Imagine that you live in the Canadian midwest and it is the middle of winter. Outside, the temperature, with wind-chill, is a bracing 30 degrees below zero. You are fed up with the cold and decide to take your mind off of frozen pipes and black ice by going to a movie. There is a remake of ‘South Pacific’ playing at the local theater and you have heard that it was filmed in Tahiti, New Zealand and Hawaii, and that the location shots are beautiful - featuring palm trees and warm tropical beaches.

You bundle up in your goose-down parka and head for the cinema. When you get there, you find that the movie is more than you could have hoped for. In a matter of moments, you are transported to a beautiful pacific island replete with sun baked sand, waving palm trees, and pineapple Daiquiris. You lose yourself in the experience of warm tropical breezes and happy, laughing, brown-skin children playing in the breaking surf. You are so fully enraptured by the cinematic experience that, when you leave the theater, you continue to feel that you are walking down a beach on a sun-drenched, tropical island. It takes you a while to realize that you are actually in Reindeer’s Belly, Saskatchewan in the middle of winter shuffling carefully along the sidewalk trying to keep from going ‘ass over tea-kettle’ on the black ice.

This in its simplest form is Karma.

Karma is far less complicated or ‘dire’ than it is often painted. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate its effects. These tiny perceptual/experiential brain anomalies can add up. When you realize the changes that spending an hour in a darkened theater can make on your perception of reality, consider the influence that your parents, your friends, your education, your ethnicity, your religion, and countless other factors have in creating your sense of who you are, your understanding of the nature of the world that you live in, and the way that you choose to act in that world. The resulting ‘karmic’ construct is so complex, so interwoven, that no attempt to unravel it will even begin to sort it all out.

A complete ‘reset’ is required.

In 333 BC, Alexander the Great entered Gordium the capital of the Phrygian empire. While there, he was told that near the magnificent temple of Zeus there was beautiful, ornate chariot bound to a pole by a complex knot of cornel bark. The king’s soothsayer, mounted beside Alexander, told him that according to an ancient prophecy, this complex knot could only be untied by the one who was destined to conquer all of Asia. Many great heroes had attempted untying it, yet none had been successful.

Alexander dismounting, strode purposely forward intending to untie the knot and fulfill the prophesy. Arriving at the cart, Alexander examined it for a moment, and then the king drew his sword and in a single, deft stroke severed the knot. As the brittle bark rope fell to the ground Alexander sheathed his sword, strode back to his horse and went on to conquer all of Asia.

Karma, like the Gordian knot cannot be overcome with logic, or perspicacity. Rather than trying to make sense of things, a complete new perspective is required - a complete paradigm shift. We need a sword that will cut through lifetimes of karmic accretions and free us to see life as it is really taking place in the present moment without distortion or bias.

Meditation is the forge in which that sword is created. Compassion, wisdom and understanding comprise the elements from which it is built.