“They were here for us during the tornadoes, now we’re going to be there for them during the hurricanes.” With these words, many Oklahomans offered their money and services to those affected by the two recent hurricanes. I had to catch my breath when I heard the stories and saw the images of the Humane Society bus able to care for lost and injured animals and the linesman and fire fighters ready to rescue and restore power.

Here is a profound example of living from the heart chakra.

What activates the heart chakra to make it possible for us to love people, animals and places we have never met before?

We remember. Like the woman collecting food, water, sanitizers and diapers for folks in North Carolina, we remember when someone else loved us and cared for us. This memory fans the fire of the heart and makes it burn to do something—anything!—to alleviate the pain of another.

In the Yoga tradition this need to care and share the love is connected to karma. Karma simply means “action,” but it goes much deeper than simply doing something. In yogic philosophy karma is like roots that reach back into the past and move through our ancestral lines. Those same karmic branches have the potential to move into the future too. In the middle between the past and the future is all of us living our lives in the present moment.

We meet opportunities to act every moment of the day.

When we get caught up in discussions about karma being “good” or “bad,” we truly miss the more important point: Now is the only moment in which we can act. Now is the time to care for people, animals and the land. And there is no doubt that the good actions of so many people will ripple for months and years so that others will also say, “They were here for us when we needed them, so we will be there for them.”

I’m on the second time through the new Netflix documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, I’ve seen every movie he made. He was making movies during the growing years of my two sons and of course we had to see them all as close to opening day as possible. There are so many amazing things about this larger-than-life man who had three successful careers as a body builder, an actor and governor of California. But what really caught my attention was how he saw what he wanted—to be a body builder and movie star—and then acted to bring it into existence.

This reminds me of two concepts in the Vedic tradition that show us how to follow Arnold’s lead. In modern language it’s called “visualize and manifest.” In Yoga it’s called purusha, or latent potential, and karma, or action.

The Universe recognizes thousands of possibilities—maybe even millions—in every second. Unfortunately, we never see how much potential actually exists because we allow so many things to limit us, like how we were raised, where we live now, the education we received, fear of the unknown, failing to believe in ourselves and others, etc. If we could get real still and open our energetic field, we could begin to see what is possible for us beyond the limitations we place on ourselves. Kind of like the young Austrian who saw himself as the body builder and the actor even though there was no opportunity to do these things in his home country.

The Universe also rewards karma, the actions we take to move ourselves forward in this lifetime. In fact the Universe takes karma so seriously that we also carry with us the energy of our actions from past lifetimes. Is this possibly where Arnold got the first inspiration to follow this path? Did he bring with him into this lifetime innate abilities he had honed in previous lifetimes? It’s definitely possible. But it’s also true that he worked very hard to get where he wanted to go and sacrificed much more than many of us would be willing to do to get there.

It's time for you to get still and open your energetic field. Let go of all the preconceived notions of what is possible for you. Release the limiting beliefs like “it’s too hard,” “I’m too old/young,” “no one wants what I have to offer,” etc. What are the latent possibilities for your life? What actions can you take to see where these possibilities might take you? The world is waiting for you.

We’ve all heard the word “karma” and have probably used it to mean “they got what was coming to them,” whether they were deserving of good or bad consequences. In his new book, Sadhguru busts this limited view of karma as simply “the law of cause and effect” by showing us a more robust meaning of the term and giving us specific practices that will make us embrace our karma fully. After all, the subtitle to his book is “a yogi’s guide to crafting your destiny.” I’m all in; how about you?

The word karma is a Sanskrit term that simply means “action,” but Sadhguru laments that no other word has been so “grotesquely oversimplified or needlessly mystified.” He wants to make the term completely accessible to everyone because it is key to understanding the workings of the world and to unfolding our own destiny as individuals and a world community.
In the first half of the book he lays out the philosophy of karma. He truly has a knack for making the teachings clear! What helps is that he adds stories to illustrate his points. Yes, karma is action, but not just the action of doing something in the physical world. Karma sets things in motion that have consequences. And karma is not limited to simply the things we do, but also what we say, think and even the intention we have when say, think or do.

Another practical point he makes is that our action, or karma, usually settles into routines and habits. We begin to identify with those routines and habits in ways that can take us toward a more liberating life or a more deceitful one. We can convince ourselves that this is just the way we are and that we can’t or won’t change. In hardening our own hearts we seal our own fate of suffering. “Externally, it may be a new day. You may have a new job, a new home. . . But, internally, you are experiencing the same cycles—the same internal oscillations, the same behavioral shifts, the same mental reactions, the same psychological tendencies.”

The second half of his book is dedicated to the many ways we can work with the karma we have to live a life of freedom and joy. No, it’s not a “grin and bear it” attitude that gets us through the pain of life, but rather understanding that our life is our own creation. The error we make is to look to the world to give us answers as to why life is so challenging. The positive step the yogi takes is to turn inward, to see oneself as part of the greater whole, and thereby take full and complete responsibility for their own karma.

One of the best practices is karma yoga where the yogi explores how everything we think, say or do is an opportunity to get more entangled in the drama of the world or presents the possibility of being liberated from it. How? “It is quite simple,” he says. “Whether you walk or dance, work or play, cook or sing, just do it with total attention and awareness. Or else, do it with total abandon. Both ways are closer to creation.” You can begin your karma yoga journey today: You can live with awareness, a state in which you become conscious and take in all life has to offer with acceptance and joy. Or you can live with abandon, a state of immersion where you truly lose yourself in the ecstasy and gratitude of living in this magnificent world. Neither path is easy, but it is made easier when we share it with our fellow yogis under the guidance of a learned teacher like Sadhguru.

Sadhguru. Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. Harmony Books, 2021.