The word karma has made it into the mainstream. Just look at bumper stickers like My karma ran over your dogma or It’s a thankless job, but I’ve got a lot of karma to burn off.
But not everyone understands what karma really means, why it matters and how to deal with it.
Think about the talents you were born with and the good things that have happened to you in life. Now think about the so-called limitations and challenges that have come your way. Both have to do with your karma.
Karma simply tells us that what happens to us in the present is the result of causes we ourselves have set in motion in the past—whether ten minutes ago or ten lifetimes ago. We’ve all grown up learning about karma.
We just didn’t call it that. Instead we heard: What goes around comes around. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In essence, karma tells us that whatever we do will come full circle to our doorstep—sometime, somewhere. Karma and reincarnation go hand in hand. While karma means accountability and payback, reincarnation is simply another word for opportunity.
Reincarnation gives us another chance to make good on the karmic debts we owe others and to reap the blessings we have sent forth. Karma and reincarnation also help us make sense out of the question marks in life.
Why me? Why not me? Why was my niece born with Down’s syndrome when her brothers and sisters are healthy and robust? Why do all my relationships become a tug of war—how come I can’t live with him and I can’t live without him? Why did I survive a car accident when all of my friends in the car were killed?
Life is full of paradoxes and questions like these. Like a Zen koan, each paradox is designed to make us dig deeper, connect with our inner soul knowing and solve the karmic conundrum.
At times it seems that the only thing we can count on are the cycles of the seasons. No matter what else happens, we know that the surge of new life at springtime will give way to the full-blown beauty of summer.
The ripe autumn harvest welcomes winter as nature prepares once again for a fresh new start.
Many a sage has looked to the cycles of nature to understand the cycles of the soul.
Karma and reincarnation tell us that our soul, following the patterns of nature, journeys along a path of birth, maturation, death and then the renewed opportunity of rebirth.
They tell us that we are a part of a moving stream of consciousness and that through many life experiences our soul is evolving.
Karma and reincarnation explain that our soul, like the legendary phoenix, does indeed rise from the ashes of our former selves to be reborn and that our former lives contain the seeds of our new life.
In other words, everything we are today we have been building for thousands of years.
The natural cycles of karma and reincarnation can help us understand how we got where we are today and what we can do about it.
They can help us understand why we were born with a particular set of aptitudes and talents, crises and challenges, assignments and aspirations.
They can help us deal with the questions that tease us in moments of exasperation.
Why was I born to these parents? Why did I give birth to the children that I have? Why am I afraid of water and of heights? Why am I here?
In this lesson, we’ll talk about the underlying principles as well as practical aspects of karma and reincarnation: how the belief in reincarnation spans East and West, through many centuries and cultures.
Why karma is the X Factor in our relationships, health, our career-every aspect of our life.
Why karma isn’t fate.
How karma works. How we can trace the karmic threads we have woven from lifetime to lifetime.
Finally, we will share some tools and techniques that can help you transform karmic encounters into grand opportunities to shape the future you want.
Whether or not you believe in reincarnation and karma, these lessons will offer new ways of thinking about life’s most profound paradoxes and promises.
Karma picks up where the golden rule leaves off. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—because someday it will be done unto you.
The Sanskrit word karma means “act,” “action,” “word” or “deed.” The law of karma as it is traditionally taught says that our thoughts, words and deeds—positive and negative—create a chain of cause and effect, and that we will personally experience the effect of every cause we have set in motion.
Karma, therefore, is our greatest benefactor, returning to us the good we have sent to others. It is also our greatest teacher, allowing us to learn from our mistakes. Because the law of karma gives back to us whatever we have sent forth as thought, word or deed, some think of it as punishment. Not so.
The law of karma is the law of love. There is no greater love than having the opportunity to understand the consequences of our action—or our in- action—so that our soul can grow.
Karma teaches us to love and to love and to love as no other process can. It gives us hope.
Take, for example, the tragic case of Avianca flight 052. In 1990, after a long trip from Colombia, it was trying to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Controllers and bad weather had delayed its landing for an hour and seventeen minutes. The jet ran out of fuel and crashed into a hillside in Cove Neck, New York, killing seventy-three and injuring eighty-five.
