Karma and Kriya in Practice

by Jessica Girija Jewell

A friend and fellow student of The Yoga Sutras recently shared a story that was so perceptive—so insightful—that I’ve been thinking about it every day since.

This friend was talking with a yoga teacher about persistent neck pain and asked what stretches might make the pain go away. The teacher’s reply was both clear and compassionate:

“There are no stretches that will get rid of your neck pain.”

That’s a truth bomb.

Of course stretching can help relieve tension for a while. We all know that. 

But the origin of physical pain is subtler. It often begins in the mind, as a thought.

Experiment with me for a moment.

Think of a past experience—see it clearly in your mind, as though it’s happening now. Notice that sensations arise in your body even though the event isn’t actually occurring. You might feel an ache in your heart, a souring in your stomach, a throb in your temples—or something else entirely. The body has a vast vocabulary.

Notice how the sensations are tied to the thoughts you’re thinking. If you’re feeling especially curious, try bringing another experience to mind and observe what changes in the body as the story changes.

You may come to the conclusion that thoughts create sensations.

Sensations, in turn, have a strong influence on what we say and what we do. And what we say and do shapes what happens next—the next thought, the next sensation. Around and around we go. (Most of us have plenty of lived experience with this.)

Yoga practice helps us notice this cause-and-effect relationship. If we make it a focus of practice, we begin to recognize—more and more quickly—the connection between what’s happening in the mind, what’s felt in the body, and how we act in our lives.

Over time, we may become more skillful at noticing a thought while it’s still just a thought, or a sensation while it’s still just a sensation—before it comes out as words or actions. At that point, we have some agency in what we do next.

This is the difference between what, in yoga-speak, we call karma and kriya.

Karma refers to unexamined patterns of thought, emotion, and action that are repeated—sometimes relentlessly—like a bad song you can’t get out of your head.

Kriya literally means action taken with awareness—skillful action, action that is kind, clear, and compassionate.

The mind–body connection is not breaking news. Yoga practitioners recognized this thousands of years ago. Poets and storytellers have always been inspired by humans acting out their karma—and humans acting from kriya.

In the late 1980s, Louise Hay wrote a wonderfully useful book about the mind–body connection, You Can Heal Your Life, drawing from her own experience of illness and healing. We have a copy at Yoga Together Lincoln if you’d like to take a look. There’s a fascinating table that links areas of the body with mental patterns and suggests alternative thoughts that may create more ease.

I’ve observe this mind–body relationship clearly in my own life, in ways that may be familiar to you too:

karmas featuring food,karmas driving over-doing,karmas fueled by pride—something my knees had strong opinions about.

The path of healing—the path of kriya—comes through physical practice, yes. But also through noticing the barely audible thoughts that spin like an old-fashioned record on the turntable of the mind.

I want to be clear: I’m not saying that anyone’s pain is “all in their head.” Pain is real. Bodies are real. And yes—pain is also shaped by patterns of thinking.

The work of transforming karma into kriya doesn’t happen quickly. It doesn’t happen without effort. And it rarely happens alone.

Changing pain-producing karmas is meaningful, lifelong work. It asks us to cultivate presence, learn new ways of thinking and being, and develop discipline over long stretches of time. One of the hidden advantages of getting older is that we’ve had more time to practice all three.

When we come to the mat, it seems a worthwhile use of our time to notice the mind–body connection—to stretch and strengthen, yes, and also to pay attention to what we’re thinking. And to do that, together.