Where does karma fit in with creating our own reality??

We all understand karma as a cosmic law of cause and effect! However, it is not the rigid heavy hand of the highest court in the universe as we may have (mis) interpreted it. Neither has God hired a bank of scrupulous over worked auditors to carry out daily audits on individuals. There are no defaulters who need to be punished, or exemplary tax paying individuals who need to be rewarded!

The main considerations to understand here are that 1) karma’s are merely the Self-created opportunities/issues through which a Soul experiences Its beliefs and their underlying essence in its desire to grow; 2) Karma is cause and effect of thought, not action! 3) Karma is a self- balancing process and the other only plays a co-operative role.

So firstly, Karma is choice. It is something we each choose to experience. It is somewhat analogous to attending a college of our choice (unlike school where we may have felt we had no choice in subjects) in which we choose with careful consideration those courses that best offer us opportunities for our growth and future plans. Like students who may choose a specially challenging course, do double graduates, or opt to study in distant lands with its inherent challenges, we sometimes choose ‘courses’/karma, which we feel are not what we could have chosen! There is no error however, and the karma of each life is chosen with guidance from Higher Selves and Beings, much like a student taking advice from the more experienced teachers, parents, or friends towards his choice of college electives. While all ‘courses’ present some challenges, they are always chosen with the confidence that we can handle them and grow!
 
Karma therefore is not about justice but about growth!! It is not about right balancing wrong but about effecting a change in thought patterns!! Karma is not an accounting system but a system of learning that the soul adopts to understand and evolve its thought pattern. This is how it ‘works’ (simply put): In each life we choose to overcome some of our limiting beliefs and naturally we enjoy the creations of our positive beliefs. For example Sonata, having overcome a constant belief in financial lack may now have chosen to work with the belief that she feels powerless. Thus while material wealth may be abundantly created by her positive beliefs, through her belief in powerlessness she finds herself creating issues of alcoholism in her life. Now she can either resolve this issue here by realizing she is in control and not the alcohol (and give up alcoholism) or if not resolved through this opportunity/experience, she may in her ‘next’ life due to same unresolved belief of powerlessness draw into her life relationships, maybe with an alcoholic husband against whom she feels powerless!! It is the same belief operating, experienced through the same ‘issue’ presented in its various aspects. It is not a karmic punishment.
 
Thus what is referred to as a karmic ‘effect’ is not some tit for tat!! Surely we do not believe that our God who is supposedly so merciful and loving would punish us thus? Why, even we as humans with our (what we consider) “failings” would not want our children to undergo such heavy-handed punishment! Thus Sonata is not being punished or making amends, but giving herself opportunities through experiencing other facets of powerlessness to move beyond its limitations. As the thought pattern is hers, the issues remain similar .We are conscientious graduates and choose to fully understand our ‘subjects’ and thus repeat particular ones till we have ‘mastered it”! That is all karma is.

Karmic ‘effects’ are not some karmic retribution as usually seen, but an opportunity to understand the limitation of our beliefs from another angle in hope of turning it around and changing our belief patterns!  They are experiences the larger self chooses to learn the essence underlying what we call ‘mistakes’. There are no ‘mistakes’ however in the larger reality; there is only experience and growth. Lets consider lady C steals in one life and gets cheated in ‘another’ life. This is our usual view of the way karma works. Now lets take a more expanded view: Why did lady C steal? Maybe a belief in lack of abundance coupled with beliefs of lacking self- worth to create her own wealth led in the first place to the ‘act’ of stealing. The same beliefs (of lack of abundance, and self worth) in the ‘next’ life, translate now into perhaps a fear of being cheated and worrying about being too weak to stop it, which if not resolved will make her draw into her reality the act of being cheated! This is not cosmic justice as usually seen, but an opportunity to develop self worth. Moreover in both lives it is what her own belief has created.

If she indeed does learn and overcome her fears in this ‘next’ life and thus her belief in lack of abundance, she need not be cheated!!! (Please remember we each create and draw into our lives as per what we think.) There is no karmic machinery once set in motion that our change in belief can’t halt! As we have just seen both the cause and the effect are own thoughts in their different aspects, translated into what we view as a wrong action leading to the right punishment! So if we effect a change in our thought, it cannot create the effect in our life!! And that is what karma is about, using these opportunities through our free will to change our limited beliefs!

Secondly we now begin to see that while karma is cause and effect, yes, it is not of action and deed but of thought! Karma has more to do with our beliefs and thoughts and the experiencing, learning, resolving and mastering of issues created by limitations in them. The Karmic ‘effect’ reflects our thoughts and not our actions so we may learn the essence behind each belief in better creating our realities. What is the belief behind the action? If I give the beggar at my window some money because of my positive beliefs in abundance and sharing I will draw abundance into my lives ‘current and future’ and think it is due to good karma. If I however give the same money to the same beggar with a belief in lack of self worth but grudgingly now, just to show off to my friends, I will draw that lack of self worth into my lives! It is always the intent that manifests as ‘karma’ or life experiences.

