What’s Your Digital Karma?
Oops, have you created digital impressions? Has your digital karma gone viral? What now? Have you struggled to draw a fine line between too much social media and too little social media? I have! My dilemma has been even greater because I am a marketing professional. Constant access to new information, social media platforms, and extroversion are important factors for us marketers. But what about the yogi inside me who loves solitude, minimal access to information, and is actually an introvert? Can we really draw a balance? Continue reading my blog for social media hacks for a conscious seeker.
For the sake of easy understanding for all types of readers, I am going to use the words karma, samskara, and impressions synonymously in this post.
We are in the most exciting times of our planet’s spiritual evolution. Each one of us is making an effort to raise the global consciousness in our own way. Never before has the world witnessed so many authentic spiritual teachers appear on this planet all at once providing knowledge and wisdom on a global scale. What is it that connects us to them and their teachings? Social media! But are we making the right use of these platforms? In the beginning, we worried only about our karma; now with the social media, we also have to worry about our digital karma!
Social media platforms, texting apps, etc. are great when used as powerful tools to connect the world to raise the cumulative consciousness. However, sometimes in the process of spreading goodness, we end up creating more and more impressions or samskaras within others and us. It is extremely important for spiritual seekers of all levels to practice a mindful social media usage. Following are some pointers that you can utilize to broaden your understanding about your digital karma.
1. Digital Karma Goes Viral: Know that your digital footprint goes very far and wide. It is not just the information you create and share with others on social media but also the information that you absorb from others. You are what you think, see, eat, talk, and do. Every little thought that is created in you is a samskara (impression). If every little thought is an impression created on your heart and mind, can you imagine how many impressions get accumulated in you on a day-to-day basis? I am only talking about social media here. I haven’t even touched the topic of impressions layering upon you through words, actions, consumption of wrong food and drinks. It really is a huge burden to carry. The very first step to reduce your digital karma is to become aware of it.
2. Know the consequences of creating impressions
(on yourself): If you are a spiritual practitioner, then you are probably meditating daily. The meditation practice that I follow also has a unique method of “cleaning” our day-to-day impressions at the end of the day. So I do my regular meditation in the morning and practice my cleaning meditation at night. We work so hard on ourselves to deflate our ego through meditation and yet we can’t wait to inflate it again by asking for approval and validation from others on social media. Imagine what happens to your spiritual condition when your ego-meter keeps going up and down daily.
(on others): Creating impressions on yourself is bad enough but spreading it to others is much worse. This will have serious consequences on you and your spiritual practice in the long run. Any information that you create, share, or forward to others that could remotely create impressions of pain, anger, jealousy, sadness, etc. is ultimately your burden to carry. If you have created ripples of negative energy, you too will not be immune to it. Paint your own canvas but don’t splash your colors on others unless you can promise them a masterpiece!
3. One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: Understand that when you meditate and clean, you are getting rid of your impressions but with more involvement in social media, television, etc. you are adding those impressions back to yourself. In fact, you may be adding even more than you cleaned.
Also remember that you already have a lot of past karmas to clean out of your system, let alone the ones from today. What this means is you are working on yourself to clean impressions from the past and from the present and you are again adding more to these impressions in the present, which again have to be cleaned. Now that is a lot of work! Unfortunately, this is why you are not making any spiritual progress.
If this is the case with spiritual seekers, then what about the people who do not have a spiritual practice in their lives? What about people who don’t clean their impressions before sleeping? When we negatively affect the consciousness of such people, we intervene with the divine plan. Be digitally responsible!
4) All Good Information Is Not Really Good: Yes, that’s right! Even if you think you are doing a good service by sharing some updates or creating some information, it is not always good and necessary. What is good for me may not be good for you and vice versa. Of course, some information needs to be shared and we cannot always control how people should feel and react to it. What I would suggest here is before creating, commenting, or sharing something, take a pause. Consult your heart. It already knows what to do in every little situation. If the answer is no, then don’t go ahead creating digital pollution.
5) Show Digital Respect: If you give me 10 minutes of your life to read what I have to say and I don’t provide you with an experience that upgrades or enhances your spiritual consciousness, then I am not being respectful to you. Similarly, when you post or share something that does not add any meaning to others’ lives then you are taking away not only yours but also somebody else’s time and energy. By not being respectful of your audience’s time and energy, you are actually undermining your chances of being a positive influencer in their lives. People will stop taking you seriously.
6) Everything Begins with Self-Love: Our generation is being taught about self-love a lot these days. Yes, it’s true that if you don’t love yourself, you will not be able to love and embrace others but it has a deeper meaning. This does not mean that you go on asking for approval and validation for being who you are from others directly or indirectly through social media platforms. Also there is absolutely no need to prove anything to others. You are whole. You are enough. Learn to love and accept yourself at a soul level first. Feel the beauty of who you are deep within you. When you feel it inside, it naturally shows on the outside. Everything works from inside out and not the opposite way. So next time you want to leave a lasting “impression” on someone, think twice! 😉
7) Make them Curious: Become!! Make people curious about your spiritual practice or about any other thing that you are passionate about by “becoming it” yourself. When you “become” the change that you talk about, you will automatically attract others towards you. Once they are drawn towards your authenticity, there will be no need to bombard them with constant information through social media.
8) Hold Yourself Accountable: There was a time when I was always active on social media for personal entertainment as well as for my marketing profession. However as of today, I have been Instagram-free for quite some time and I have limited my social media time to only 10-15 minutes per day. I use Whatsapp and other text messaging only to get important things done. Once I realized that people mostly use these platforms to boost their egos and dump their insecurities, I did not want to be a part of it.
9) Create Conscious Content Only: 
We cannot completely avoid the use of social media but we can always create a meaningful experience out of it for ourselves and for others. Always aim to enhance somebody’s digital experience. You never know how you may end up touching the lives of other people positively. Remember what I said – digital karma goes viral! If you do something good, good digital energy is sent back to you. When people finish reading your post, their hearts should smile. Make them content with your content!
10) Be Grateful for the Gift of Social Media: Once you learn how to practice social media mindfully, you are in control of your digital destiny. You have a powerful tool at your disposal to create meaningful and authentic experiences at a global level. We are all responsible in our own way to raise the cumulative global consciousness of this planet. If social media is used correctly, our progress as a conscious human race will be faster.
What will you do today to reduce your digital karma?
~ be love
Sayali