What is Karma anyways?

Karma is a concept that you hear frequently among conversations but usually misunderstood.
There is no doubt that in Yoga and other Easter traditions, the concept is pivotal in the understanding of how the world works and the effect that our actions have on it.

Even for some traditions like Jainism, their understanding of the world is intrinsic to their understanding of Karma. In the words of Dr. Christopher Chappel, Professor of Indic and comparative Theology "In Jainism, karma is the basic principle within an overarching psycho-cosmology, in which human moral actions form the basis of the transmigration of the soul (jiva)—constrained within the temporal world (samsara)—until one achieves liberation (moksa) from this cycle, by following a path of purification."

With more than 30 years of studying Yoga, Swami Dasa came to Texas to gives us a more practical, modern and down to Earth understanding of this concept.
In his lecture, Swami Enoch Dasa Giri explained to the audience that the most important concept to understand about Karma is that it is not a law of punishment or retribution, it is not "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" it is simply the law of cause and effect. We need to understand that our actions have repercussions and we are the solely responsible of those actions.
Nevertheless the way we respond to life has a deep root on how we have responded to the events in the past. Swami Dasa said, "It really doesn't matter if you believe in reincarnation or not; if you grasp that who you are now is the result of how you reacted yesterday to events an people, and though some of those actions were valid at some point in the past you need to decide if they fit in your present, otherwise let them go..." "Yoga with the understanding of Karma allows the practitioner to regain control over their life, that to me is liberating."

Swami Dasa used the example of a dog coming into a room where two kids are playing. For one boy, a dog might be a good and fun animal, for the other the dog is a source of fear and threat. We rarely see the dog for what it is. We respond to life based on our experiences, prejudices and emotionality. At some point we need to understand at a deep level that not all dogs mean harm to us. That is the beginning of taking control over the emotional response of our mind and over our universe.

Karma is a mechanism to allow us to see how our mind responds, how we affect the world and how the world can affect us. Swami Dasa mentioned too that in terms of Karma our intent to do or think something will propel responses in our environment that we will have to deal with.

As yoga practitioners we can see the biases in our bodies and it is easier to work with them in hatha yoga. Nevertheless, he reminded us that we have too keep in mind that Asana practice is only 1/8th of the whole system of Yoga. The first two limbs are important practices to be mindful and aware of how we should live our lives. For that we need to understand the Yamas as restrains: Non-violence, Truthfulness, Non-stealing, Moderation and Non-greed)and the Niyamas as observances: Purity, Contentment, Austerity, Self-study, Surrender to the indwelling Reality.

Swami Dasa helped us to understand how the upper limbs like concentration and meditation, allow the mind to be quiet, to turn the consciousness inward to see clearly and without emotional responses what lies there and how to change it for the better.

In other words what get us into trouble in our daily lives is many time our emotional response to the events that come to us. Practicing the eight limbs of Yoga give us the opportunity to regain control over our life and therefore have a positive impact on the universe we exist within.