Tribal Karma Tattoo – Tips on Getting Your New Tattoo!
You’ve spent a long time making the decision to get a tribal karma tattoo; so don’t blow it in the home stretch. Invest a little time and effort and really develop an idea that speaks to you. Now here’s where I see most people go wrong. They spend a lot of time wrestling with the idea of getting the tattoo and exactly where to put the tattoo, but they don’t spend nearly enough time developing their specific tattoo and tracking down the perfect artist for the job.
These are two really important components to having a successful tribal karma tattoo. You need a good design, and you need a good tattoo artist. So now that you’ve decided to get your tribal karma tattoo where do you find a good design and artist? Well, if you are like most people you will head straight to your computer and do a Google search, and that is exactly the problem. It’s what everyone does.
So here is what I always recommend.
Do your research using a pay tribal tattoo site. These pay sites narrow the field a little, but that is just the beginning of the benefits that you get by going this route. By using a pay tribal karma tattoo site you have access to reviews of local tattoo parlors that specialize in nothing but tribal designs, and you have access to custom graphics. These sites also provide discussion forums where you can find out what did and did not work for other tattoo enthusiasts.
Be smart. Once you have decided to commit to that tattoo, do a little research and make sure that it’s a tattoo worthy of your commitment.
Good luck getting your new tribal karma tattoo!
Filed under Karmaloop | Comment (0)The Origins of Dis-ease 2: Karma & The Core Story
Copyright (c) 2010 David Lowell
It has been said, that except for poisoning, most, if not all illness has its origins in a psycho/spiritual/emotional event or series of events, which impact the psyche, brain and then a specific area of the body, depending upon the nature of the conflict and the interpretation of it. So what is it that determines how the psyche interprets a particular event and what is it that causes some people to experience repetitive events of a similar nature? Why is it that some women experience repeated molestations or physical abuse? Why are some people accident prone, while others lead lives full of Grace? The answer for a large portion of this appears to lie in the realm of Karma.
The simplistic thought about Karma is of cause and effect. You screw up today and suffer endlessly the next time around. The laws of Quantum Mechanics however, don’t allow for direct cause and effect, what they do allow for is consequence.
Your thoughts, actions and intentions set up a propensity for things to occur and reoccur. These propensities in the field of possibilities tend to manifest when local conditions allow. Your present lifetime’s predominant theme will tend to show up in what can be called the core story.
On the subconscious level the guilt or decisions made over many lifetimes manifest in a core story, usually one which expresses unworthiness or distrust/dislike for life on Earth. It is this story which forms the subconscious underlay for our present day personality and one might even say, it is the scenario which we have chosen to work through, this time around. This story forms what are known as attractor fields or patterns. Attractor fields are what guide flocks of birds and schools of fish in their wondrous dances. They have an effect on what we draw into our lives and appear to have an effect on the family we are borne into. The scenarios which our families play often tend to validate our stories, sometimes with perverse Machiavellian twists, adding various tangential subplots.
Our repetitive patterns can be the source of extreme frustration, both for the individual as well as the practitioner. We do deep process or meditation, and just when we think we have it licked; up it pops with a new twist. For some it’s the poisoning which is part of our story. The origins may be that way back some time we were responsible for the poisoning of others and now out of subconscious guilt we are on a treadmill of endless invasions. We may consciously have overcome the core belief but the story can have a life of its own. The change has to come on a deep subconscious level.
So when dealing with a long term client who has showed up over the years with different scenarios manifesting with similar effects on the same organ, I am given a pretty clear indication as to his or her core story. With the “New Medicine” map providing some basic clues; we can explore the nature of their pasts and the effect on their present. This in turn provides the information as to where to apply forgiveness both for self and others to release the Karmic debt. Then we can use spiritual self-inquiry to bring truth to the core story, eventually dissolving it.
The prospect of being able to help liberate someone from a lifetime of suffering is a powerful incentive to move forward, even when one has no clue as to what is waiting around the corner. The awareness that one is simply the vehicle through which consciousness moves, is balancing when faced with the unknown. And there is also the awareness that the clearing of other’s issues, can be the catalyst for releasing one’s own. It is a graciously humbling experience to say the least.
