Indigo Education: Karma | Ep 353

Summary
In this conversation, Clayton Cuteri delves into the multifaceted concept of karma, exploring its origins, cultural interpretations, practical applications, and the debates surrounding it. He emphasizes the importance of understanding karma as a principle of cause and effect, moral accountability, and personal responsibility. The discussion also touches on the complexities of free will versus determinism and the potential for victim blaming in the context of karma. Ultimately, Cuteri encourages listeners to stay present and mindful in their actions as they shape their karmic outcomes.

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Timecodes
00:00 - Intro
01:18 - Cultural Interpretations of Karma
09:31 - Practical Applications of Karma
15:22 - Debates and Controversies Surrounding Karma

Intro/Outro Music Producer: Don Kin
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Super grateful for this guy ^

Transcript

0:21

exploring spiritual journeys to find answers in uncertainty. What is up conscious monkeys? Welcome back to another episode of traveling to consciousness. As always, I'm your host, Clanky Terry. Today we are talking about karma in this podcast, in this YouTube video, because we are going to start uploading these to YouTube and rumble. We're going to be talking about the definition oranges on karma, the core principles associated with it, some of the cultural interpretations, the types of karma. People don't know that there's different types and how it will kind of subsect itself out into different forms in the way that we can discuss it. There's also practical implications applications that we will talk about. I'll also give you some mental frameworks and models that you can use. We're to talk about some of the controversies around it, some debates we're going to talk about in the modern day and then. Well, we'll get to some other stuff, but for first of all, thank you for clicking on this video. I hope you enjoy the channel. Let's dive into it. So first of all, let's dive into the definition and the origins of karma so that we're operating from the same spot. Basically a karma originates from ancient philosophies, ancient Indian in particular philosophers, philosophies, particularly in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, where it translates to action or deed. Now the concept essentially means that every single action you take in your life has a consequence. They agree with this in science, right? Every force has an equal and opposite reaction. And these actions will shape one's present and future experiences. It'll shape the life that you're going to live. So in the modern context, today day, today's day, today and day, karma is often simplified as a universal principle. of cause and effect, even outside of the spiritual frameworks. It's kind of like we mentioned earlier, because even science has their own laws that point to this for all the Westerners out there. So what are some of the core principles, right? So we're talking about it being law and effect where Intentional actions, intentionally making a decision will affect or influence your future outcomes, whether it's in this life or in future ones. And maybe if you don't believe in future lives, you could even see it as being a deterministic path. If you go to heaven or hell, it's going to determine the outcome of your life, of your soul's journey. So in essence, if you do good things, you're kind, you're generous, you're happy. you'll yield a positive result in the future because while harmful actions will then lead to suffering or setbacks in life or pain or misery. And this principle is also a form of moral accountability and essentially mindfulness in your decision-making across. And you can use this in your present day and realize that this is a a model that you can even use to live a better life and live a happier life. And furthermore, it's seen throughout pretty much every religion, various belief systems. They kind of just talk about it in different ways. And so I think there's a lot that can be learned. And I think it can even just having this mental model, whether you believe in all of it or not, can produce a more fruitful life for yourself. Now, the way that it can be interpreted culturally is a little different. So In Hinduism, they talk about karma is intertwined with Dharma, which is kind of like your purpose in life or cosmic order, your cosmic purpose, and the pursuit of moksha, which is liberation from the cycle of rebirth. So to kind of rephrase that another way, in Hinduism, they see karma. So actions, the actions you take is intertwined with the cosmic order of the universe and your purpose in it. and the pursuit, your pursuit, of being liberated from the cycle of rebirth. And this is the idea of enlightenment in a sense, is that you so enlightened that you no longer have to take birth. Or, furthermore, you can choose when you rebirth. Because if you're still encased in the cycle of death and rebirth, if your karma is out of alignment, then there's going to be times where you have to take a birth in order for you to learn new lessons or to even work off karma. Now in Western culture, we kind of deduce karma down to a little bit more casual. We don't even think about it that deeply. We just have phrases like what goes around comes around. And we tend to focus on the immediate or observable consequences from specific actions. And as an example of this, we never see like the full ripple effect that happens from our actions because every single action we take does have this ripple effect that will go out essentially across infinity. What is it? There's a famous quote that basically says that, that your actions and words will echo in the halls of eternity. Now maybe we can't perceive that or see that, but it's truly the case because every single person you interact with, it's going to change their day, even