Mukti means we want to wear off the karmic information that we have gathered, which is trapping life in it and building a body around itself. If you dismantle this karmic information, the life within will not be you or me -it will be just life
Karma means action. As you sit here, you are performing four types of actions. Your body is doing something - otherwise, you would not be alive. Similarly, your mind, emotions, and life energies are also performing some action. These four are happening every moment of your life - in wakefulness and in sleep. More than 99% of your karma, your actions, are unconscious. But the residual memory of these actions builds up within you.
For example, as you walk from one place to another, there may be 10 different kinds of smells, but you may not really notice them unless something is acute. But all the 10 different smells that entered your nostrils are recorded within you. The human system is a phenomenal machine. It does not miss anything. Whether you are conscious of it or not, it grasps and records everything, all the time. Based on this memory, you develop certain tendencies. The traditional word for these tendencies is vasana.
Depending upon the type of vasana you have, you tend to move towards certain kinds of life situations. We say “It’s your karma” - that means “It’s your doing.” Unfortunately, karma is projected as punishment or reward for something. What karma means is that you are building up memory; you are unconsciously writing a “software”, every moment of your life. Whatever your software turns out to be, accordingly you behave, function and experience your life.
Karma means life is entirely your making. Whether you create it consciously or unconsciously is the question. Once you understand that you are largely creating your life unconsciously, is it not natural for your intelligence to try to become as conscious as possible? Consciousness is like the voltage of a light bulb. If you crank up the voltage, it shows you everything. If you lower the voltage, it only shows you a little. You cannot try to be conscious. If you make your life energies very intense, consciousness will naturally burn within you. If there is no intensity, if you are only talking and reading about consciousness, it will not happen.
Mukti means we want to wear off the karmic information that we have gathered, which is trapping life in it and building a body around itself. If you dismantle this karmic information, the life within will not be you or me - it will be just life. Life is not only in you, it is all-pervading. It behaves according to whatever kind of information - which we refer to as karma - it gets trapped with. If you dismantle the karmic software completely, where will life go? Nowhere - it is just there. Only the individual identity will be lost. In fact, the life within you never has individual identity. It is only your software which is individual. If you write it unconsciously, it will assume all kinds of forms - some you may like, others you may not. If you write the karmic software consciously, you will create what you want.
Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service. He is also the founder of the world’s largest people’s movement, Conscious Planet- Save Soil, which has touched over 4 billion people; Views presented are personal.