Filed under Karmaloop | Comment (0)Numerology’s Karma number; what lessons you must learn in life
Want to know what kind of karmic lessons you need to work on in this lifetime? Numerology can tell you what kinds of karma you are carrying over from a previous life. We just need to calculate your Karma number.
===> Calculating your Karma Number
Your Karma number comes from a specific branch of Numerology called Yantra or Magic Square numerology. It consist of constructing a Magic square using your birth date numbers, and then interpreting the values in the specific boxes in the square.
Your Karma number is found by taking the day of the month of your birth day, and subtracting (1), then reducing the result by fadic addition.
For example, actor Johnny Depp was born on June 9th, 1963; so his Karma number would be calculated as follows:
Karma number = (Day of Birth Month – 1) = (9 – 1) = (8)
The Karma number values and their meanings are listed below.
===> Karma Number (0)
You don’t have a particular karmic lesson to deal with in this lifetime. You have an opportunity to start this incarnation with a clean slate instead of having a specific flaw to overcome.
===> Karma Number (1)
You are dealing with the karma of failing to be independent and stand on your own two feet in a previous life. You will probably start off this lifetime being overly dependant on others, and having to learn to be independent.
===> Karma Number (2)
You are dealing with the karma of failing to learn to use your intuition in a previous life. You also made some key mistakes in close relationships which you must work to improve in this lifetime. You will probably start this life with little confidence in your intuition, and then have to learn to use it and develop it as you grow older.
===> Karma Number (3)
You are dealing with the karma of being too frivolous and superficial in a previous lifetime; of not taking life seriously enough. Your lesson for this life is to balance your life, learn when to be serious and down to earth, and when to let go and enjoy life.
===> Karma Number (4)
You are dealing with the karma of being too lazy in a past lifetime; of not working hard enough. You will probably start off this lifetime having to work harder than other people to achieve the same results. But, if you are persistent and work hard, your life will gradually become easier as your karma resolves itself.
===> Karma Number (5)
You are dealing with the karma of overindulging in some kind of personal pleasures in a past lifetime; of wasting too mush time on yourself. Your lesson for this life is to learn to use your time wisely; to make sacrifices now in order to help yourself and others later. This is a difficult lesson and may take you an entire lifetime to master.
===> Karma Number (6)
You are dealing with the karma of disregarding your family responsibilities in a previous lifetime. Your lesson for this life is to learn to love and care for your family. You will probably have a particular family member with special attention needs placed in this lifetime to test you.
===> Karma Number (7)
You are dealing with the karma of failing to fully develop spiritually in a past life. Your lesson for this lifetime is to develop your faith, or your spirituality. You will probably start off the life with a doubting and questioning approach to spiritual matters, and then have to develop insight and belief as you grow older.
===> Karma Number (8)
You are dealing with the karma of misusing money in a previous life. You either had wealth and squandered it, or perhaps you took money from those who needed it more than you did. You will probably start this lifetime with little money, and will have to work extremely hard to get ahead in life. This situation will improve as you work off this karmic debt.
===> Karma Number (9)
You are dealing with the karma of avoiding helping other people in a past life. Your lesson in this lifetime is to learn to be a humanitarian and help others. You will probably start this life with great personal needs of your own, and will only progress in life when this lesson is mastered.
===> Karma Number (11)
You are dealing with the karma of wasting opportunities in a past life due to a lack of confidence or a fear of failure. Your lesson in this lifetime is to prepare and grasp life’s opportunities when they are presented to you. The good news is that you will receive these opportunities again in this lifetime.
===> Karma Number (22)
You are dealing with the karma of misusing a position of responsibility in a past life. Your lesson in this lifetime is to accept responsibility when it is offered, and to work hard to achieve something worthwhile with it. You will probably start this life with little responsibility, and have to work hard to show you disserve it.
