A definition of Karma is a force created by a person's past actions that is felt to determine future outcomes - action and reaction. In fake spirituality, it can certainly be used as an easy excuse for claiming unprovable things. With statements like “that happened because for sure they had done this in another life” or “let them be poor because they were rich in the previous life” and similar others - proof of which is conveniently impossible to concretize. Not to mention being an easy to claim cop out excuse to not have to work to improve some obvious problem at either a personal or societal level. How convenient. However, regardless of one’s thoughts on reincarnation, we have come through our personal development to feel there is a validity to karma and it’s correspondence to cycles of life. Especially when looking at it from the standpoint of devolution and evolution.
A viewing of an “Instant Karma” video on the internet where some dude with a tiny rotten brain is driving like a maniac and then, as a direct result, proceeds to flip off the road and crash their vehicle seems proof of single life karmic consequence. Yet, it does also seem like certain people who engage in unhonorable or downright deplorable behavior get away with it for extended periods of time if not their entire lives doesn't it? This is where things get a bit murky, difficult to lay down the rules if you will.
Acting as though character traits one expresses in this life are the result of our accumulated past lifetimes of various experiences does help structure life and support a mindset that we could be in corporeal form on Earth with unfinished tasks and that those unfinished things are part of our karma. For perhaps our souls have incarnated in the physical to learn lessons that are still part of our evolutionary framework which we have yet to have learned up to that point. So challenges are presented to us which, prior to that point, we have yet to overcome. Rinse and repeat.
Hard to say for sure, but if we think of the whole of material creation to be likened to a rehabilitation center meant for helping a soul to rediscover its nature of divinity and one of the mechanisms of creation is to help facilitate a soul’s development being karmic, then through it, selfless actions uplift a soul, while selfish actions degrade it. The results of both selfless and selfish actions are experienced over a series of life cycles, as a soul comes to understand how its actions affect those and the world around it. Karma can be said to be the ultimate educator. Theoretically speaking, if one takes their karmic lessons seriously, and strives to act selflessly, perhaps one can continuously progress their status of existence and gain more soul maturity.
We may also think of our experiences in life as just but one chapter in a much larger book. A text which we can’t read entirely through only one life, for a single life may be only a chapter or only a single page, and multiple lives comprise the whole pros making up a long-form book of life. What part of the maps we've already explored and what pages of the tome we've already read.
Through the full evolution of our life, all of our lives, the whole book if you will, it would make sense that the story must involve doing it all. Having all experiences, being all things, mapping all polarity. For through many cycles, be that it hundreds or thousands, we may have initially started out being very immature and having leaned toward doing a majority of bad things and as we have evolved, that gradually entails later doing a majority of very good things. With the horrible slowly transitioning to the noble. All part of the process of progression. With a karmic tapestry being woven to be a map of which we have explored every inch.
If, however, a person chooses to commit one selfish act after another, progress is not made and in extreme cases what forward motion has already been made can be squandered. Especially in regards to what that personal mental structure has neglected to learn from in past lifetimes. For it has also been said that there will be bag karma, baggage if you will, worth redeeming, and good karma, also having value for being worth acknowledging. Neither of which can be fully run away from. We see this in figureheads that seem so deplorable you can't fathom why they even have any platform, let alone thousands if not millions of folks who support them. It’s because those who are soul young attract others who are soul young. Hence they are mentally babies or toddlers in grown adult bodies. Projecting blame on everyone but themselves. As there is a common immature inclination to avoid anything that causes unpleasantness for the individual.
Yet, cause and effect (a Hermetic principle) pushes back on this. For we can think of it and karma as a balancer or harmonizer. Being generated by deeds, conduct, actions, and if could even be said, thoughts. All of which make up a soup which can have a great deal of influence in regards to family, health, resources, and all relationships - personal and professional. With even various flavors to this seven layered fractal cake being something like soul, national, racial, world, etc…
Whatever the slate, facing and resolving karmic consequences is forward progress and is inevitable. Delaying or outright avoiding the learning from these lesions is only going to slow the gears of evolution down, but can never and will never fully stop them. Acknowledging karma and taking responsibility for it is a huge step into maturity. For it takes courage and sophistication to look at our faults and face them. Because karma is habit forming, creating patterns in mental behavior, it can be very difficult to make and follow through with better choices, even if one is conscious of wanting to do so. But we must push through. And one's willingness to work at doing so is a sign of soul maturity.
An individual's acceptance and acknowledgment of forward karma over multiple lives is said to produce positive thinking and actions and without karma existing, we could not grow to be the most masterful version of ourselves. To progress, not regress. To expand, not contract. All designed to not tear us down but instead to build us up. To make us greater. Even if everything stated here is all bollocks, acting like it is the case only improves one's behavioral pattern in the long run. Actions such as making conscious choices, forgiveness, acceptance, gratitude, humility, and the general golden rule are all aspects of karmic software which may help run our living operating systems. Highlighting that we have created and continue to create our lives. Nothing happens to us, it happens for us. Welcome to karma cafe. Where there is no menu and you will be served what you are due.
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