When one's mind is attuned to cosmic law, every action produces positive waves of influence throughout the environment, like the waves from a pebble dropped in a pond that travel to distant shores.

Creating excellence in action and sowing the seeds of good fortune
by Global Good News staff writer
21 September 2011

You’re in school or at work. Yesterday everything seemed to be going your way. Today, nothing went quite right. What happened? Is there something you could have done to change things?

‘It’s just some karma,’ you could reflect, finding solace in a loosely used phrase to express the well-known proverb, ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap.’ From a scientific perspective, the concept that what comes to us is based on past action is expressed as a simple principle of action and reaction, every action producing a reaction of equal magnitude but opposite direction.

Below, we’ll take a look at the truly fascinating concept of karma. And then we’ll gain knowledge of how the Transcendental Meditation Technique set us on the path of experiencing good karma.

A glimpse at the unfathomable

Though often associated with bad action and its results, the word ‘karma’ is unqualified in its meaning, simply referring to action, irrespective of whether it is good or bad.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, foremost scientist of consciousness in this generation and founder of the Transcendental Meditation Programme, explains that to fathom karma in its full range is beyond human intelligence. To describe karma, he uses an analogy of a pebble which, when thrown into a pond, creates waves on the water’s surface.  The waves travel to the shore, pushing on the grains of sand there or dragging them into the pond. The waves create an influence throughout the pond and all over the shore.

In a similar manner, our every thought, word, and action produces waves of influence in the surroundings. The extent of the influence is truly unfathomable as Maharishi lays out in a book entitled, Science of Being and Art of Living:*

‘The vibrations set forth by the performance of an action travel around the doer, striking against everything in the surroundings, traveling far and wide. They strike against everything on Earth, on the moon, the sun, and the stars, and keep on traveling in the entire field of the universe, influencing everything that they come across. How they influence depends upon the quality of the action and the force of performance.

‘The reaction created by the striking of these vibrations against different things in the universe travels back to the doer as a rubber ball thrown against a wall bounces back to the player.’  

So we see that whether things go well or not is simply a reflection of our past actions. Whether someone is a source of happiness or unhappiness to us, he is simply carrying good or bad karma to us, Maharishi explains. In actuality, we are each responsible for our own happiness or suffering.

As a postman delivers mail

To comfortably appreciate this, consider that a man is delivering karma to us as a postman would deliver any mail addressed to us. Maharishi elucidates:

‘If a man—call him Mr. X—comes to us and is very happy and good-natured and brings us much joy, we think he is nothing but a bundle of happiness. But the philosophy of karma says that Mr. X is only a bundle of happiness to you because he is at that time delivering to you the happiness that you once spread in the world. The reaction of your good karma is coming through him. He is only making a delivery to you, just as a postman delivers a letter addressed to you. Had Mr. X actually been a bundle of happiness, then he would not be an unhappy companion to some others on some other side of his life.

‘If a man seems to be good to some and bad to others, he could not be all good or he would be good to everyone. If he is all bad, he would be bad to everyone. But no one is all bad and no one is all good. Everyone is part good and part bad. So, the man becomes the carrier of the good or bad karma of other people. If he is the carrier of good to you, he comes and brings happiness. The same man the next day may become a means of unhappiness to you. He is creating unhappiness when he becomes the carrier of your bad deeds, and he brings joy to you when he becomes the carrier of the influence of your good actions . . .’ * 

Attuning yourself to cosmic intelligence

With this understanding of karma in mind, let’s consider that there is a way to prevent bad karma from our future actions as well as what can be done about the influence of our past action.

As we have seen, the influence of action extends throughout the universe. It is fathomless, beyond human comprehension. ‘No one,’ Maharishi says, ‘can say what action performed by a man at a particular time in a particular place will produce an effect in any level of creation at a particular time.’*

So, having explained that the full influence of any action is beyond the human mind, Maharishi poses the question, ‘who can say what action is worthy of performance and what action is worthy of rejection?’*  

Even if the right and wrong were intellectually understood, it would be so complicated that it would not seem possible to evaluate and adjust every action to be right.

“But,’ Maharishi offers, ‘it seems to be possible to adjust the whole stream of life in such a way that every action performed by the doer is naturally a good or right action.’ * 

In unfolding how to do this, Maharishi explains that the life of the universe is carried out in an automatic and natural manner by ‘natural law,’ ‘cosmic law.’ If the life of the individual could be put on that same plane of cosmic law, his life would also progress and evolve naturally and automatically.

This is precisely what the Transcendental Meditation Technique does. Through the regular practice of this simple technique, the mind of any individual, in any place or time, becomes attuned to the level of cosmic law. ‘He then produces through his thought, word, and action, an influence of good for himself and for all others; for the present and for all times.’* 

Postscript: Your happy future

The same formula of practising the Transcendental Meditation Technique automatically has the effect of making the ‘good’ days outnumber the ‘bad’ at school and everywhere in even more ways. It strengthens your faculties of experience and action so that you will naturally accomplish, achieve, and enjoy maximum in life while doing maximum good for yourself and others.

And, with your faculties thus strengthened, then, yes, ‘…the Karma done by the undeveloped faculties of the past will be easily overthrown by the more developed faculties of the present—and easily,’ Maharishi explains in a newly released book entitled, Transcendental Meditations with Questions and Answers. ‘So,’ he  says, ‘that is the importance of Transcendental Meditation.’

*from Science of Being and Art of Living by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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