Major Arcana: Cycles of Life II

This is the second article in the series titled ‘Cycles of Life’ where I look into the concept of Cycles as I see them in the Major Arcana.

Cycles are an inherent part of life – everything in it moves in a circular fashion.

One of my favorite quotes from Children of Dune summarizes it perfectly: “The beginning and the end are one. […] A phase has closed. Out of that closing grows the beginning of its opposite. […] Everything returns later in its changed form.” 🙂

Today, lets look at a pair of cards from the Major Arcana that describes this kind of cycle – The Wheel of Fortune and Judgement.

This time, we are going to look into a very important and very interesting cycle (and of course, the ways it has been conveyed in the Tarot cards) : the Karmic Cycle.

Karma Stuff

I suppose, since I grew up as a Hindu, I can accept the Karma theory pretty easily. The Karma theory can pretty much be understood as a Cause-and-Effect system.

Without going into far too many complicated explanations, lets look at the basics of Karma Theory before we look at the cards in its light.

The word ‘Karma’ literally means ‘Action’. So, your Karmas are essentially your actions. And actions (if you must classify them in a very black-and-white manner) can be divided up into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Naturally the ‘good’ actions help you get good points and vice versa. And if you throw in the entire logbook of Karmas from all your different lifetimes, then you can imagine how much Karmic balances each of us can really acquire!

Again, Karma can be classified into 3 main types:

1. Sanchita Karma – which is your sum total or accumulated Karma,
2. Prarabhdha Karma – which is that part of your accumulated Karma which affects your current lifetime, and
3. Kriyamana Karma – which is the Karma that you are creating, right now, with your current actions.

Oh Boy! Does this cycle ever end?

Karmic Criticism

The Karma theory does come under a lot of flak from people for a variety of reasons. While logical people can trust the cause and effect connection, many among us cannot trust the concept of accumulated Karma – especially from past lives.

Many see Karma as a convenient scapegoat for explaining away situations and experiences in life that cannot be explained with the help of the cause and effect scenarios.

However, with the Tarot cards one can easily gain a deeper understanding of the origin of the cause – and thus learn more about the Karma associated with the effect in question.

Karma Cycle in The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune is one card that really goes into the essence of the entire gamut of Symbolism vis-à-vis Karma.

Notice the four angels sitting at the four corners of the card – and the books that they are holding? Well, these are the Akashic Books. And each of these angels represents one of the elements of Nature – the angel with a man’s face represents Air, the Eagle-faced angel represents Water, the Bull-faced angel represents Earth and the Lion-faced angel represents Fire. All these angels are recording your actions in the Akashic Books.

Then of course, right in the center of the card is a Wheel. Nothing explains cycles, and especially Karmic cycles like the symbol of a wheel. As the wheel turns, Fortune smiles and frowns upon us. Essentially, depending on the way the wheel is turning, we are either facing the consequences of our good deeds, or of our bad ones.

And let’s not forget the Egyptian deities Set (the snake), Anubis (the Jackal-headed guy raising the wheel) and Horus (sitting on top of the wheel) who also pretty much tell the story of actions and consequences. In the myth, Set kills Osiris (who is Horus’ father) and Horus eventually avenges that by killing Set.

The symbolism becomes even more interesting with the presence of Anubis – who, as it stands is the force bringing the wheel back up from the depths – and who (interestingly) is the son of Set.

Remember that quote from before: “Out of that closing grows the beginning of its opposite”?

Evil / bad actions carry the seeds of their own destruction within them. And it is from these depths that one often witnesses the rise of the driving force that completely annihilates this very evil.

The pictures in The Wheel of Fortune card are a very straightforward lesson in Karma theory – and with just a few symbols, we see the different aspects of Karma.

We can see how actions and their consequences flow in a circular manner – one leading to the other, and the other leading to the next and so on. Each action leads to a consequence, which then leads to another action – thus creating an infinite loop.

As the Wheel can turn endlessly, so can this Karmic cycle continue – having no end in sight, infinitely. Those who manage to find a way out of this constant cycle of cause and effect, are those whom we call ‘Enlightened’.

Karmic Cycles and Judgement

Another card that conveys the concept of Karmic cycles is Judgement.

The picture in this card shows us the scene of ‘Judgement Day’ as described in the Bible. The angel blows the trumpet, and all the souls who have done good deeds and actions rise up from their coffins and go to heaven.

But I see a very different story in these pictures. I see endings of certain long and hard Karmic Cycles.

Each of us accumulates a whole lot of Karmic balances over different lifetimes. And we deal with a small bit of it in each lifetime. To me, the Judgement card represents the ending of one such long and rough round of Karmic balance accumulations.

The angel blowing trumpet to me signals the sign from the Universe that the cycle is finally over, and the people getting up from their coffins and rising up represents freedom from a long wait, or a long struggle.

I say this because of two reasons: (1) this is the second to last card in the Journey of the Fool – which means that the sum total of the Karmic balances is not yet over, and (2) this is the twentieth card – which means the Fool has come here after a long, and hard journey.

There are still some more things to do before one can come to the state where all the Karmic Cycles have ended.

Tarot Karma

The Tarot cards can serve as a very effective means of finding out the true reasons or causes behind such situations for which one cannot find a logical cause right away. By simply asking the cards for the reason, one can gain a deeper understanding into the cause of a particular situation.

From personal experience I can tell you that several times the cards have shown me causes that were present right under my nose, but I was too close to see them clearly. And then there have been those times when the cards have pointed out to causes that originated in some other lifetime.

Your Turn

Have you used the Tarot cards to look into the causes of a particular situation? Do you have any particular cards, which, to you, signify Karmic Cycles? Which cards are they? Why do these cards talk ‘Karma’ to you?

Lets talk about it in the comments section below.