If you’ve watched the Andrew Niccol movie In Time and understood it, you’ll probably grasp this post more easily. Never mind if you haven’t because this isn’t related.
Until a certain time in our life, we are truly innocent of our ability to alter karma. I say ‘innocent’ and not ‘ignorant’ because many people warn us about consequence of our actions but we truly realize our ability to treat the world as an impulse response black-box only after realize that by ourselves. The difference between knowing and realizing is just that we are constantly aware of our ability to send out an impulse and see the response. I apologize for the digress but it is important for the purpose of this blog, to state this difference.
A person with a natural talent and interest in painting can almost effortlessly make a replica of the Mona Lisa in less time than a person who isn’t naturally talented but works long and hard at it. I would argue the satisfaction of the outcome is higher for the person who worked hard compared to the other who seemed gifted. With conscious effort and spending a lot of time, the person without a natural talent can eventually become comparable to the other person or even exceed them. All that comes as a consequence of this development, is a result of spending time on painting rather than on running, watching TV, movies, writing a book or developing finer skills in some other interest. The elevated skill is now distinct a karma of the time-bound choices made towards painting among other things in that person’s life.
Put simply, whatever we practice, we get better at it. Whatever it is we spend a lot of time on, we get better at it. Compassion, sarcasm, swimming, coding… whatever!
Every choice we made, is a choice that took our time away from other options. We spent our time studying/preparing for a job that we are doing right now. If we aren’t happy with what we do, we spend some time searching for something else because we don’t want to waste our time on our current job. Maybe we spend too much time commuting to-from work and we think that time can be put to better use? So we could either get a job near our house or spend some money and buy a car. Money spent on the car was earned by spending time at a job doing stuff that was useful for someone. The talent/ability to do that specific job was gained by spending time in studying/preparing for it in such a way that our abilities were judged to be better than the ability of the other people who applied for the same position.
Drilling such examples down back to the start, I’m sure there comes a point where we start second guessing ‘destiny’, ‘divine plan’ and all those heady theories. For the most part, we don’t need to care any bit for that kind of stuff.
Our life and everything we come in contact with, is a result of how we shape our time. This is a parallel thought about karma being our choice rather than karma being only consequence of our kriya. Till our innocence about karma is shed, it is impossible for us to comprehend a greater possibility in our life. But once we do, we are transacting with ourselves, and others, using only our time. For a simplistic view, let us consider that a person spends 16 hours a day awake and 8 hours asleep. How much of the 16 hours is spent in activities performed by our own volition, and the quality of time during the 8 hours of sleep, shapes our life. The worth of each minute/hour isn’t quantitative as it changes based on our interests and abilities. That gives us sufficient ground to not be judgemental about people who can’t do what we do or those who can’t think as well we do (I sound swell headed with that line).
Anyone who’s now talking about residual income compared to linear income, should also consider that awareness of possibilities/income-options is a choice in collecting information and then the willingness to act on it. That is, time spent in learning about possibilities and then the time spent in acting on it versus other possibilities.
Now all those who talk about the relevance of this post on people who are dealt a bad hand in terms of opportunities, exposure and social setting; just know that there come many situations in anyone’s life when we see the chance to become more/different than what we’ve been. How we grab that chance is purely a result of our search within, our longing to be become different, our longing to know and realize more; finally, our longing to become liberated from the life/choices we’ve had to endure till the time of such a longing.
What I do with my knowledge and strength is what defines me. One way or another, that knowledge and strength were gained in exchange for my time. I choose to spend time cleaning and tidying up because doing it helps my health and my family to do other things in their time. I choose to spend time with my family in person or over a call. I choose to spend time learning new stuff. I choose to spend time on being healthy. I choose to work on things that are useful to myself or other so that I can earn money for financial well-being. I choose to use public transport and to engage in activities that are environment friendly so that I can leave the planet as clean as possible for for my future generations. I choose to be involved in politics because the choices I make, shape the future. I choose to be a vegetarian or vegan because I don’t want any part in raising fish/poultry only to be killed to fill my stomach. I choose to spend time on dressing up and looking good. I choose to sleep and wake up at times that are conducive to pursue my all my choices. I choose to use my time to become truly liberated. I can choose only within the time that’s left for me, not after.
kskspeaking 