My Karmic Theory

2023 has been an intriguing year for me, particularly in the latter half. Previously, I had focused my philosophical reading on the west, particularly in writers like Nietzsche, Sartre, Jung, Campbell, and others of that ilk. When I thought of eastern philosophy, I thought mostly of harried rituals and devotion to deities which were at best depictions of pagan religion, with the latter word bringing with it all of the pitfalls of any other religion, and at worst a belief system centered around false ideality. I thought that the premise of a yogi, an advanced spiritual being, was smoke and mirrors. The miracles they performed clearly had scientific explanations, and people who believed in them were looking for an idol before which they could supplicate themselves to be rid of personal grief at poor living conditions. The concept of eastern Astrology likewise made me sneer. I thought it must be similar to western Astrology, and I had heard far too many people diagnose me based on the simple knowledge that I was a Taurus. Rarely, I think, in my life have I ever been so wrong about a thing as I was about eastern philosophy.

My own spiritual journey began with Teachings of the Buddha, by Jack Kornfield. In this volume, he pulls together passages of various ancient texts on Buddhism, creating an amalgamation of truly unique knowledge. When I read this book, I took it with the attitude of academic curiosity. I wasn't planning on actualizing any of the practices or passages. I was merely using it to build my background into eastern philosophy, if only to have a rebuttal when someone pressed me on the subject.

I then moved on to the Tao te Ching, by Lao Tzu. Here, I found some deep insights into the art of Taoism, and there I seemed to dwell in more peace. There were passages which stirred a deep desire for soulful rest within me. I found in this book a sense of stillness and equanimity which burst out of the pages. However, just like Teachings of the Buddha, the Tao te Ching contained abstract hints at what the truth may be, and I found that to be as frustrating as some of the deliberately befuddling western philosophy to which I still clung. It was tantalizing in a way, but for now, my answers lay elsewhere.

I then moved to Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India, a book about which I have already written extensively. His detailed journey in India looking for a truly elevated yogi was not only inspiring, it shifted a curtain in my mind I had not previously known existed. While I still yearned for tangible evidence, I saw Brunton's skepticism turned into belief and latched onto it.

This book led nicely into my next volume: Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. Touted as one of the most spiritually powerful novels of all time, this account of yogic strength was humbling. While some of the book seemed too fantastical to believe, even in my newly open mind, it affirmed my knowledge from Brunton's book that true yogis despise those charlatans who perform feats of physical impracticality and market it as spiritual advancement. Yogananda also gave me a look behind the curtain of Indian Astrology. Brunton's book has a chapter devoted to the subject as well, from which I learned that the stars are not deterministic enforcers upon a person's life, but rather a map of the journey of one's soul. Within, there may be some clear markers, but many of the things depicted by the stars are either relics of previous incarnations or merely the stages one must act through before reaching full soul-fulfillment. Yogananda went a step further in developing my knowledge of karmic theory, and began spawning this essay. He mentions that a truly spiritual being, a God-realized being, breaks from this karmic path into true freedom. He says that we are all destined to fulfill every desire in our hearts, which becomes very troubling because we cannot be guaranteed that this life will fulfill those desires. It may be that what you wish for in this life becomes true in the next. This also provided further context to the importance of ridding oneself of worldly desire as an initiating step into both Hindu Yoga and Buddhism.

I've recently finished reading The Surrender Experiment, by Michael Singer, and it represents the latest installment in my spiritual journey. Singer details his own path to spirituality, and while I'm skeptical at its beginnings, which are seemingly almost instantaneous, I cannot deny that his account has a vibrance and ease which I found to be similar to Yogananda and Brunton. The former, as it happens, was a major influence on Singer, though posthumously through the aforementioned volume. Singer calls the "Surrender Experiment" his acceptance of life's path. By simply agreeing to things, letting the winds of karma blow pertinent leaves onto his path at its whim, he becomes a visionary programmer, an executive in a multi-hundred-million dollar company, and the owner of hundreds of acres of spiritual land in Florida. It should be noted that he began as a humble graduate student and not the heir to any of his fortune.

In reading the work of Singer, Yogananda, and Brunton, with the background provided by Lao Tzu and Kornfield's compilation, an idea formed in my mind. I began to picture humanity as a weather pattern on a planet. People are like individual little pockets of wind, buffeting around the world with little care or awareness. I should mention that I am included in this group. Occasionally, these people will cross the greater Consciousness, the Christ Consciousness, to use Yogananda's words, or simply God. This flow forms the jetstream in our world, an aligned force of wind which exists as a compilation smaller winds. The jetstream is the Karmic path, and it lies in the destiny of every little minor wind on this world. However, some winds are already more in tune with it, riding just off to the side, or crossing it intimately at many junctures.

Those who pursue spirituality in their lives and make the effort proper will gradually align themselves with the jetstream until they are one with it. Some may not see it in this life, others, like Singer, may already have been close to attainment. Singer's experiment with surrender worked only because his meditative practices had already aligned him with the jetstream. Caution should be in order for those who surrender to life without first obtaining the spiritual clout; Singer may have been able to travel to Mexico with reckless abandon and return only with a heightened spirituality and some village-friends, but people like you and me are more likely to get their organs stolen embarking on a similar mission. We may cross the jetstream occasionally and be rewarded for it, but in all likelihood a loss of control in its entirety will lead to our hopeless meandering being extended for a lifetime.

Truly elevated beings, like Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar (his guru), Baba-ji (Yukteswar's guru), and those like them, are able to transcend the jetstream in its entirety, reaching a new plane of existence in the atmosphere. They may dip into the tangible world of the winds for some time, they may choose instead to remove themselves from the equation. While I hold some reluctance to believe some of their truly fantastic claims, they do fit in with my Karmic theory.

My spiritual journey over the latter half of this year has been nothing short of remarkable in my eyes. There are deeper psychological reasons why I may have avoided eastern philosophy beyond what I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, reasons which will remain in the confines of my own journal, but suffice it to say that most of those nagging doubts have been expelled. I now view the world, the world of souls, as a messy assortment of winds with but one jetstream guiding it all.

Another thing I know for certain; this journey cannot be hurried. Any effort to do so, any overt exclamation of toiling away to obtain unity with this jetstream will only result in personal chaos. False prophets and dubious accounts litter the path, and so we can only find this jetstream in the quietude of our own hearts, in the discipline of our minds, yet such tranquility cannot be achieved merely through reading; it must be done.

I feel another swelling of gratitude when it comes to my own literary horizons being expanded. Had I not read the books mentioned in this essay, I would still have turned a blind eye to all that the east has to offer, and I would have suffered not only as a person, but as a writer for it. In saying this, I don't mean to insinuate that I'm in any way disillusioned with the west. I still find the works of our major western philosophers to be at least academically intriguing and profoundly insightful into human psychology and the nature of some of our greatest philosophies and religions. Perhaps in its most fundamental, and its most powerful, state, the east can afford you such great power over the soul and connection to the spirit of the world that render such investigations moot, but for my own purposes, I'll be happy to blend the two into my life.