even to those you dislike because of what they have done against you: the Divine Presence dwells in them too, muddied by their ignorance, but it is there. And this does not mean that if you have to make decisions to keep them from harming you, you should not make them. Your life is sacred too.
The residue left by friction
Karma is action with reaction that generates energetic residue, created by friction against the natural flow of the universe. It is whatever is flowing out of harmony with our Divine Presence, and it is directly related to the choices we make.
How did it begin? Human life was given a gift that was granted to no other form of life: to co-create with God. Originally, all desires arose from the Consciousness of God in us, and everything we desired was in tune with dharma.
But over time our minds became focused on what we were creating, and we lost sight of the silence of the consciousness of God within us. We got lost in the ego. That creates friction in the universe, and that is how karma is born: it stays in us and binds itself to our being.
From the beginning, when we as humanity began to resist pain, we went on creating energy residue and events that no longer flowed in harmony with the universe. And we turned free will, which is our most sacred gift, into the source of our suffering.
Sometimes we go wrong out of innocence and other times out of malice; even so, the energetic residue will always be generated. And good actions do not erase the negative ones: the soul will need to learn from what it has done wrong. The universe does not work the way the old saying goes: whoever sins and prays breaks even.
Dharma: the Consciousness of God in motion
Dharma is the vibrant Consciousness of God, free of any friction or discord. When we flow in dharma, we are in sync with the universe and leave no energy residue behind.
When dharma is not blocked by the habits of karma, life becomes successful, and our achievements return to a field of infinite possibilities, as when, from the top of a mountain, we take in the variety of landscapes in the distance. This is so because the Consciousness of God is alive in human form.
In my books I speak of two wheels. The Wheel of Karma refers to the afflictions that weigh down the human heart, and those afflictions arise from ignorance: from forgetting the essential nature of life, which is the silent Consciousness of God in us. That is how the mind recreates its bad habits over and over again.
The way out of that wheel that keeps turning and turning is greater mindfulness toward ourselves, so that the mind stays anchored in the ocean of eternal silence and human action happens as a flow of the Consciousness of God within us. The Wheel of Dharma, on the other hand, is full of grace, fullness and abandon. It is divine grace in motion that realigns karmic disorder.
Serving beyond the ego
Dharma is made up of the benevolent actions done beyond the ego, for the benefit of humanity. You generate dharma when you serve people simply because you recognize the divinity in them, and not because there is a bond between you. That is different from being good to those around you: there you will be generating positive karma through your benevolent actions.
As long as you act from a place where you do not recognize the Divinity in every form of life, and you keep creating separation, you will be generating more energy residue. But if you recognize it in everything and everyone, you will never act against anyone or anything. You will love life with your actions and your words, with your thoughts and your heart.
It is a simple thing, really. If I came to understand that by harming someone I am harming myself, humanity's level of consciousness would change automatically.
Through love, not through pain
To transcend karma, we have to begin by loving it, understanding it and knowing that it is a necessary lesson which, once absorbed, will lead us to our own liberation. Too complex? It is simple, really.
When the Consciousness of God moves within the human mind, the Creator takes responsibility for karma and restores dharma. The more clarity we generate within ourselves, the less energy residue there will be, and the intention of the universe will gradually become clearer in us. Today your level of consciousness allows you to become clear through love, and not through pain.
Meditation is a devotional act through which you allow the Divine Presence to manifest through you and transform all this energy. That is why, when you surrender to that Presence, it will take care of you.
We are one single being with millions of faces. Recognize that the Divine Consciousness is behind everything, and you will be aligned with dharma, acting without friction for the good of the universe.
From Dr. Zuluan Orion's books: El refugio del corazón · Deshojando el Corazón de la Eternidad