Here are two things to try during your day and outside of regular practice times. I find them to be spiritually expanding and very rewarding, maybe you will too?
Exercise 1- As you walk around and interact with people during your regular day, remind yourself or imagine that the person you are observing or talking to is really you but “over there”. You might be just like them if you experienced their life from birth. Particularly if they act in a way you find hard to relate to, you can remind yourself that you might act the same way had you lived their life, had their circle of people around you, suffered the same abuses/ hardships etc. Use your imagination!
This second one might feel odd or “corny” at first and be a little tougher but is very rewarding!
Exercise 2- As you move through your day and see other people around you silently feel love for them. You can even say “I love you” inside your mind as they walk by (I might not recommend doing this aloud, but you never know! 
) You can expand this past people as well, animals, your couch, a tree, the water etc. Fall in love with the world, you will probably leave it before it leaves you!
Hi Anthem,
Interestingly my guru does something similar. If someone bumps into her accidentally she will silently apologise in her mind as if it was her who had actually bumped into the other party. She often thinks ’ sorry,I may have wronged you in another life’. I believe this is her way of making sure the ego doesn’t creep in.
L&L
Dave
I will try them Andrew. The first one may be hard to do with my poor imagination, but the second one I can do. Actually I sort of do the second one already, at times… but not with a conscious effort… its more along the lines of saying thank you to people and things(never told anyone this before… they would get confirmation that I was nuts 
). It started with nodding a thank you to the traffic light and stop sign… every time I crossed one…(Hee hee hee)… and extended to almost everything. I have to try saying “I love you” to everything going forward…
Thanks.
Great stuff!
Now carry that further when that branch entangles you, that rock stubs your big toe and that dear fellow person ****s on you. You’ll begin to mix even more which is which and who is who
i’ve done something quite similar to increase bhakti. Everytime something happens that you don’t like, another driver cuts you off, a long traffic light when you’re in a hurry etc., think of it as God reminding you to think of him/her instead of being obsessed with the material world. then say thank you to god for reminding you.
Thanks Anthem, I really like these two exercises.
I would do the first one also, but more in association with people I have a problem with, in order to try and understand where they are coming from - hopefully the result being compassion.
I will try it as I meet people in general, it sound a facinating way to communicate with someone.
The second is also very dear to my heart. I would see it as bringing love from the outside in, to meet the love that comes from the inside out, coming from inner silence. I think one can nurture the other.
For me when I think negitively of someone and then consciously decide to love them instead, does change things. This coupled with inner silence is extremely powerful.
Have to try loving that traffic light that just turned red - and not see red
as long as you don’t see green!
but love God behind the light, not the light.
Andrew said:
Particularly if they act in a way you find hard to relate to, you can remind yourself that you might act the same way had you lived their life, had their circle of people around you, suffered the same abuses/ hardships etc. Use your imagination!
Great exercise. If you dare, I also recommend inserting ‘genes’ into the list of influences on them which, if you were exposed to, would make you behave like them. We must learn to develop compassion for people who behave certain ways because their genes drive them strongly in that direction, even if our genes don’t.
I already do similar things. For example recently my ego overtook and I laughed at a person for a fault I perceived them to have… then I woke up and asked myself “Do you think you can’t be put in their place?” eg… If I was born in their place… just like you said.
The second one I do exactly as you say when I take my evening walks… I say “I love you” when I first see someone. And when I don’t see any people I just say “I love all as myself”. Ofcourse it is very hard to keep concentrating on this as the avalanche of thoughts always overtake…
Wouldn’t it be a great world if everyone walked around and said “I love you” to all others all the time? 
Chiron,
Yeah…It would be a great world if everyone walked around saying ‘I love you’ and meant it. It might become a greater world too if in samyama, all of our energy and focus of the sutras was directed to the entire earth and all its inhabitants…
Hi Anthem,
These look like toughies for me… if I must carry them out in letter and spirit. I’m quite comfortable scolding people, and myself without illwill. It’d be tough to go all lovey dovey when I’m itching to take a nip… which is often. Which, sigh 
, means that I probably ought to attempt this. Because I’m pretty reluctant to. 
Hi Anthem,
Interesting that you have come up with these exercises, which I think are really great. I have found lately when I see other people or interact with them, that I also tend to think that in their particular situation, living conditions, history etc. it’s perfectly natural that they do what they do, and that I would probably do the same. That view takes away the “I vs. them” consciousness and creates more understanding.
Exercise 2 (loving/kindness meditation) is probably one of the most effective things we can do to promote Peace in this world. I wish everyone would try it, it’s something that can be done by those of us who have trouble developing enough inner silence to do it with Samyama. Thanks for posting them Anthem.