if it's ever so slightly. And that will carry out and perpetuate to the next person they talk to, to the next person. And so we all have a very divine duty to carry out. And we'll get into that a little bit later, but I just really want to kind of hit home on that. And a way that in India, in Indian cultures, they break this down is that there are different types of karma. So for one, there's Sanchita Karma, Sanchita Karma, which refers to the accumulated sum of one's past actions forming this reservoir that influences the present and the future. So think about if you had past lives or if you don't believe in past life, think about from when you were a child, maybe you called someone a name. basically this reservoir starts getting created from your past actions. And at some point in time, you're going to have to face the music as they say, and you're to have to atone for that. You're going to have to account for that. And so then whether it's in this life or the afterlife, however you see it or the next life, you'll have to start chipping away at that reservoir. Now people, I think, tend to think that it's just all bad karma, but you got to realize there's also good karma. You do good things. You get to reap those rewards in the future. allegedly because there's an interesting, I'll put this out there too, is that, and this kind of is where people will get trapped as well mentally, is there, is that you'll think that, I'm doing all these good things. I deserve X, Y, Z. I'm being such a good person. I've put out so many podcasts. I deserve so many more followers. I deserve more money because I'm being a good person. There's an interesting line from the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna is talking to Arjuna and he says, you're not entitled to the fruits of your actions. You're only entitled to your actions. So in context, right, you are only entitled to doing the karma that you need to do in this life. You're not entitled to the gifts that come from that karma. And we'll talk about this a little bit more in practical applications. But let's get back to it. So that was Sanchita Karma, which is basically this accumulated sum of your past actions, which forms this like metaphorical reservoir that will influence the future. We also have the Parabhadakarma. And this is the portion of karma that is currently active. It's shaping your present life circumstances. So the idea is like, maybe there's a challenge you're going through in your life right now. Um, specifically are you have a problem with a colleague or you're in a bad relationship or, you know, you're at a job that you hate. So that would be like this pro pra raba, parabata, parabata karma, which is like the current energy that you're looking to change or karma that you need to burn off or work through or whatever it is. The next one is agami karma, and this represents future consequences. that are being created from your one's current actions, which is used to emphasize that you always have this ongoing responsibility. So say you're in that relationship, if you allow it to keep festering and keep going on, it's going to influence your agami, your future karma, your future consequences. If you cut it off, then the cycle gets broken and it shifts your agami karma. Cause now it changes, right? Because as we talk all the time in this podcast is that there's only this present moment. So it's almost like the current energy is always going to be there until you shift it to make a different outcome, to decide a different path for yourself. And then that shifts, that essentially will open up like the next layer of your karma to do, to take actions, all this stuff. And we kind of started diving into it, but at this point, let's jump into some practical applications. So karma in an essence, Right. And we've said this multiple times, but it's really important to hammer this home is that it encourages your personal responsibility by urging you to consider long-term impact of your actions on themselves and others in relationships. It offers empathy and some forgiveness. Maybe people may see conflicts as opportunities to resolve their negative karmic cycles. But practically It inspires self-improvement to become a better person through acts of kindness, gratitude, ethical choices, and all of this that aligns with positive outcomes. And what I've noticed in my life is that it's very important, I think, for two things to happen here in order for you to create intentional karma is what I'll say. I think the number one thing is that you need to have a bigger vision for your life, a purpose. It's a mission. Otherwise you'll get too caught up in the minutia of life. Well, is this the right person for me? Isn't the right person for me? Is this the right job for me? Is it not the right job for me? You're not really going to know if you can't see the bigger picture. If you're unable to see your bigger life mission. And honestly, this is something I should probably take my sunglasses off for, because having a bigger mission will align you with that agami, if you will, the agami karma, the future karma of understanding how you're going to need to proceed in the future. And it's also going to give you this template of, you know, is this the right thing or wrong thing to do? Because without that structure of where am I going? Then it becomes very difficult in order for you to know if you're about to create bad karma or good karma. And so having that overall vision for your life and where you want to take it is going to help you. create the karma in this moment. that will lead you to you what you want in the future. And I'm trying to be very careful with my words here because I can't speak for everybody. I know for myself, I want peace, want happiness. I want, well, not even just for myself, but I want that for the world. So incidentally, if I'm focused on creating world peace, I believe that it's going to create peace