Karma
We tend to think of Karma as some kind of luck. You’ve either got it bad, or you’ve got it good. If you’ve got it good, the gods are smiling on you. If you’ve got it bad, you’re at least a little bit cursed, and have to somehow pay or make up for the months or years or lifetimes of having ‘blown it’. However unknown your infractions may be to you now.
I’d like to propose that Karma is not about what Happens to you. But thatKarma is about how you Handle it. Karma is a state of mind. Therein lies our power to ‘create our own reality’, and meet what life hands us in a powerful stance of co-creation. By our actions and reactions, thoughts and feelings. It’s easy to imagine oneself a victim when things aren’t going the way we’d wish. “Bad karma!” we might mutter. Another versions of, “Bummer, man!” But, as they say, ‘shit happens’. To all of us! And I believe karma is about how we perspective and meet and handle said ‘shit’. If something happens that I don’t like, I can label it (or me) bad, and bring the accompanying complaint and victimization to it. If something happens that I do like, I can think I’ve got it good.
But perhaps I can begin to step out of my thoughts about good and bad, right and wrong, and look at the potential learning in the situation. And imagine myself meeting that perceptually less-than-ideal human experience with an attitude of curiosity, openness and perhaps even gratitude as to what it’s here to teach. Every moment is a potential turning point. What happens guides and shapes us. We cannot see the steps ahead. The ego’s tendency–brilliantly named the ‘Pain Body’ by Eckhart Tolle–is to see what it doesn’t want as wrong, and to inflict more suffering on itself. We’re all very good at that: suffering over our suffering. Perhaps Karma is about alleviating our own suffering when ‘shit happens’. And finding the potential goodness. Looking for the lesson. Putting it in perspective.
Opening our arms to the universe and saying, “I don’t know why this is occurring, but okay, thank you.” I remember, many years ago now, thinking I was going to be moving into a certain place. I had made a special trip to see it again, and to meet with the property manager to sign the papers. When I arrived, he flippantly told me the place wasnt going to be ready on time for me to move in. No big deal to him . . . But I had movers coming. I had someone moving into the place I was vacating. I thought he and I had a deal. I thought I had a plan. I was basically being blown off, and found myself desperate, in a swirl of stress and angst and upset. I couldn’t see myself as anything other than a victim. Now, with nowhere now to go . . . Bad karma, some would say. But that was just a moment in time. Fraught. But a moment, nonetheless.
What I didn’t know, and couldnt see, was that something even better was waiting for me. And that that ‘glitch’, that moment of apparent bad karma, was guiding me toward the life and home I’m in now. A place of goodness and beauty I couldn’t have imagined. Had that other place come through, every single detail in my life would be different today. The people I know. The clients I see. Everything. In Chinese, the symbol for ‘crisis’ is made up of two other symbols: “danger” and “opportunity.”
Under stress, it’s hard to see the opportunity in the crisis. To trust that there is an unfoldment that wants something even better than the ego can conceive of in the moment. That to me is about Karma. About meeting life from a place of openness, curiosity and neutrality, so that when things don’t go the way we think we want them to, we can be receptive, and create Good Karma for ourselves by how we are meeting life, and treating ourselves and others in the process. This is an act of faith,surrender. Trusting in the unfoldment of our lives, however vague and disappointing that may seem at the time. Opening our arms to life and saying, “I don’t know why this is occurring, but okay, thank you.” Creating our own good Karma, by trusting the flow of our own evolution, and letting go, and going with it.
Johanna Courtleigh, MA, LPC, CHT
Filed under Karmaloop | Comment (0)
The Power That Karma Holds Over Us!
You are probably thinking that experiencing karma is completely in the gross physical or mental levels of being, but that is not true. It is experienced in both the subtle level as well as arising into the denser manifestations of karma, which culminate in physical events, as well as becoming your environment. It is in the outer world, but you are experiencing it through the filter of your magic charm: the mass of your karma that is yet unfulfilled because suitable conditions have not arrived.
Student: I like the movement from subtle to manifest as you say, so the question for me that comes is, okay, if it comes from that subtle plane, it has to have a pathway into the gross plane. What is that pathway?
Rinpoche: That is you standing with the door open, saying, “Let the disaster begin.”
