On Karma, and Mysticism

Intrigued by the Balinese way of life, I have often wondered what goes through their minds as I pass them on the street. I have tucked myself away into the corner of a Kuta neighborhood, and walk the same steps each day on my way to the beach, for lunch, a massage, and the corner store. I see many of the same faces and wonder, am I to them what they are to me: perfectly placed to keep my mind in wondering?

Karma, a Hindu concept, is the belief that our thoughts and actions are accounted for in everything we do, on a ledger visible only to the Creator. And we, trapped on this earth indefinitely, are bound to repeat our lives one lifetime to the next, as we search the profound to find ourselves and log more good than bad in our Karmic ledger.

Perhaps this is why the people here are so peaceful, despite the poverty that is their life? They must be rich in their Karma? As they go about their life, from mixing sand and concrete together to fix a temple statue by hand to cutting the grass with a pair of oversized scissors, there is a gentle humbleness in their existence that can only be attributed to Karma, and to Mysticism.

To believe, in anything, is not natural. To live and breathe and walk in one world, and yet to value the existence of another world, invisible to the eye, is insanity. And yet, in sanity, I find myself seeking the approval of my Creator in every step I take. The notion of Karma has infiltrated my heart, and spread into my mind. Not because I necessarily believe that the scorecard of my life will ultimately determine the eternal future of my being. Rather, when skin and bones turn to dust, and dust back to stone, I hope that in being aware of my thoughts and actions, and the record they will have on my ledger, helps me to make decisions that are based more on the happiness of others than of myself.

Not a martyr in the sense that I am willing to die for my beliefs, instead I see myself a martyr to my beliefs, willing to live for them instead. And so I walk the streets of Bali, and I see those who, like myself, are on this journey. As a wise man once related to me, we are all on this path together. Some realize it sooner than others, but we will all realize at some point that we have been inexplicably tied to each other in thought and action from the day that we were born. My actions, and the thoughts that drive such actions, tie me to each and every person in which I come in contact. From the pushy salesman haggling me to buy things I do not want or need, to the tourist sitting at the bar as I walk past, to lonely kids on the street selling bracelets and other charms, and the women who walk the beach offering their massage services. We are all connected in this, a mystic world, and we should hope for awareness much sooner than later – not to change our life, but rather to change the lives of others.

In relating a brief story, I will perhaps have a mark against me in my Karmic ledger. But the act in itself is in the hopes that you might see the true nature of who we are, one and the same, and all in this life together. If it costs me one more lifetime of wandering, I will gladly accept my fate and resign, in what time I have left of this life, to urge many more people to awaken to this journey.

In teaching a local friend to surf, I have been told by others that I am improving my karma by leaps and bounds – at least in Bali. But I do not see it this way. I see it as a way for me to help someone once afraid of the ocean to find the peace I find in floating on her waters. And so we surfed again yesterday, on the crowded waters of Kuta Beach, and I lost him in the crowd. So, contemplating whether I would compete for the one break on this part of the beach, I simply sat on my board, closed my eyes, and breathed. I have learned to value my time here. Trust me, even in the moments I waste in sleeping and in drinking too much from time to time, I realize the extent of the beauty this island has and the love I feel inside as a result of it. Still from time to time I attempt to capture more of this feeling inside of me, making it such a part of me that I will be drawn back one day to release the feeling once again into the world. And as I sat, I was at peace with the world and, more importantly, with myself. Without my rash guard protecting me, the sun was warm on my flesh as its energy seemed to pulse beneath my skin. And suddenly it was time to open my eyes, an indefinite moment later, because it was time for me to do something.

When I opened my eyes I was no longer facing the beach or the crowd of surfers in which I was searching for my friend. Instead I was facing the open ocean, and rolling upward with the passing swell. I had drifted somewhat, due to a rip current that I had drifted into in my silence. And there, two hundred yards beyond me, alone out on the ocean, was the shape of a boy on a surfboard clearly panicking as he tried to swim against the rip current.

In looking around, I saw that others had noticed him, and yet remained in the line up eager for their next chance to either fight a local for the peak, or to have their two second thrill as they dropped into a closed out wave. The value of these actions seemed to far outweigh an attempt to help the boy, and I passed judgment on them for it. Scanning the beach quickly to see if a lifeguard had spotted the boy, I realized that it was just me and him, and the decision I had to make.

Without further hesitation I paddled out to sea, leaving the crowds and the waves behind, focused only on this boy and his struggle. In a few minutes I reached him, somewhat relieved that it was not my friend, and I told him what I had learned to say in any state of panic: breathe. The boy was Javanese, from a small town outside of Jakarta, and had stepped into the water only a half an hour before for his first attempt to surf. With basic swimming skills, and no knowledge of a rip current, he happened to drift into the wrong place and was carried out away from shore.

I sat up on my board calmly, to show him that I had no fear for the situation, and told him to sit on his and rest for a minute. I kept my eyes locked to his the entire time, knowing that is what I would have wanted were I in the same situation. He listened, knowing just enough English to decipher meaning. And so we sat, and breathed.

Knowing the physics of a rip current, that sucks you out toward open water between two sandbars and then loses energy the further it gets from shore, I knew that in sitting we would in fact be carried by the rip current itself away from any danger. As Lao Tzu related many times in his teaching, the best action is sometimes inaction, especially on the ocean (I added that last part after my near-drowning experience in the jungle a week before). And so, in inaction, we drifted away from the rip current, though much further out to sea, and I maintained steady eye contact with the boy.

As we drifted to the north and the pace seemed to slow, I asked him if he was ready to paddle back to shore to meet his family who was, no doubt, anxious about where he had gone. Kuta Beach is known for its many drowning each year, a combination of powerful waves that generate such powerful rip currents and the fear that may inexperienced swimmers have when overcome by a situation they know nothing about. This boy would not be one of them.

So we paddled back toward shore, at an angle slightly less than parallel with the beach to ensure that our efforts were continued inland but not directly against any residual rip current. And within twenty minutes we were again on the sand. And the boy’s family approached and thanked him. And I walked away, knowing only how to pronounce his name and that he is the age of my students back home. And I thought nothing more of it, except to hope that, had I been in a similar situation, someone would have felt the connectedness to me that I felt to this boy, and would have acted regardless of the Karmic repercussions.

So, in reflecting on Karma and Mysticism, it is important to recognize those qualities in each human being which tie us together spiritually and emotionally. We all sense fear, love, anger, joy, excitement and so forth. We all have basic needs for safety and survival, shelter and food. And beneath it all, we share the same genetic code that has tied us all together, mystically, beneath the outer layers of our skin color, eyes, body structure and so forth. Perhaps this genetic code, which varies ever so slightly between one person to the next, is the Creator himself, alive in each of us and in everything. It would not surprise me, should any of the major religions be correct in the shared belief they have that the Creator of the Universe exists in everything and in every moment that has ever existed, that in assisting my fellow brother on this journey, and in preserving the Creator’s mythical presence within him, I have in fact earned some kind regard in my ledger. But if, when it all comes down in the end, I never received a mark for my actions that day, I know that in my heart I have become more aware of the presence of Love in this life.

If you seek, you will find. Find Love because you seek it, and let that Love be enough to change the path of your existence, in this life or the next. And do not question things of Karma or of Mysticism. But instead, learn to believe in something far greater than yourself – even if it is only one stranger you see in passing, on this day or the next. We are inexplicably tied to each other, and bound by Love to our Creator. And when you realize this, in all things, you will find yourself where I am now…