Right Livelihood

I can remember when my white American Tibetan Buddhist Teacher who introduced me to many Tibetan Lamas here in the U.S. started speaking to me about Motivation back around 1983 he mentioned how important "Right Livelihood". What this means is it is more important what your motivation is than actually what you are doing in life.

For example, he mentioned that even being a soldier or a policeman even when you might have to injure or kill others if your motivation was correct there might be no bad karma for you to receive from doing this.

This Asian way of looking at this sort of blew me away and took me back to Krishna and Arjuna in a battle chariot when Arjuna, in order to create good karma and right actions was forced to kill many of his relatives in battle by karmic circumstances beyond his control. He was advised to do this by Krishna (who is like a Christ in Hinduism). He is the blue flute player and his female consort is Radha.

If you are interested in reading about this I believe it is in the Bhagavad Gita.

1. Bhagavad Gita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_GitaCached

   The Bhagavad Gita (lit. "Song of the Lord"), referred to as simply the Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture in Sanskrit that is part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. 

   
   

   So, right livelihood is almost completely about motivation. If your motivation isn't right any career you choose could be bad karma for you if you are looking at it in this way. So, in the Asian way of looking at things karma is mostly about your motivations in all your actions in your life.

   
   

   So, what is right motivation?

   
   

   It is about helping yourself and all life around you move towards enlightenment. If your motivation in any action is about this it likely will bring you good karma.

    

   Be kind to yourself and all beings. This is the motivation that would be a core motivation for any Good Karma career.

   
   

   Many of the Prophets had to be very stern in order to have their families and tribes survive too in the Old Testament.

   
   

   Luckily, Jesus lived in more peaceful times until he was crucified by the Romans and the San Hedron Priests.

   
   

   So, right livelihood is very important in all our lives. But, often it becomes something unlike anything you would ever expect in a million years.