My position on karma might surprise you. I do not subscribe to the common thinking about this concept. I base my view on experience, research and much thought. To explain my views, I am going to take you on a journey starting thousands of years ago.
Background
Through millennia our ancestors struggled to survive. Strength prevailed. The strongest men were most likely to prosper, and passed their advantages down to their offspring.
As society evolved, our leaders learned that they did not have to rely on mere physical strength. They found more subtle ways to control people.
Constantine, the fourth century Roman Emperor, inherited a divided and rebellious empire. He saw religion as a tool he could use to control the masses. He converted to Christianity and mandated that it be the official religion. In the sixth century, Justinian united the people further by convening the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople, which further decreed formal Christian doctrine.
Rulers in Asian and Indo-European countries also used religion as a means of control. The Islamic caliphate governed in accordance with religious law. Sultans and Rajahs used the Hindu caste system to maintain their power.
Religious texts were concealed from the ordinary people. Most could not read. Even if they could, the sacred texts were in written in languages restricted to the ruling classes. Buddhist sutras were originally written in Vedic Sanskrit, and the Christian Bible was written in Latin.
The ruling classes used religious beliefs to keep their subjects in control—beliefs that enshrined obedience, submission, and humility. By remaining meek, the masses believed they would assure their place in heaven, or in a more favourable incarnation.
I personally know how this works. When I was a young girl, the minister in our Methodist church preached hell-fire and damnation. We were conditioned to believe that bad deeds, or even bad thoughts, attracted eternal punishment.
Only now in the twenty-first century are we beginning to seriously challenge these deeply held views.
Karma
‘Karma’ is a Sanskrit word that means ‘deed’ or ‘action.’ The word also embodies the idea that we reap what we sow. Our future depends on our current actions. Bad deeds bring bad karma, or suffering. Good deeds bring rewards.
In Hinduism, karma plays a role in the caste system. It assumes that people born into a lower caste have accumulated negative karma. Bad deeds committed in previous lives lead to low status in the current life.
You don’t need me to point out the coercive power that karma wields over those born into the lower castes. It justifies their inferior status, while emphasising the importance of humility as a way to progress in later lives.
What Regressions Tell Us
By undertaking regressions we are given an opportunity to see the bigger picture of our lives and their purpose. In our life-between-lives, we meet the Council of Elders, wise beings who answer our most searching questions.
We learn that are not punished and we are not rewarded. We are guided, we are helped, and we are given opportunities. Our free will is sacrosanct. The bottom line is clear, and its consequences inescapable: we choose our experiences.
Over and over again, I have listened as my clients received the same message from the Council. We create our reality. We make plans, with others, to take on certain roles in our incarnations. We endeavour to act out these roles. Even if we fail, the Council never chastises us for our performance. Any punishment we experience is our own creation. We punish ourselves through our sense of guilt.
You know this. Remember a time when you felt deep guilt and were found out. Even with your fear and shame, the chance to come clean offered you a real sense of relief.
Here is an example from a regression. A client experienced a past life as a soldier named Bill, in World War I. Bill felt a great deal of guilt about surviving World War I, in which his brother and mates all died. At the beginning of the war, he had convinced them to join up. He felt responsible for their deaths.
When he crossed over into his life-between-lives, he visited the Council of Elders. He saw them as judges with wigs and red gowns sitting at a high bench in a courtroom. He felt small, and sat with his head bowed. He trembled as he waited for their judgement.
The Council gently told him that he alone imagined them to be judges. He had no reason to feel guilty. His mates had free will and had chosen their fate. The Council suddenly changed appearance. He now found himself and the Council members sitting casually together on lounge chairs.
This client had been bought up in a strictly Christian household. In adulthood, he rejected his Christian roots. While he initially approached the Council with guilt carried over from his previous life, he soon relaxed and let go of that old conditioning. He was open enough to see the Council as friendly advisors rather than judges.
The information received in regressions does not bear out the idea that karmic consequences are visited upon an individual without their soul’s permission.
In my book, Other Lives, Other Realms, I outline the case of Morris, who suffers from cancer. Morris’s soul knew that cancer was a possibility because he chose a very sensitive body. Morris’s soul had good reasons for this choice and had accepted all the possible consequences.
In a recent regression, a client realised he had been murdered in a past life. In that life, he’d had an affair with the wife of his murderer. ‘What was the purpose of that life?’ I asked. ‘It was a gift,’ he replied.
Further investigation revealed that the wife and the husband were soul relatives of my client. This means they belonged to the same soul group in their life-between-lives. The husband and wife, as souls, had planned their lives together. The husband was working on jealousy, an issue he’d spent many lives trying to resolve. My client had been recruited to play an important role. He would have an affair with the wife. In accepting this role, he agreed to be murdered, if that was the way it played out.
The murderer was caught and hung. When his soul ascended, he suffered no karmic consequences. He might be disappointed that he failed to overcome this challenge and forgive, because he knows that, in another incarnation, he will face the same circumstances to have another attempt at resolution.
Conclusion
Our idea of karma as punishment is flawed. We have been conditioned to believe that bad deeds, thoughts or intentions bring negative consequences.
Reincarnation and karma are eastern concepts that we in the western hemisphere have adopted. These concepts are contaminated. We have all, east and west, been conditioned to be fearful. Those in control have used religious ideas for their own purposes.
I believe that negative consequences can spill from one life into the next. However, these consequences are not the result of bad deeds, nor are they intended as punishment. I will discuss this in my next blog.
Hi Karen
You say that Justinian convened the Council of Nicaea in the sixth century. The second council of Nicaea was in the eighth century, and Justinian was gone by then.
The first council was in the fourth century, and that established the initial version of the Nicene Creed.
You don’t need to post this comment – feel free to delete it.
Thanks for this correction Rico. The ecumenical council to which I refer was held in Constantinople in 553.