Karma

Get Off The Merry-Go-Round

Karma is generally conceptualized as a system of cosmic retribution/reward. I do something bad; my badness is marked down somewhere, and then, at a later date, my badness is paid back to me. Or, I do good, that goodness is registered, and I get rewarded for it by something good happening to me.

This conception of karma is useful as a general moral compass — it helps guide me toward positive actions and away from negative ones. But with that said, I don’t think it paints a full picture of the karmic cycle.

Today, I’d like to discuss karma and explain why a clearer understanding of karmic principles can fast-track your manifestation progress.

True Karma is indifferent to goodness or badness — it exists way above the level of reward and retribution, too. Karma is really meant to be an explanation of how energies express themselves.

Imagine you have a co-worker who you really dislike. One day, you decide to write an anonymous note telling this guy what a jerk he is, and you leave it on his desk at lunchtime.

In the retributive model of Karma, this is an inciting incident. You had the option to do nothing or to do a mean thing, and you chose to do the mean thing, thus creating “bad karma — which you can expect to come back and bite you at some point in the future.

Later that week, you’re out to lunch with your friends. You step away to use the bathroom, and when you come back, you overhear them saying nasty things about you.

Again, using the retributive model for reference, this is the “payoff” of your bad Karma. It’s the boomerang coming back to hit you. You did a nasty thing, put nasty energy out into the universe, and eventually, that nasty energy came back to bite you.

But let’s reframe this simple example in the context of energy expression.

When you decide to leave the note on your coworker’s desk, some negative feeling compels you to take your nasty action. Your coworker makes you feel bad in some way, shape, or form; then, you fight back against your bad feeling by rising to the level of anger.

The operative word here is “compels.” Bad behavior is compulsive. There’s an unpleasant feeling you don’t want to face, and in an attempt to get rid of it, you’re compelled to take action — in this case, it’s leaving a rude note, but it could also be starting a fight, going in your car and crying, quitting your job to avoid this person you don’t like, etc.

Now let’s jump to the lunch example — what happens when you overhear your friends saying mean things about you? A negative feeling strikes you. A bad feeling deep inside you gets triggered.

What is it that’s shared between event A and event B? The negative feeling. Your coworker triggers a negative feeling in you, and you respond with anger; later on, you overhear people talking about you in a way that triggers a negative feeling — how will you respond? Probably with anger. Later on, something else will trigger a negative feeling, and you’ll respond with… That’s right, anger.

This is a cycle, yes, but it’s not retributive — you’re not being punished for behaving badly. What’s happening is that you felt bad in event 1, but you didn’t address your bad feeling — you fought it by getting angry; You suppressed it. Because you suppressed it, the bad feeling remained inside of you and sought further expression; it triggered event number two, where your friends said nasty things about you. If you respond to event two in a way that doesn’t address your bad feeling, it’ll remain unexpressed, and thus, it’ll continue trying to find expression going forward.

Most people live life like a game of emotional whack-a-mole. A negative emotion pops up; they smack at it, then it continues popping up over and over again.

But fighting your negative emotions perpetuates the cycle. Again, you aren’t being punished, you’re just getting in the way of the natural expression of your emotions. You’re keeping them in the subconscious mind instead of allowing them up into the conscious mind so they can be addressed and let go of.

This is why releasing is so effective. You exit the karmic cycle by addressing your negative feelings — by no longer fighting or feeding them and just allowing them to express themselves fully in the conscious mind. Once an emotion has been expressed in the mind, it doesn’t seek further expression in the world.

Personally, I find this to be very inspiring. Every time something negative happens, I view it as an opportunity to burn off a little karma — to address some previously subconscious feeling and let go of it so that it won’t seek further expression. If you start to look at the bad things that happen as opportunities for growth rather than as obstacles impeding it, you’ll begin to progress faster than you can even imagine.

As always, good luck.