Many people seem to have a belief that if one has unconditional love he would do only kindly things to everyone no matter what they do to him. I disagree with this theory. In my opinion it is a deeper concept than that. Just like unconditional love exists without a cause, it exists without an effect also. What I mean is the only way a person with unconditional love is different from one without is not in the way they do things but what they feel inside. If I had unconditional love, and someone spat on my face, I would not tell him ‘I love you’, but instead I will hit him. Because I’m not a hermit living naked in a cave, but a member of the society and I have my part to act. I would not feel sorry for hitting him, but would not carry the anger to the next moment. My hitting him was for his wrong action and I completely understand with unconditional love that I cannot harm the soul of his which is infinite. This is where non-attachment/Vairagya comes into play. This is also the teaching of Bhagwat Gita. I believe that a person with unconditional love can kill if required by Duty (such as he is an army person) and still be free from karma.
Maximus,
I think it is possible for actions to be karma free but I doubt if any of us have reached that point.
Why did you hit him? Because he spat in YOUR face? Isn’t that just a reaction to an insult? Or because you were trying to teach him not to do that because someone else might shoot him for doing it? Was hitting him the best way to teach him that? Will hitting him change his behavior? Maybe … Maybe it will reinforce it.
I think unconditional love ALWAYS does the kindest thing, but that may include violence in some instances.
Depends what that army is fighting for. If that army is fighting for world-wide enlightenment, then yes, the reward is greater than the sin. But if that army is fighting just for the sake of material power and resources then there is no reward to counter-balance their sins.
If you hit someone after they spit in your face that means sometime in the future someone will hit you in the face. If someone spits in your face that means you have spat in someone’s face before, maybe in this life or in previous lives. So if you return the aggression you will continue the cycle and not be free from Karma.
I think this is simply superstitious. I’m viewing world like a playground. There are rules. It is a rule that nobody spits on my face. It someone does, they get a penalty. I just do my duty which is hitting him. I don’t worry about the fruit of my action whether he will give me a bitter hit, whether he will change his behaviour etc. I just do my part in the game. Just like an executioner who hangs the criminal doesn’t feel guilty, I don’t feel guilty about it.
What you say is not as simple as it sounds. We all operate within our circle. What seems entirely selfless in one circle can be fully of selfish from a bigger circle. At the lowest level, a group of terrorists might be following ‘values’ and might even think they are selflessly sacrificing themselves for their ideals. (I don’t have enough wisdom to comment whether they too can be free from karma at all) For the normal society, they are selfish and brutal. You might be working for a billiion dollar company day and night sincerely and selflessly. But your company might be causing environmental pollution which would be viewed as selfish from an environmental perspective. Patriots are selfless for their countrymen but they might be viewed as selfish when looked at the perspective of the entire human race. And so on.
What you say is not as simple as it sounds. We all operate within our circle. What seems entirely selfless in one circle can be fully of selfish from a bigger circle.
Very true. And conscience is often eased when one defers to the bigger circle, even if the bigger circle is not behaving well. Which I suppose is a basic tribal-survival impulse.
I want to add more on this. I have already said that not every action begets karms. Moreover Karma law is not the only law that operates in the universe. There is also the law of Survival of the Fittest. Power struggles in the animal kingdom as well as human society follow this law. The victory/defeat in power struggles can’t be fully explained with the law of karma. It is because successes and failures are fruits of action and we only have control over the action not on the fruit, scriptures advise people to maintain the same state of mind no matter success or failure.
There is also the law of death which even the fittest can’t survive. If an earthquake occurs and kills a thousand people, you definitely cannot explain that law of karma has calculated based on sins of people who are all to die today and caused an earthquake. It is painful for most people to admit but “that’s the way it is”. In Mahabharata, when someone asked Yudhistra what was the biggest wonder on earth, he said ‘People see death all around but forgets that one day he also has to meet the same fate’.
If an earthquake occurs and kills a thousand people, you definitely cannot explain that law of karma has calculated based on sins of people who are all to die today and caused an earthquake.
I can’t agree, and I don’t see the logic. First, though, let me say that as a scientist, I can’t point to any evidence about there being any law of karma at all, and certainly can’t explain any possible mechanism. However, as a yogi, I can work with the hypothesis that there is such a phenomenon.
If ‘the law of karma’ is real, and negative effects can come to one person due to past ‘sins’, I don’t see what seems impossible, or even odd, about negative effects coming to a large number of people at the same time due to past sins. Regarding the ‘causing’ of the earthquake, well, the earthquake presents no special issues for explaining in karmic terms. If the karmic law is real, the causal web in which it operates is extremely complex; and if you think in terms of people’s past sins moving the tectonic plates, maybe you’ll reach an explanation that sounds implausible mechanically; but if you think of people’s past sins putting them in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s more plausible.
And so it is with any phenomenon involving ‘the law of karma’.