within myself. And quite frankly, the more that I've done that, the more I've seen that throughout my life, more peace, more money, all these other things start flowing in. But I'm not doing it for the material items because material items will fade. My life will pass on. But the future generation of this world, of this country will be here for a life, for a lifetime, but for centuries afterwards. And the way I see it is that if I create the most peaceful life for myself and have that intention of creating world peace, that at least it will benefit other people. Forget about myself, right? And this is where it kind of becomes this like bigger picture thing. Now, the second thing I think that's very important for the practical, sunglasses are staying off for this because I think this is probably the most powerful lesson that I've ever learned in all of spirituality and all of everything. Every dollar I've spent into my personal development journey, which is over $150,000. at this point over the last maybe four or five years, the most important lesson that I've ever learned. Stay present and enjoy the present moment. There's a great book called The Power of Now, highly recommended. But if you enjoy the present moment, you won't need to worry. You won't need to sit there thinking about, well, is this a past karmic thing from this thing? And then in the future, is my karma going to be better because of that thing or is the karma? All of that will become mental chatter. that will cause stress, tightness. It'll close up your heart. It'll close up your inner eye. You won't be able to see the bigger picture. You won't be able to see the future. If you stay calm, you stay relaxed, you enjoy the present moment, you enjoy the world around you, and you have the intention of, well, I'm going to create world peace. Maybe you don't know how you're going to do that, but every single action I'm going to take, I want it to take in the direction of creating world peace. And here's the deal is we don't know. We don't know if we have, we don't know if we're entitled to those fruits as Krishna was to say. All we know is that we're entitled to our actions. And so by taking those actions, and this is where we can blend in the Western idea and the Eastern philosophy. So in the West, we're very much a doing society. Keep doing, keep moving, go, go, go, go, go. In the East, they're a lot more relaxed. When it happens, it happens. to be able to blend these into the human body where you stay calm and enjoy the present moment, but continue to do, that is where you will find your alignment. That is where you will find this pursuit that will manifest so much quicker than you can realize. I mean, how many people have seen my journey in the last year? I've gone from essentially making no money because I thought that was the right path to making well over $10,000 a year or a month.$10,000 a year. Yeah, that's not something I know. That's not what we want to aspire to. But I'm making over $10,000 a month. That's after tax too. So you have to realize. that yes, they will come. The fruits will come if you're in alignment, whatever it is you're cultivating and planting, they'll come, but you can't be focused on those because it will only keep you stuck. Why isn't it here yet? Where's the money? Where is this? And it'll create all this mental chatter that will pull you out of the present moment. Not big, not good big picture. All right. Sunglasses going back on. Let's talk about some debates and controversy around it. So common core criticism. We've got some common criticism that usually pops up with karma. um And that's usually, and quite frankly, I didn't understand this. I'm kind of guilty of this, but I didn't fully understand this, which is uh the potential for victim blaming, which is where suffering is wrongly attributed to past misdeeds without considering external forces. Now, as an example of this, like the hot button topic would be like Gaza, right? So for someone to kind of sit back, and this is what I did not understand for the longest time, right? Which is if you sit back and say, well, this genocide that's occurring in Gaza, it's karma for their past life doings. So we should kind of just throw our hands up and say, well, that's just what's happening. The external forces, the external factors is to realize that not every energy, not every entity on this planet wants to create world peace. You have to realize that there are energies and entities that want something else, the opposite. They want nuclear war, right? Nuclear war would destroy all life on this planet. If one bomb, if one nuclear reactor melts down too much, if one bomb goes off at this point, The likes of which I don't know if we'd be able to recover from. So you have to realize that not everything is a direct reflection of their individual karma. Not everything that you go through is a direct reflection of your individual karma. You have to realize that there are external forces that are also influencing you to either A, create new karma or B, Well, cut your life short in some situations. And I think that's a very important thing to understand is that this isn't just some sort of, I don't know, glass box that it's only you. Because I think that, you know, I got, I got kind of into this persona and I think it cultivates in the ego a little bit, which is this idea that, well, I have God inside of me. Therefore I'm the creator of everything, which means I create my entire universe and that's all there is. And it's like, well, yeah, but so is everyone else on this planet and on all other planets. So you have to realize that that means that there are forces who also don't want you to succeed. There are forces that do want you to succeed. And so to realize that it's not only you in this vacuum, there are other forces and energies in this universe that are either for or against you succeeding. So, and this is where it comes back