This is a series that revolves around the concept of Karma. In Indian tradition, Karma means action. Though, Karma is generally understood as good and bad, what goes around comes around, or something with a similar moralistic tinge, Karma is essentially an action and its consequences. Action doesn't necessarily refer to just physical action. According to yoga, there is physical, mental, emotional and energy activity, and each of these actions produces consequences. These consequences in turn result in further action, and so and so forth. Thus, every human being is a complex amalgam of these action-cum-consequences, which in India at least, we refer to as his or her karma.
Recently I read a post by yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, where he speaks about how karma is not just an individual's. Our ancestors' karma also works on us. The consequences of what they did also impacts us. You could perhaps correlate this with effects such as radioactivity which effects our genes and is passed along hereditarily. But something more subtle has been uncovered by medical researchers recently. It's called epigenetics and describes how just the behavior and life experiences of your ancestors could have influenced their genes and DNA, and thus you. That was certainly an interesting correlation, and prompted me to put together the piece below, which overlays karma over strands of DNA.
Karma is also central to the Hindu idea of life, death and rebirth. It is only because of your karma that this is whole cycle continues. Once you obliterate your karma, the scriptures say, you have attained moksha or liberation from this cycle. It all gets a little confusing of course, because at this point there is no "you" as such, and so "you" haven't been liberated because "you" don't exist and so and so forth. But I hope you get the idea. :)
This karmic cycle is not all hopeless of course. Hindu culture prescribes various means by which you needn't be a hapless victim of this trap. Yoga is one such means. Yoga isn't a series of asanas as is frequently understood in the West. It is process of union with the cosmos, which is essentially achieved by obliterating your karma. Various yogic practices aid in this process of obliteration, and asanas are only a small portion of that.
All yoga practices are essentially a process of what is called bhuta shuddhi in yoga. Bhuta shuddhi is the process of cleansing the fundamental elements of earth, water, fire, air and space, within the body. In India, this process was taken to such heights that temples were created for each of the temples, and these temples were used as interconnected processes for people involved in bhuta shuddhi process.
The five temples are located in Southern India. Below is a depiction of Chidambaram temple for the space element, in Tamil Nadu. This is where one of the most famous sculptures of Shiva as Nataraja is also enshrined.
Yoga is essentially a self-help method. For those uninclined to do things by themselves, the ancient Indians are said to have created the city of Kashi or Varanasi. Within this city, were various powerful temples and several processes were available to break the cycle of rebirth. Shiva, in the form of the dreadfully fierce Kalabhairava is a major deity in this whole business. He is the "kotwal" or gatekeeper of Kashi, and is the one who conquers even death, meaning that he can deliver one beyond the grasp of death, to a place beyond life and death.
While Shiva in his more regular form is worshipped using the Om Namah Shivaya chant, for Kalabhairava, it is the Kalabhairava Ashtakam that does the trick.
