*Karma can block your understanding of this Law. The good news is that you will not be aware of it. Ignorance in this instance is truly bliss. Someday you will. Then the lesson will be to not judge your ignorance; to not judge your not-knowing as it can last a long time. Mine was a 28-year karmic debt. But, karma ends just as everything else does, just in in God’s time and way, not ours, and our Higher Self is aware of this, and understands that when we break a universal law, the only way to not repeat it is to experience the consequence. But it is not personal. It is just a matter of cause and effect. Annie Besant in her lecture, A Study In Karma says,

” Each force works along its own particular line, and that when a number of forces impinge on a particular point, the resultant force is the outcome of all of them. Goodness is not a cause of flying, nor does it bring in money. Tennyson touched on a great law when, in his poem on “Wages,” he declared that the wages (of virtue) were …. the glory of an active immortality. ‘Virtue is its own reward’ in the fullest sense of the words. If we are truthful, our reward is that our nature becomes more truthful, and so sequentially with every virtue. Karmic results can only be of the nature of their causes; they are not arbitrary, like human rewards.

Often the worst enemy of virtue is in easy material conditions, and these, which are spoken of as good karma, are often the reverse in their results. Many who do fairly well in adversity go astray in prosperity, and become intoxicated with worldly delights.

The pleasure-giving and pain-giving objects around the living creature draw out its energies, and we call these multifarious energies brought out by external objects its desires, whether of attraction or repulsion. Only when these are all drawn in, united and pointed towards a single aim, can we term this single energy, ready to go forth, the Will. This Will is Self-expression, i.e., it is directed by the Self; the Self determines the line to be taken, basing its determination on previous experience. In the subhuman and lower human kingdoms, desires are an important factor in karma, giving rise to most mixed results; in the higher human, Will is the most potent karmic cause, and as man transmutes desires into Will, he “rules his stars”.

Karma is created when your ego# is controlling your action or reaction to any situation, person, or circumstance. And if your ego is in control, it indicates that you have either consciously or unconsciously judged this situation, circumstance or person as being wrong or bad. Ego cannot be activated unless you have made a negative judgment first.

#Ego as it is being defined here manifests as one or more of the following feelings: Fear, Doubt, Guilt or Shame.

When you have a karmic debt, you will not know when it is paid off, because you are powerless over it.

Every time you have an experience, it will have a negative effect, until the karmic debt is paid off; then the effect of the same experience will be positive. You may not even be aware of the change, or understand why it has happened. For most of us, we are just so relieved that it is over, we just take it in stride and move on, totally unaware that we have just experienced The Law of Karma in effect in our personal lives.

I have Food Karma, so every time I eat food, I have to face my karmic debt. And I just learned that my food intolerances or sensitivities were karmic when I was about 70 years old; so, this means that I have had to suffer from this karmic debt UNAWARE it was karmic, meaning that I never knew how or when to avoid foods that would trigger a negative reaction in my body. I also spent years trying myriad techniques, diets, etc. to correct the negative reactions my body had to foods, and to no avail, and with no understanding of WHY I could not heal it. I kept looking for new reasons, blaming many different things, but never fully understanding that because it was karmic, I would NEVER Understand the Why. Karma blocks understanding, and although I’d read this many, many times, still I did not connect it to my food sensitivities. Why? Because my Higher Self didn’t want me to know this information. Why? Because I had to ‘experience’ the fall-out from ‘Not Knowing”. And this created a lot of pain and discomfort for me on all levels, for all of these years.

Even today, as I write this article, I still have this karmic debt to pay off, but today, I have earned the right to Understand that my Food Sensitivity IS karmic. Now I am working to deepen my understanding of how Karma plays out in my personal life, on a day-to-day basis, so I can get as much relief as I have earned, because I know that relief only comes from confronting my ego’s fear, guilt, doubt and/or shame around the presenting problem…which, in this case, is what I eat every day.

One of the false beliefs I had was that I had control over this – that if I changed what I ate, or how much, etc. I could heal it. But, this proved to be wrong, because with karma, you have no power or control over the outcome. Only your Higher Self or God can make it stop..or heal it.. This is because karma represents a lesson that needs to be experienced to be learned, and it occurred in a past life, from past mistakes, and now, in this current incarnation, you must ‘reap what you have sown’. And it hurts! There’s no avoiding it, no running from it; whether you believe in karma or not, it still manifests in your life as a positive or negative experience, because there is good karma as well as bad..

Karma just stops when the debt is paid, or the information you have been seeking (to understand a situation or person) just comes flooding into your mind.

Until the lesson is learned, or the karmic debt has been paid, we have to experience the fall-out each time the situation repeats itself in our daily lives.

For example, because I have food karma (or physical karma as food is needed for the health of my physical body) every time I eat food, I have to have a karmic lesson until it is paid off..and I won’t know when the debt has been paid until I eat something and have no negative reaction…

I know, however, which foods I can and cannot eat. As long as I eat only those foods I know I can eat, my fall-out will only be the limitations of the foods themselves.

If, however, my mind says, “It’s O.K. to eat such and such a food just this once…or tries to seduce me into eating something I ‘know’ I am not supposed to eat, then I will pay a heavy price through physical pain.

If I had karma with another person, for example, because I had manipulated them in some way, to get my own need(s) filled, then each time I tried to manipulate anyone to get my own need met, I would meet with pain because of the karma in this area.

If I had karma with money, then the pain would come when I tried to spend money on something I knew I was not to spend it on, regardless of how much I spent. It would be the principle of it that would give me a painful outcome.