The National Transportation Safety Board said that inadequate traffic flow management contributed to the accident as well as faulty communication. The crew did not communicate an emergency fuel situation, which would have enabled them to have a priority landing.
The official transcript of the cockpit voice recorder shows that the first officer, who had the job of communicating with air-traffic controllers, told the control tower that the plane was low on fuel, but he never used the word emergency even though the pilot directed him to.
In karmic terms, the first officer was at least partially accountable for the deaths and injuries of those on board. Having died in the crash himself, how would he be able to pay his debt to the people harmed by his negligence? Would God send him to hell?
According to the law of cause and effect, the law of karma, here’s one possible scenario: he will mercifully be allowed to reincarnate and have the opportunity to work in a position where he can serve those who had suffered.
The passengers whose destiny in this life may have been cut short through this accident will also be given another opportunity to live and complete their soul journey.
A single lifetime, whether lived to nine or ninety-nine, is just not enough time for the soul to pay off her karmic debts, develop her vast potential or fulfill her reason for being.
How could we learn all our spiritual lessons or share all our unique talents on the stage of life in only one lifetime?
The belief in karma and reincarnation crisscrosses time and space, finding a home in many cultures, both ancient and modern.
The most elaborately developed concepts of karma and reincarnation are found in the religious traditions of India, especially Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
These traditions explain that the soul reaps both the good and the bad that she has sown in previous lifetimes. “Just as a farmer plants a certain kind of seed and gets a certain crop, so it is with good and bad deeds,” explains the Mahabharata, the great Hindu epic.
The Dhammapada, a collection of sayings of the Buddha, tells us: “What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday….If a man speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows him as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws the cart….If a man speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows him as his own shadow.”
Although this fact is unknown to many Westerners, before the advent of Christianity reincarnation was also a part of the spiritual beliefs of many of the peoples of Europe, including the early Teutonic tribes, the Finns, Icelanders, Lapps, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, early Saxons and the Celts of Ireland, Scotland, England, Brittany, Gaul and Wales.
The Welsh have even claimed that it was the Celts who originally carried the belief in reincarnation to India.
In ancient Greece, both Pythagoras and Plato believed in reincarnation. Pythagoras taught that the soul’s many incarnations were opportunities for her to purify and perfect herself.
Some Native Americans as well as many tribes in Central and South America have believed in reincarnation.
Today the belief also exists among over one hundred tribes in Africa as well as among the Eskimos and Central Australian tribes and many peoples of the Pacific, including theTahitians, Melanesians and Okinawans.
What about the Judeo-Christian tradition? The law of karma, as the law of cause and effect, is firmly rooted in that tradition.
According to some scholars, statements made by the first century Jewish historian Josephus may indicate that the Pharisees and the Essenes believed in reincarnation.
We know that Philo, the great Jewish philosopher and contemporary of Jesus, taught reincarnation.
The third-century Church Father Origen of Alexandria noted that reincarnation was part of the mystical teachings of the Jews.
In addition, reincarnation was and is taught by students of Kabbalah, a system of Jewish mysticism that flowered in the thirteenth century and is enjoying a resurgence today.
Reincarnation is also part of the religious beliefs of the Jewish Hasidic movement, founded in the eighteenth century.
Last but not least, history itself as well as ancient manuscripts unearthed in this century reveal that reincarnation was alive and well in early Christianity.
As we will show, even through the thirteenth century, certain groups of Christians openly espoused reincarnation alongside traditional Christian beliefs.
This is not always easy, but it is a vital step. Wherever you are, take a moment to be still.
Take three slow and deep breaths. Center in your heart. Try chanting the Om. This will help you integrate the lessons.
Your altar is your sacred space—the sacred space that helps you connect to your heart. It is the place we go when we want to “alter”—to create change and transformation. You can create your own altar, even if it’s in a corner of your bedroom or living room.
Find a special place in your home where you can set up an altar. You can adorn your altar with what is spiritually significant and inspiring to you, like candles, crystals, flowers or plants.
Here are some key questions that can help you navigate on your journey of self-transformation.