Third and very important, is understanding that as karma is the souls way of learning whatever it has chosen to, and not a jurisdiction of right and wrong, we may now also see that karma is a self-balancing/erasing process! It is not an account to be settled with others. Once lady C has understood that as she is the ‘Source’ there is no lack of abundance, her thoughts and beliefs change, and this karma in our terms is erased or ‘balanced’. She will not find the need to further rob or be cheated! Or she may only learn that through the experience of being cheated!  Either way it is when her own belief pattern changes that the ‘karma’ is erased and not when she settles accounts with others! Now lets look at (and call him) Mr. Z who was robbed by our Mrs.C! He was robbed due to his own beliefs (for example that ‘life is dangerous and people are not to be trusted!) Both came together to learn their own issues!! Sonata’s alcoholic husband or even maybe a husband, who was the affected mate of her alcoholism, may have been someone needing to learn his own powerlessness. The others who participate in our experiences are only those who are learning similar issues and thus join hands in the ‘event’.

We can view this as a study groups coming together for mutual growth! We create our own reality and no one can ‘rob’ us if our ‘beliefs’ don’t allow it, ‘karma’ (as usually seen) or no ‘karma’!Thus it is of no use getting angry or upset with the ‘other’ through whom we experience our own limiting beliefs! We should infact use any negative experience by understanding what belief of ours has created that experience/person in our life! That is overcoming our karma! Understanding the limiting belief and changing it, and not what we owe the other or he owes us.

Remember our beliefs create our reality and karma is the belief pattern that we are trying to expand towards a larger and better reality! ‘Bad’ karma’s are merely limited beliefs, and what they create in our lives are not a punishment or something we deserve from some other we have wronged, and ‘Good’ karma’s are positive beliefs which naturally draw in good experiences and not some reward or something some other owed us!!

The role of ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ in karma..

Persons in our current lives are those who help us in all this. Many who have similar subjects, come together, and like any good college classroom there is camaraderie of give and take for mutual growth!

Those whom we think we ‘hate’ or have ‘problems’ with are also “classmates” of the larger classroom/reality who have agreed to take on the unappreciated ‘villain’s’ role. We choose to come together to give each other the opportunity in successfully resolving issues. If I need to learn forgiveness, I need someone to forgive!! Maybe the other, also resolving issues on forgiveness, needed the aspect of being forgiven. We see this all the time in students cooperating with each other on their respective projects, which form an important part of each student’s larger course. Our coming together in what we refer to, as ‘karmic relationships’ is this; it is not a God or Universal computer that insists on it, but a mutual consensual exchange of role reversal. It is simpler if we are making the same ‘mistakes’ or learning the same subject, to take turns in learning from each other!! It’s like me taking up your homework and then you taking mine!! We both agree to be violator and victim in turn, to experience the issues beneath violence from different angles; but please note that these experiences are chosen for our growth and not out of feelings of guilt or punishment!
 
Friends and loves are also those souls with whom we have been in ‘classes’/lives before, and in realizing we make a good team, we choose to come together again and again, for mutual support. Even then there are learning experiences involved. This again can be seen in colleges where students who have been supportive of each other, naturally get together wherever possible in forming study and social groups, or merely sharing dining facilities!! They are also the preferred choice as roommates, though it is not always possible, and sometimes we get a more ‘difficult’ one;-)) Of course there are multidinous reasons for souls coming together in any lifetime, and whether the relationship appears ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ it is one large cooperative venture in the larger picture!

Good karma is where (through issues resolved) our belief is in tandem with the larger reality, thereby creating its ‘positive’ effects again and again into our lives. There is no one paying us back or a higher authority rewarding us!! If I have healthy beliefs in say abundance, and give freely of myself to another, it is not the other paying me back next life, but my own belief in abundance drawing that back in my life, either through him, who maybe, still needs to learn the beliefs behind giving freely, or through some other source. Even for our beggar from the above example, getting financial aid was not good karma as we view it, but some good beliefs of his that drew in that material help from a passer by!!

Sometimes like students having enough credits and able to move onto other projects, we too may learn all that is required of an issue in a ‘current’ lifetime. If I for example finally resolve the issue of violence, I will not need to undergo being the victim of violence, and this is what we usually refer to as, having ‘balanced/finished that karma’!! Just like the other students will not be left hanging halfway without someone pitching in to help them complete their allotted projects no soul is left hanging, bereft of the opportunity, to learn whatever it needs towards finishing its projects. Sometimes we continue to help the other ‘learn his stuff’, much like a visiting college professor not wholly involved with the college and sometimes if our new beliefs have taken us elsewhere, someone else will be there to do the needful.  It is the subject matter that is important, not which teacher takes the course. For the soul it is the experience that is important, not whom it comes from!
 