You can have karma on any level – physical, emotional, mental or spiritual – and pain is always the result of ignoring it, whether or not you believe in it, because karma is a Universal Law, and Societal Laws do not protect you from it.

Karma is receiving back the exact results of our actions. For me, this is through the foods I eat.

According to my spiritual teacher, White Eagle: ” Under precise, inexorable (unalterable) law, and by God’s supreme justice, we are reborn into an environment where we meet again those whom we have wronged or been wronged by, and those whom we have helped or been helped by, in the past. We incarnate with those we have injured until all wrongs have been put right and all hurts forgiven; until all hate or jealousy has been transmuted to love.

We reincarnate also with those whom we have loved and been loved by; and this brings joy into our lives. By God’s mercy we may, if we will (strongly and) earnestly choose to do so, turn all that we suffer into strength, and so make creative use of our own `bad karma’ at a higher level of experience.

Everyone has frustrations and sorrows, which are due to past mistakes and beyond their power (ability) to alter; but we also have the power, today, to shape our future limitations, or opportunities, by our thoughts and actions now.

So, never be disappointed when other people do not accept opportunities to learn which you can (or try to) put in their way. It is their karma, which prevents their eyes being opened, their ears hearing truth. They probably cannot even recognize truth until they have paid their karmic debts.

Do not grieve then, when those you love do not respond. They cannot always, however much they long to, because karma blocks the way. This is the reason why some prove deaf and blind to all that you can tell or show them.

And, when you do not understand something, it is your karma that is blocking your understanding.”

Knowing this intellectually was one thing…experiencing it, with aareness, is quite another. I hope this information helps you to cope with your own personal karma. My husband’s way of dealing with it is to join whatever or whoever crosses your path, trusting that it IS your path, and that therefore it is your “destiny’, in this incarnation. By joining it, you minimize the frustration and disappointment that arises from trying to control that which you can no longer control. Joining your life, as it unfolds, is NOT quitting…it is surrendering to what you have already created for yourself by your own past choices. Now it is time to ‘reap what you have sown’..or as Jesus said, ‘to turn the other cheek’..

It might also help to understand another Universal Law: The Law of Opportunity. This law makes sure that your soul is drawn to the circumstances, which will bring opportunities to pay off old debts and acquire the knowledge and experience that is sought. This is free will operating under constraints which the soul CHOOSES and accepts.

However, although your present life grows out of the past and is limited by your past mistakes, unless you have a karmic debt that blocks your understanding, you still have the power (ability) to shape the future out of the very difficulties that confront you. Unless karma blocks your way, you can learn from your past mistakes, and choose to make different choices today. The biggest and most difficult of these is to learn to stop judging yourself and others. It is negative judgments that open the door to the ego, which, as I am using the term here, manifests a fear, doubt, guilt or shame. And whenever we act or react from one of these four emotions, we also create new karma for ourselves. Karma is born out of ego-controlled actions, out of actions born out of fear, guilt, doubt or shame.

You can learn to control and direct your thoughts and feelings so that they create, instead of destroy, and so that they comfort and heal, rather than condemn.

If you suffer from a crippling and/or apparently incurable disease, or from sorrow or frustration, from limitations you are powerless over because it is your karma, it may encourage you to know that there is a silver lining, or something you can do to help yourself cope with your circumstances, which will make you feel better about yourself and help those with whom you live and interact on a daily basis. You can accept the self-imposed limitations with patience and fortitude and, rising above self-pity, strive to use your mind and creative imagination in such a way as to bring joy and inspiration to others; or you can give up the struggle and sink ever deeper into self-pity and resentment, making life miserable for yourself and for everyone else in your environment. This is the difference between Joining, or Surrendering to, your karma, and accepting the limitations imposed by it, and Quitting by running away, or denying it, or refusing to accept responsibility by playing the role of a victim.

If the first course is chosen, to Join or Surrender to your karma, not only is the debt more rapidly paid, but your soul gains strength and vision. This is fruitful use of karmic opportunity, opening as it does the prospect of responsible work in a healthy body as soon as the karmic debt is paid off, either in this incarnation, or in a future one.

During every incarnation, lessons are presented….,tests by which you can gauge the reaction of your emotions to human events; the reaction of your mind (ego) to life in general; the reaction of your heart in the love you feel towards your fellow man; and finally, the bringing through your physical body, the divine attributes, as a healer, your ability to direct and control your life by calling upon the supreme love, power, wisdom and intelligence of your Creator, by whatever Name you call Him.

Tests are presented One-At-A-Time! And until the one presented is passed, the next will not be presented. God knows your needs, knows the goals you seek to attain, and the tests that He presents to you are given so that you Can achieve these goals. However, only He knows how many there are that need to be passed before you can achieve the goal you have set for yourself. The sooner you can trust Him, by trusting your Inner Voice, your Inner Guidance, your heart center, or solar plexus, the faster you can achieve your goals, and feel the sweet taste of success. The ego always wants to sabotage this, always wants to take the shortcut; always tries to tell you it knows a better, faster, less painful, way. But the ego is the Tempter. The ego is the long, tortuous way, because karma is incurred every time you listen to it, and disregard your softer, more subtle inner voice of Conscience. This is the first test on the Spiritual Path, on the Path to Enlightenment, which we are all seeking. It is impossible to hear, or recognize the Inner Voice of Conscience when the ego’s voice is dominating your choices, because the ego’s voice is much louder, more strident, definitely more insistent, and can only be quieted by your conscious choice to ‘follow a different god’, your heart. So, only you can heal yourself, and you can only do so by choosing to work on no longer allowing your mind to be your god.

Discussion or comments are welcomed.

Namaste, Rosemary