Student: Oh, in that case, are you going to teach us how to shut the door to bad karma coming from our subtle reality?
Rinpoche: Karma is actually a subject for very long periods of meditation.
I am describing the general elements of the meditation, but nothing changes unless you seriously meditate on them and gain realizations. It is not something easy to describe or even to understand intellectually. Karma is very, very subtle. We are the proprietors of our body and our own life and are responsible for our own actions, but we seem to be enmeshed in this unbreakable web of our own making. The dilemma is huge!
Student: You know, it could be a motivator of fear, but it also could be a motivator to get on the cushion.
Rinpoche: And to take responsibility. In one of the sutras, it states, “The karma of embodied beings does not vanish over hundreds of eons. If the prerequisites and the time are right, karma will ripen to results.” This is what Lord Buddha Shakyamuni said about karma. In addition, “It will not grow stale over time, it will not lessen over time, and it will not become nonexistent over time.” These are the ramifications of remaining in the unenlightened state.
Even at the end of this world when everything is destroyed, karma will not disappear simply because the human realm does not exist any more. Those who have not completed their karma or transformed to the awakened state will be scooped up in their actual inner being, the level of subtle mind that is the true transmigrator. Living beings will be held in a stasis like state, but they are still not free. They will be held until a suitable environment, such as the next world system, let us say another earth develops. Then the living beings will assume another body-like form and could complete their karma, or continue suffering. You might say, “Well, that does not sound very good!” And I agree!
Student: What would be the difference between creating a virtuous mind and karma versus, at a higher evolutionary state, being free of karma?
Rinpoche: Even in higher evolutionary states, living beings, such as bodhisattvas, voluntarily take on certain types of karma, out of compassion, in order to be able to be with others who are experiencing suffering. Thank goodness for their great compassion.
If you do not examine and take responsibility for your life, then the opportunity to change will pass you by, as though you are in some kind of a dream. When we look at events of our life and present situation, sometimes it is painful, and we want to push it away. Sometimes it is so joyful that we can hardly tolerate our good luck. Whether our experiences are virtuous or non-virtuous, both depend upon grasping, either way it is an unbreakable web of our own making. We are not causing karma. We are the makers of karma, and we are responsible to ourselves.
Student: Which is the more important statement, that we are the creators of karma or that we are responsible for our karma?
Rinpoche: We are responsible. We have an obligation to ourselves to behave in certain ways that creates our life and produces virtuous karma so virtuous activities become increased and negative activities, which tend to make us pretty cranky, are reduced. When our own negative actions are fewer, the possibility of experiencing negativity is also a great deal reduced. In addition, the more negativity we eliminate in our self, the less we are capable of harming others. Our own experiences of bad karma and negative karma do have a cascade effect on family and society in general, and in that way, we stop harming others. To out great luck for everyone, our life situation and evolutionary dynamics become more skillful.
Student: So, rather than responsibility, it is the response to karma.
Rinpoche: No, you have a responsibility to yourself. You have a responsibility to take care of yourself. Many feel that they have a duty to others, but they do not care about themselves. You have an obligation to create superior causes and conditions so that the results are the highest quality possible.
Some people, like our mothers, say “Oh, I care nothing for myself. I only want my children to be happy,” when in fact they do have a responsibility to themselves. They still have the same responsibilities to their children, but it was not supposed to be one thing or the other. They were also supposed to take care of themselves.
You know, our egos have their own way of interpreting events. We are already suffering because inappropriate ego prevents us from perceiving the way things exist in reality. In addition, perhaps we do not respect ourselves enough to challenge this ego-based method of dealing with external and internal phenomena. The powerful self-respect developed when we do authentic dharma practice gives us skills to deal with inappropriate ego in a way that will completely change how we perceive the world. We need to make effort to produce virtues that are going to allow us to experience happiness in the future. This is a different way of observing life, from this system.