Lets consider x and y who have planned to come into each others lives at a certain point to help each with, say, lack of self worth. They have decided the best opportunity lies in coming together as a couple that would only berate each other. However if x can change her current reality through healthy beliefs and inner work into developing self worth, then she will not attract that same partner (Mr. y) in this life, though it was one of the options in the larger plan!!! Her new beliefs will attract a better partner for her, someone who will help her with whatever else she may have chosen to learn! Mr.Y, still insecure about his self worth, will get someone, to help him learn mastering it however, as we all have other options/understudies in our plans!

In our college analogy we may see it as the perfect system where students are never failed, but given opportunity after opportunity to finish their projects to their liking, with teachers and students all pitching in.…however his/her growth is always dependant on him/herself only! There is no principal in heaven marking us wrong or right, or settling students disputes! We create our own ‘college experience’; and we create our own reality. Karma is the tool we use towards this growth we all instinctively seek….

Part 2 An expanded view of karma ...in simultaneous time.

Now we come to the larger concept of karma!! Many of us are familiar with the concept that there is no ‘linear time’ and our many lives are simultaneous. Thus what appear as past, present and future incarnations, are actually one simultaneous physical experience for the larger self!! This larger Self therefore, through our what we call current life, and our what we call past and future lives, chooses the experience of growth (i.e. aligning its beliefs in tandem with realizing it is All That Is) in the NOW.

Think of this ‘foray’ of the Larger Self as extending out into its own ‘various lives’ in what appear ‘different time’ frames. Imagine a large round balloon as my Larger Self extending into several, long fingers of balloons protruding out into my various lives/personalities: Mrs.C(urrent), Ms F(uture) and Mr. P(ast) amongst others! They are called past present and future but all exist together!
 
As we all exist together as the larger Self, or indeed are one as the larger Self, the beliefs of one of my ‘personalities’ Mrs. C (e.g. lack of abundance) are naturally the belief of my other personalities, Ms F and Mr. P. Our ‘beliefs/thoughts’ are thus not something we carry over from life to life as we usually perceive, but is our common belief/thought pattern in the NOW! The same thought ‘pattern’ naturally creates issues and experiences around it (in our e.g. theft/cheating) in all my lives/personalities: Mrs.C is relaying the experience of being the thief, Ms. F of being the victim and Mr. P of thinking in terms of theft, all simultaneously. To the larger self this is all happening together, and is one large experience towards understanding all the aspects of its limited belief (lack of abundance) in the NOW. We view these simultaneous experiences (robbing, being robbed etc) in linear time and therefore as the cause of one life having an effect in another.

Now any change in the thoughts of one personality will be recorded as it happens, in the larger Self and transmitted to its other selves. Just like lady C(urrents) limiting beliefs/experiences on abundance/theft are experienced by Ms. F(uture) and MR P(ast) so will her resolving this belief through free will and inner work have its simultaneous repercussions on them. As the thought pattern incorporates this ‘change” of belief, there being no further cause left (the limiting belief of lack) there will be no effect (issues of theft) and in our terms that karma will be settled!! I hope you grasp what I’m getting at here: because this is how karma works then! All my ‘selves’ share common beliefs till I work them out, and while it appears that the cause in one life is the effect in the next, viewed together in simultaneous time, karma is merely the (changes in) the thought pattern in the NOW of my ‘larger self.’

This brings us to that all-important NOW. Each personality has the free will to now resolve the issue, resolve the limited belief, thereby changing the belief pattern and resolving the (what we perceive as) ‘karma’! I can, through my inner work utilize the opportunities (experiences/issues) to outgrow a limiting belief in this current life, and erase it from my thought pattern and hence from what we view as future (and past actually). What we consider a linear chain of karmic consequences will be ‘balanced’ with no further experiences based on lack of abundance! Finishing with one’s karma/karmic resolution only means when all such limiting beliefs are resolved by the larger self through its personalities, towards knowing we are All That Is. So lets align our beliefs with this larger truth of What and Who we are, now.

Karma we have already seen is a self-learning process, and we ‘balance karma’ or as we now know, change our thought pattern through our own inner work. There is no other on whom we are dependent, as the change as to occur within us and not them!! They can only help by being part of the issues/experiences through which we change our thoughts!! As we already know, the ‘other’, the Mr. Z of our example, is experiencing his/her own thought pattern and comes into our life where we have common issues.

Till then lets not make karma into this bugaboo, it is only a thought pattern that we have viewed over linear time instead of in simultaneous time. Lets incorporate into it the changes we need, towards truly knowing, that we are indeed All That Is. Lets look into our beliefs to change the fears and limiting beliefs (negative karma) and focus on the positive beliefs (good karma) in the NOW!

Note: Imagine if you like the manager of a Pop music group sending each of its players into different recording cubicles of a sound studio, to each practice their part to perfection, with naturally the same music score!! The cubicles are called the past present and future but exist most definitely in the same studio at the same time! Their music, though played in separate cubicles, is being recorded by the manager onto a master tape!! The mistake of one player or the right note of another, will all impact the music on the master tape at the same time!

Divya Kumar 2003