A simple way to clear karma
Want a simple way to clear your karma? Sure; we all do! No one I know really enjoys the work of personal growth. Yet without it we suffer, feel stuck, frustrated, and tired—running and getting nowhere...a hamster on a wheel.
Recycling pain is exhausting. And that's basically what karma is. We recycle our pain and live in suffering. No one does it on purpose. But when we don't know any different, we can't do any different. And because recycling takes time, we usually don't know we're doing it until it's too late and we're suffering. Then we slap our foreheads and scream, "How could this happen again?"
I know you want to stop suffering (who doesn't?) so I'm going to share a simple way to help you do just that. You may believe hardship is necessary for personal growth. I once believed it too. Now I know it may open the door but growth doesn't have to involve hardship or suffering. There is another way...
Since karma is recycled pain keeping us in suffering, we need to define what suffering actually is. Suffering is simply the absence of pure love. In the absence of pure love, we suffer. It truly is that simple though we make it very complex.
So clearing our karma and stopping our suffering means we reconnect with that pure love inside of us—the truth of who we are. It's there; it never dies. But in our confusion, we forget this and root into our thoughts instead, allowing our pain to recycle over and over again. Then we suffer because we can't access pure love from the place of our thoughts.
We access pure love from the place of our hearts—the hub of our truth and the proper home of our awareness—not from our heads. This is a common mistake. We assume our answers lie in thoughts, not feelings, fearing our feelings are what misled us. But feelings based on pure love don't mislead; and painful experiences aren't a mistake...but that's a topic for another blog!
The reconnection to pure love is the quest of spiritual seekers everywhere who want to stop suffering. It takes the heart of a warrior because the path is not always an easy one to tread. Hard choices must be made, some of them painful releases. But what more sacred road do you have to walk in this life? What bigger purpose is there then to reconnect with your true nature of pure love?
The simple technique I share can help you do that. It's not some earth-shattering practice that only mountaintop monks know. It's simple, remember? Sometimes the truth lives right under our noses, which is why we can't see it.
I don't need to tell you the truth because the truth is already inside of you. You've known it since the day you were born. The trick is accessing it. So let me share this simple way to help you access it:
1. Sit comfortably in a chair with your hips square and bare feet flat on the ground, or sit on a thick cushion on the ground with your spine long, heart lifted, and legs comfortably crossed. Relax and close your eyes.
2. Rest your left palm over your heart at the center of your chest and rest your right palm on top of your left.
3. Relax your belly or naval. Breathe in and out slowly and deeply through your nose using abdominal breathing. In abdominal breathing, your naval expands away from your spine and fills with air as you inhale; the lungs follow. As you exhale, the lungs deflate and empty of air and the naval follows as it contracts back to your spine. Abdominal breathing is deep, natural, relaxing and very purifying for the body. Don't worry too much about the particulars of this breath; but do allow your naval to expand on the inhale and contract on the exhale.