After a great deal of personal effort and blessings from the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and entering the enlightened state, karma completely disappears. However, in the meantime, by the teachings of the Buddhist dharma, we steadily push for positive changes in behavior and perceptions, through meditation efforts. By these transformations, we also enhance our ability to make changes in the subtler levels of our being. Both others and we ourselves will become happier. We hold the ideals of perfect Buddhahood by the awareness of the benefits of the goal, complete and total enlightenment, complete omniscience, and spontaneous compassion.
So, how shall we do it? Human beings have the capacity to change, isn’t that so? We will need to challenge the way we think by our human willpower that does not exist in other realms. The god realm seems like such a marvelous place. Gods can manifest things at will but they do not have the will to change. They do not have the willpower that we do in the human realm.
Yes, we need to change our karma, but how much strength do we need to reverse the harm that we have done just in this one lifetime? If we believe in reincarnation, we realize that we probably have unfulfilled karma from other lives as well. If you look at your own body and your own life’s situation, you might say, as the sages throughout history have said, “I am the result of my previous karma, and what I am doing now is the cause for my future.” That future result could ripen in the next five minutes, the next five years, or it could be in the next lifetime.
Are we willing to put some effort into changing the way we behave? In a way, yes, we are willing to put some effort into it, and in a way, we are not or incapable. Some situations and habits seem so difficult it is impossible to even imagine changes. This is when the systematic teachings of dharma makes the most sense, because there are some behaviors that can change right away. For instance, there are some things so stupid, so time wasting and silly, we just forgot to say stop! These are what we can easily change. Just decide, ‘I am not going to do it anymore!’ If somebody says, “But we always go to the bar on Thursday night,” you say, “You cannot make me! I do not want to. I am wasting my time. I do not like the smell. Let’s go for a jog instead.”
So, there are some trouble making behaviors that we can change instantly. Why don’t we just do it? I believe that some things just require our permission by stating formally to our self “I give myself permission to not do this anymore.” It is an interesting and empowering feeling to give yourself permission.
You can also start by increasing virtue in small ways to practice self-confidence. Even small good deeds will increase, and we should not overlook any opportunity to practice virtue. In the saying of the Buddha, “Do not think that a small virtue will not return in your future lives, just as falling drops of water will fill a large container.” Little virtues will steadfastly accumulate and will be a powerful source of energy. The amassing of small merits and small virtues will generate enough merit and strength to change even more. Not only does it deepen your good nature, and make you more sophisticated spiritually, it will culminate in complete freedom from karma.
http://www.satisfiedbuddhist.blogspot.com/
http://www.white-conch.org/Welcome.html
http://www.hermitagebuddhistpublishing.com/
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/domo-geshe-rinpoche-teachings/id387058479
Filed under Karmaloop | Comment (0)Mend Your Horoscope This Dhanteras
There are many instances scribbled in the past which tell us how our karma (our deed) can change the kismat (fate). The legend associated with the festival of Dhanteras is one such instance when an individual through his persistent karma and belief changed the world around him.
As the legend goes, the horoscope of King Himas sixteen year old son read that he would die on the fourth day of his marriage by a snake bite. On that particular fourth day of his marriage, his young wife did not allow him to sleep. She laid all the ornaments and lots of gold and silver coins in a big heap at the entrance of her husband’s boudoir and lighted innumerable lamps all over the place. And she went on telling stories and singing songs. When Yama, the god of Death arrived there in the guise of a Serpent his eyes got blinded by that dazzle of those brilliant lights and he could not enter the Prince’s chamber. So he climbed on top of the heap of the ornaments and coins and sat there whole night listening to the melodious songs. In the morning he quietly went away as the time allotted for his death had passed. Thus the intelligence of the young wife saved her husband from the clutches of death. Since then this day of Dhanteras came to be known as the day of “Yamadeepdaan” and lamps are kept burning throughout the night in reverential adoration to Yam, the god of Death.
So Dhanteras is celebrated as a reminder for those who have a certain fear about some ills in their horoscope. Here the importance of karma is kept well ahead of kismat and it is reminded again and again that the kismat can be mended provided the ills as depicted in the horoscope are known and due remedial measures are resorted to.
The festivity associated with Deepawali starts on the thirteenth day of the waning moon of the Hindu month of Kartik which is Dhanteras and ends after five days with Bhai-Dhooj.
