Transcending Karma
How people treat you is their karma, how you react is yours.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were 2 holy men traveling together through the countryside. They came upon a beautiful young woman sitting and sobbing by the side of a stream. She said she was afraid of drowning and asked them if they would help her cross to the other side of the water. Without saying a word, one of the monks picked up the girl and carried her to the other side of the stream where he gently put her down. She thanked him and went on her way.
The two men then continued their journey. After a while, the other monk said to the one who had carried the young woman, "How could you do such a thing? We have taken vows of chastity. It is forbidden to even talk to a woman let alone touch one."
The other monk replied, "She was in need of help so I helped her. I carried her to the other side of the stream and I put her down. Ever since then you have been carrying her".
What are you carrying around that you should have put down and left behind? Do you still harbor feelings of regret, anger, hate, disappointment, or any other negative adjectives or adverbs that apply, for events, people, or things that are not here, now? Why do you hurt yourself like this?
Life can be equated to a boat ride taking you from one shore to another. As the boat goes across the water, it leaves a wake in its path. This wake represents your past. The wake a boat leaves behind doesn’t propel the boat forward just as your past doesn’t drive you towards the other shore. What’s done is done if you just accept it. If you don’t face the front of the boat and place your attention in the present moment, you will not be able to avoid running into the icebergs and other potential hazards that could jeopardize your trip through life. Your karma is fulfilled and up to date at all times. Clinging to the past and fantasizing about the future is what keeps you paying a karmic debt. Simply attend to this moment and witness the path your boat is traveling. This is action free of reaction and further karma.
Since karma is simple cause and effect or action and reaction, if something happens to you and you just don’t react, you can stop karma in its tracks. Of course, like many practices of a spiritual nature, this is easier said than done.
The key word here is practice, though. Once you become aware of something that you were otherwise oblivious to, change begins to happen immediately.This is the power of the mind at work. It’s like shining a flashlight at a shadow in the corner. The shadow disappears. Whatever you put your attention on will grow and change. So if you make the decision to observe your reactions to things over a period of time say a month, you’ll begin to see change in how your life flows.
As you become a new observer to aspects of your life that previously went on automatically, you’ll begin to marvel at how you acted in the past. Perhaps you have a habit of getting into a road rage when you’re driving. Maybe you have to have the last word in arguments. You will change yourself if you just stop playing the game of reaction. Reaction is almost always emotional. Someone says or does something and it triggers in you a train of thought, which you then engage with emotion. This emotion swells in you and propels you into a reaction of some sort. This process always takes up a lot of energy that you could use for better things in your life. This does not mean taking no action at all. It means not reacting when something happens to you or someone does something that makes you want to respond.
Everyone has a personality and a past history, which gives them a sort of momentum. This momentum is unique to you and it makes you who you are. Everything that’s ever happened to you now and in the past has served to give you this momentum of who you are. Most of this momentum comes from the sub-conscious mind, which is seemingly invisible to us and stores everything about our total make-up. It’s this momentum of the mind that makes you want to react when confronted and when you react, then you’re maintained on the wheel of karma, action and reaction, cause and effect.
Karma is often referred to as a wheel because it keeps on spinning. Every time something confronts you and you react, it causes another like event or action and then you react again and the hamster wheel keeps spinning until you consciously step off of it by not reacting. Each time you choose not to react, you take back a part of your energy that you once would have squandered on emotional outbursts, constant plotting and planning and strategizing over ways to handle some meaningless event.
Transcending Negative Relationship Karma
Karma is defined as action/deed/destiny resulting from the law of cause and effect. Other more common ways of describing karma is “As you sow, so also shall you reap” and “What goes around, comes around”. Karma can also be known positively as choice and change.
(1) Experiences resulting from injustice towards others in the past
When our actions have negatively affected others in the past (this incarnation or previous ones), we undergo what we put others through, so that we develop empathy and learn not to do the same. For instance, if we have abused our spouse in a past incarnation, we may incarnate with an option to experience something similar ourselves in this life, as an opportunity to learn. So, the purpose of karma is to teach, not to punish and experiential learning is often the best teacher. Our soul remembers and stores all that we learn.
(2) Unfinished business from the past
However, not all “sufferings” are the result of us wronging others. If you have been abused in this lifetime, it does not always mean that you were an abuser in your past incarnation. To believe so is simplistic and usually incorrect. It is also destructive for an individual’s soul growth and understanding.
Some experiences are the result of past patterns remaining in your energy field or in your subconscious mind. For instance, if you have been abused in a past relationship, this remains in your energy field, which then sets up a pattern that unconsciously invites more abuse. This happens until the pattern is removed from the energy field or subconscious mind.
How to transcend the negative karma
(1) Finishing unfinished business.
Transcending this type of karma is easier than the other type. The following methods are recommended:
- Emotional clearing work (regression) to release negative pattern from energy field. Setting up a more empowering, resourceful behavior pattern through belief change etc.
- Forgiveness of the act as well as the perpetrator, as when you do this, your soul releases the negative pattern and evolves into higher consciousness, and hence peace. When you hate somebody, that person receives that thought and hates you even more. On the other hand love transforms a person.
“When Mahatma Gandhi was in South Africa, he was stabbed and lay near death. The officials naturally wanted to prosecute his assailant, but Gandhi refused. “No,” he said. “If I put him in prison, he will be a greater enemy. I will win him by love.” When the attacker learned of Gandhi’s forgiveness, he became his disciple.” - Developing empathy/compassion for others in similar situations. Some people even become advocates for charity of a nature related to their situation, thus accumulating positive karma.
- Releasing negative beliefs. Transcending unhealthy habits. Deciding on more empowering course of action.
(2) Transcending karma resulting from injustice towards others in the past
Of course, this depends of the gravity of the action. For instance, a lady who had difficulty conceiving, dumped her newly born infant near a rubbish bin in a past incarnation. She experienced this in a regression session. In this life, she is realizing the preciousness of life.
In any case, here are some steps that were recommended by Dr David R. Hawkins, author of Power vs Force.
- Reflect on your situation. Apologize to God for that part of you that may have caused the same negative experience in others. Pray for the salvation and happiness of the souls.
- Learn the lessons that the situation is bringing to your awareness. Choose a new, empowering course of action, that is based on love.
- Do good deeds that show your willingness to transcend the karma. For instance, the lady decided to volunteer her time at orphanages.
- Most importantly, forgive yourself. Do not overlook this step! Willingness to forgive oneself means that your consciousness level has risen past the karma.
“Avoid dwelling on all the wrong things you have done. They do not belong to you now. Let them be forgotten. It is attention that creates habit and memory. As soon as you put the needle on a phonograph record, it begins to play. Attention is the needle that plays the record of past actions. So you should not put your attention on bad ones. Why go on suffering over the unwise actions of your past? Cast their memory from your mind, and take care not to repeat those actions again. “
” Few people in this world try consciously to develop the potentials of body, mind, and soul. The rest are victims of circumstances of the past. They plod on and on, pushed by past wrong habits, helplessly going down under their influence, remembering only: “I am a nervous man,” or “I am a weakling,” or “I am a sinner,” and so on.
It lies with each one of us to cut with the sword of wisdom the cords of our bondage, or to remain bound.”