to why I was so adamant about just enjoying the present moment is because you don't really know if something you're going through is your karma that you created in a past life, or if it's an external thing that, a different entity is imposing on you, if you will. Right. So, you know, that's kind of where like having a good mentor, a good guru kind of comes in is because they can see like, no, this is someone else or no, this is your karma or we can remove this karma, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a whole nother side conversation. So realizing that kind of even brings up like the next portion of this debate, which is the tension and the controversy between free will and determinism, where people wonder how much control individuals truly have over their karmic outcomes, right? Like, is it truly just whatever you do happens or is there an outside influence? There are secular interpretations that often clash with spiritual ones, which question whether karma requires belief in reincarnation or a cosmic system. Now, here's what I'll say in regards to free will and determinism. And this is truly, my belief, not trying to impose it on anyone, but the way that I've started to see the world is I believe that it's both. I believe that it's both. I think that it's kind of like, um, what's a good example? What's that movie? The wizard of ours, where there's a golden path. And I believe that the world and determinism is set up where there's a golden path where you personally can live your most divine life, your most prosperous life, your most loving life. One that burns your karma, that brings you the most joy, brings everyone the most joy. And that path is gonna look different for everyone. But you have the free will if you decide to stay on that path or you decide to take off any other path that kind of jetties out to the side of it. That's your free will choice. Cause if you stay on that path or if you want to walk off of it. Now the sad thing is the unfortunate thing is, that 90%, 95 % of people don't know what that path is. Sorry, that's party foul. 90 % of people don't know what that path is or what it looks like. So in order for you to know, this is where a great teacher, a great guru, a mentor can see where the energies are off. If you have a business mentor, they can show you where the business can go. If you have a um sports mentor, right, like a coach, they can show you how to get better at a sport because they can see your blind spots. They've been there. They're not ingrained in, in deep into your own personal illusion of life, thinking that you know everything. And so where it comes is, this idea of like giving it up to someone who's where you want to go. Say it's a spiritual guru or mentor. If someone is more evolved spiritually, if they have more things, let's say, however, however it manifests, right? If they're on a certain path and you know, you generally want to follow a similar path. I mean, the path is going to look different, right? There's not an exact path that every single person can follow. Otherwise there would be no point for that person to exist because without the uniqueness of the universe, they wouldn't be on that path. That's a whole nother side conversation. But the point that I'm trying to get at here. is that there is a golden path for every single individual to follow. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. It's gonna have turmoil. It's gonna have struggles. It's gonna have challenges, 100%. It's not gonna be perfectly straight. There will be branches in the path that you have to climb over, that you have to chop down and move through. But that path will bring you so much more reward and purpose in life. If you can find it, if you can find someone who can show you that way or preach it to you or influence you, you know, whatever it is, and you walk down that path, you're going to realize there's a lot more peace. You're going to find power. You're going to find purpose in your life, but it's your free will choice. And there's a level of maybe you're working off karma and you can't find, or you can't see the person who's meant to teach you that. And that's a part of the process. So hopefully that gives you some help. I think maybe we could even look at this if we want to bring it back. I know that got pretty deep right there at the end, but if we want look at some modern relevance, you can even see it like in the pop culture today. Because if you look at social media posts, something that kind of starts prevailing is like instant karma. Someone does something bad and then like in the next second, something bad happens to them. And again, You know, again, if you don't even want to get this deep into it, you want to keep it high level. Let's back up to that. Where like psychologically, this you can see this completely as a metaphor. It's a great metaphor for like accountability. ah You can it can help people process maybe lower energies like guilt or shame or unfairness. And you can use this for personal growth. I mean, the universal appeal lies in its ability to be adapting and for it to resonate with a diverse amount of people. regardless of the religious or cultural background. And I truly think that there is, there's really something deep and interesting to examine whenever it comes to an idea that perpetuates all of humanity. think if everyone feels a certain thing or notices certain patterns, there's a core truth there about life that deserves an appreciation and an understanding from all of us. So hopefully. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that. And if you want some good karma, make sure you like this video or subscribe or do all those things. Cause I know that that's, you know, whether you believe in it or not, I know that that brings great karma for everybody. No, but with that being said, I appreciate you all. Thanks for being here and I will see you all in the sixth dimension.