Burning Karma

I got sick last week. The sickest I’ve been in recent memory. Being a mom of two small boys, there was little time to rest. I kept remembering easier days when the hardest part about being sick was how lonely it felt. I would have paid to have been lonely this time around.

Or would I? The most interesting part of being sick to me is getting to see my own mind. All the work I’ve done over the past 10 years to advance my spiritual experiences gets put to the test. Why is it that every vulnerable nook and cranny of your deepest and darkest thoughts get pushed to the front when you’re sick? Why is it when I am on the verge of a breakthrough, some illness comes to knock me back a few pegs? Why is it that getting sniffles means I am confronted with all my childhood trauma?

It’s an ordeal, it is like walking through the fire of your own subconscious mind. I can’t think of anything more frightening than myself. But my question is, why? Why do you get shown yourself so fully? Sickness is a part of life, a part of samsara. It is one of the most common and easy ways to burn off negative karma, making room for the merits of good deeds to express themselves. I am sure there are numerous reasons only a truly wise being could tell you. But I believe one of the reasons we can have such emotional and cleansing experiences through sickness is because of the breath.

In yogic teachings, your breath has some very important connotations. You’ll see different yoga sets calling through breath through one or the other nostril. Other breath techniques call for an emphasis on the diaphragm, the rhythm, etc. Where you breathe will change your experience. In the case of a common cold, your nasal passages are likely clogged, and so you will likely breathe through the mouth for an extended period of time. Breathing through the mouth highlights and activates emotions. Think of the times you have the biggest emotions. Crying and laughing hysterically will inevitably cause some deep breaths through the mouth.

Getting to see our buried emotions gives us an opportunity to actually work through them. The pain of sickness gives us an opportunity to see the world in a different way, and hopefully to change our habitual pattern of breath, long enough to transform the traumas stored deep within.