Transcending Negative Relationship Karma

Karma is defined as action/deed/destiny resulting from the law of cause and effect. Other more common ways of describing karma is "As you sow, so also shall you reap" and "What goes around, comes around". Karma can also be known positively as choice and change.

The Past can affect us in 2 ways.

(1) Experiences resulting from injustice towards others in the past

When our actions have negatively affected others in the past (this incarnation or previous ones), we undergo what we put others through, so that we develop empathy and learn not to do the same. For instance, if we have abused our spouse in a past incarnation, we may incarnate with an option to experience something similar ourselves in this life, as an opportunity to learn. So, the purpose of karma is to teach, not to punish and experiential learning is often the best teacher. Our soul remembers and stores all that we learn.

(2) Unfinished business from the past

However, not all "sufferings" are the result of us wronging others. If you have been abused in this lifetime, it does not always mean that you were an abuser in your past incarnation. To believe so is simplistic and usually incorrect. It is also destructive for an individual's soul growth and understanding.

Some experiences are the result of past patterns remaining in your energy field/in your subconscious mind. For instance, if you have been abused in a relationship in the past, this remains in your energy field, which then sets up an attractor pattern that unconsciously invites more abuse. This happens until the pattern is removed from the energy field/subconscious mind.

How to transcend the negative karma

(1) Finishing unfinished business.

Transcending this type of karma is easier than the other type. The following methods are recommended:

- Emotional clearing work (regression) to release negative pattern from energy field. Setting up a more empowering, resourceful behavior pattern through belief change etc.

- Forgiveness eg forgiving the perpetrator, as when you do this,your soul evolves into higher consciousness, and hence happiness. When you hate somebody, that person receives that thought and hates you even more. On the other hand love transforms a person.

"When Mahatma Gandhi was in South Africa, he was stabbed and lay near death. The officials naturally wanted to prosecute his assailant, but Gandhi refused. "No," he said. "If I put him in prison, he will be a greater enemy. I will win him by love." When the attacker learned of Gandhi's forgiveness, he became his disciple."

- Developing empathy/compassion for others in similar situations. Some people even become advocates for charity of a nature related to their situation, thus accumulating positive karma.

- Releasing negative beliefs. Transcending unhealthy habits. Deciding on more empowering course of action.

(2) Transcending karma resulting from injustice towards others in the past

Of course, this depends of the gravity of the action. For instance, a lady who had difficulty conceiving, dumped her newly born infant near a rubbish bin in a past incarnation. She experienced this in a regression session. In this life, she is realizing the preciousness of life.

In any case, here are some steps that were recommended by Dr David R. Hawkins, author of Power vs Force.

- Reflect on your situation. Apologize to God for that part of you that may have caused the same negative experience in others. Pray for the salvation and happiness of the souls.

- Learn the lessons that the situation is bringing to your awareness. Choose a new, empowering course of action, that is based on love.

- Do good deeds that show your willingness to transcend the karma. For instance, the lady decided to volunteer her time at orphanages.

- Most importantly, forgive yourself. Do not overlook this step! Willingness to forgive oneself means that your consciousness level has risen past the karma.

"Avoid dwelling on all the wrong things you have done. They do not belong to you now. Let them be forgotten. It is attention that creates habit and memory. As soon as you put the needle on a phonograph record, it begins to play. Attention is the needle that plays the record of past actions. So you should not put your attention on bad ones. Why go on suffering over the unwise actions of your past? Cast their memory from your mind, and take care not to repeat those actions again. "

" Few people in this world try consciously to develop the potentials of body, mind, and soul. The rest are victims of circumstances of the past. They plod on and on, pushed by past wrong habits, helplessly going down under their influence, remembering only: "I am a nervous man," or "I am a weakling," or "I am a sinner," and so on.

It lies with each one of us to cut with the sword of wisdom the cords of our bondage, or to remain bound."

-- Excerpt from "The Divine Romance" by Paramahansa Yogananda (author of Autobiography of a Yogi)

How to tell the difference?

When our desire to find out is there, we shall be lead to the truth. Nobody can tell you the root cause of your situation just from listening to your story. Only you can find that out for yourself, through regression/dreams for instance. During regression sessions/dreams, your Higher Self serves as your guide. It will always do what is in the best interests of your soul evolution and it will only show you what you can handle and are ready for.