Here is the methodology adopted for celebrating the worshiping on the day of Dhanteras and by ritually following the ills if there in the horoscope can be kept at bay but it has to kept in mind that these are generalized and not particular.
To mark the auspicious day, houses and business premises are renovated and decorated. Entrances are made colorful with lovely traditional motifs of Rangoli designs to welcome the Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity. To indicate her long-awaited arrival, small footprints are drawn with rice flour and vermilion powder all over the houses. Lamps are kept burning all through the nights. Dhanteras is celebrated with passion and enthusiasm. “Lakshmi-Puja” is performed in the evenings when tiny Diyas of clay are lighted to drive away the shadows of evil spirits. Bhajans or devotional songs- in praise of Goddess Laxmi are sung and “Naivedya” of traditional sweets is offered to the Goddess.
Karma effects as pointed out by planets
I had a unique visitor who has got a variety of problems in their family.He has a son, who is spastic, another Son physically handicapped and like that. I do not want to elaborate all his problems, as it is not right on my part to describe.
He approached me to find out reasons for such kind of life for him, as he had enormous wealth/properties at his disposal. He is so rich that he has the strength to get any kind of treatment for his issues.
I happened to analyze their entire family horoscopes to find out reasons for such complications in life.The chart and position of planets indicated very clearly about past mistakes/sins committed by the family.
Now the nature and intensity of the SINS have to be assessed. After doing so, I found that they are all so severe and cannot be rectified. Now when I said so, he asked me as to why it cannot be rectified.
When I make assessment I used to track the planets positioned in a chart.
For e-g when a planet is in good position does not mean it is beneficial planet for the chart. Similarly when a planet is in a maleficial position, does not mean that the planet is bad for the chart. Therefore, very close study has to be conducted to arrive at as to whether the planet is good or bad and is it neutral and depends on other planets influence.
In the case of planetary position in charts, some planets may not be able to effectively exert its influence on the individuals, as it might have been hampered by other planets. In such cases, the individual planet though might look very good on the face of it will be actually delivering very bad results to the individual.
In the instant case, When I analzed their past karma, I found that in their previous births, they have committed may wrong things, thereby earned the curses of families. Now the curses differ depending upon its intensity. When a person was cursed by a good person ( good person is one who was spiritual and followed the path of honestness thgroughout life), then such curses might last longer.
If a person was cursed by a sage, it might affect the family for generations. If a person was cursed by animals/birds, then by doing some small rectifications, the ill effects will reduce and/or vanish totally.
I will deal with curses later. Comingback to my visitor’s chart, the SIN committed by them was so bad. To say an example, they were all rich about 100/200 years ago and were leading a very rich life. They were having the habit of feeding many people who visit them and also offer gifts to them. They have also constructed temples and donated lands.
Now in order to sustain such good things, their family was also involved in business of lending money for high interest rates. In this case also many people benefitted and many could not repay even the interest due to poverty and inability to repay the loans. For such kind of defaulters, these people used to harass them and some of the people committed suicide also due to torture by them.
I did not explain all these things to him, because it is usual people do not believe if any bad things are told to them. They always expect to tell good things about them always. This is a major problem for astrologers whenever a chart is analyzed. Hence, I did not explain the SINS committed to him.
In such cases, it is absolutely impossible for a human being to rectify and make things alright for him. The complications faced by him will last depending upon the sufferings the people underwent in their previous births.
Now in the instant case, it is clear that,the family has to undergo this complications and face mental tension, till such time those families faced the same. It is for sure that those families suffered in the hands of this person would have cursed very badly. Hence the after effects of curse.
There are some ways to reduce the complications, and get mental peace by undoing the mistakes committed,in their previous birth/s.For this one has to study the planets and houses it occupied, and the person/s or relatives those planets point out. In the initial stages of rectification process, trials have to be carried out, by performing some rituals, donating some items to those affected family members etc.. It is not that easy to identify this aspect and it requires very careful and thorough study of planets.
Filed under Karmaloop | Comment (0)