It is better to "see" and "experience" it by ourselves than have someone psychically "see" it for us. First-hand experience is always more powerful and convincing, and because of that it propels us to make changes in our lives/situations for the better. This is why people often make positive changes in their lives after a near death experience. Reading about other people's near death experience doesn't quite have the same effect.

Accumulating Good Karma

As you accumulate positive karma, you will find that you draw more and more positive experiences, happiness, blessings and abundance into your life. Even when negative periods come, they are more bearable, they don't last as long and you find that you can easily transcend them.

For instance, let's say a couple would like to manifest abundance. However, they hoard all their belongings. Due to this, they have lack in their energy field. As such, it may be difficult for them to attract prosperity. Simply stating prosperity affirmations and doing visualizations may not help as the lack in their energy field only attracts more lack. On the other hand, accumulating good karma for eg. by giving away their resources to a worthy cause etc. only sets up positive attractor patterns of abundance in their energy field, thus making it easier for them to manifest prosperity.

The following are recommended methods of accumulating good karma

- Study spiritual literature of your choice. Practice the teachings and make it your flesh and blood.

- Transcend the Ego

- Practice meditation. Connect to your Higher Self and Spirit.

- Pray

- Invest in your soul growth, eg by reading self-help books etc.

- Do good deeds as an individual/as a couple. Help others. Volunteer your resources for a worthy cause etc.

- Practice noble virtues.

- Learn from the past.

This will not only help you grow as an individual but it will also help you grow as a couple. It will strengthen your relationship. People are innately attracted to goodness.

Fate vs Free Will

All the talk about karma brings us to the question of whether we are slaves to fate or we design our own destiny. Here are some resources that answer this question beautifully.

" The cue to our conduct is always supplied from the known and unknown within. What we are going to be is about seventy-five percent foreordained by ourselves. That "horoscope" of tendencies from past incarnations attracts our present hereditary condition as well as the other circumstances we will draw to ourselves. Fatalists, and some inept astrologers who try to compute the unknown, are greatly mistaken in their belief that life is one hundred percent foretold and can be astrologically charted. They leave no margin for the freedom of the individual: free choice to change himself this way or that, free choice to decide between two courses of action. In most cases, though, the free will of man is nothing more than a slave—in the guise of freedom, but fettered to past tendencies.

Yet everyone knows there is such a thing as an unconditioned decision that we make after rationally balancing the pros and cons of a certain matter. Having made such a decision, if we exercise our will, we can change many things in our lives that appeared unchangeable, or that may have been predicted to be incontrovertible. This willing is freedom of will. Free will does exist. If it were not so, none could escape the vicious circle of his fate once he had drawn it. Growth would be circumscribed. Newer channels of activities would have little scope. The evolution of human beings would hardly emerge from the level of savagery.

The conception of new social orders, progressive ideas in political government, advanced methods of scientific exploration, new departments of research, sallies of literary activity — all prove the ability of man to exercise free choice in every line by the power of will.

As previously stated, you are born with about seventy-five percent of your life predetermined by your past. You will make up the remaining twenty-five percent. If you yourself, through your own free choice and effort of will, do not determine what
that twenty-five percent will be, the seventy-five percent will make the twenty-five percent for you, and you will become a puppet. That is, you will be ruled absolutely by your past, by the influence and effects of your past tendencies. This is why
spiritual training is vital. It takes into consideration not only the seventy-five percent of our lives that we already are, but also designates the methods to mold the brand new twenty-five percent that we ourselves are going to create by the exercise of our freedom.

Cosmic Law Is Activated by Our Decisions

The Cosmic Law is not the doer of things, but the evolutionary mode of operation of cause and effect. This law works changes when activated by the agency of our decisions, which are determined either by our past tendencies, or by our present
free choice. The motive of Eternal Good that is interlinked with the Cosmic Law is in every atom, and in us too. It is what inherently urges us to learn from past mistakes, and to use our free choice and will to initiate those positive causes that produce everlasting good effects."


-- Excerpts from "The Divine Romance" by Paramahansa Yogananda (author of Autobiography of a Yogi)