What is Karma? Karma is the Sanskrit word for action. It is equivalent to Newton’s law of ‘every action must have a reaction. When we think, speak or act we initiate a force that will react accordingly. This returning force may be modified, changed or suspended, but most people will not be able to eradicate it. This law of cause and effect is not punishment but is wholly for the sake of education or learning. A person may not escape the consequences of his actions, but he will suffer only if he himself has made the conditions ripe for his suffering.
If he were to continue acting in such a way that the retribution cannot come about, because the conditions are not appropriate, then he may postpone the fruition of his karma. If he can suspend it until he is in the spirit world, then he may work at this particular karma in this intermission between death and the next life. Or he may wait until another life in which he is more developed so that he can glean the educational value of this retribution. Conversely, his life could be so derelict that the blessings due to him cannot be fructify until a later date or a subsequent life. All these fall into the category of suspension of karma to a more propitious period or life.
The Law of Karma is the Buddhist and Hindu version of the Golden Rule, basically, that what you do to others will return and be done to you. It’s stated in similar terms in almost every religion in the world.
“For every event that occurs, another event will follow that was caused by the first, and the second event will be pleasant or unpleasant due to and indirect relation to its cause”
The belief teaches that the person who takes action is responsible for that action, if not in this lifetime, then in future lives. In effect, what you did in your past lives comes forward to your present life and determines the events you experience now.
Buddhism takes these beliefs much deeper, delving into intention and thought as well as spoken words and action. With everything we feel, say, or do, we make choices. Whatever you choose to do produce ripples that travel through time. Those choices are our karma, good or bad.
Instead of seeing bad karma as punishment for actions in your past lives, you can better understand it as a lesson toward living in Oneness with all people and things. The Law of Karma – as simple as You reap what you sow – extends from your past lives into your future lives. How you apply it in your present life determines your results.
1: LAW OF NEUTRALITY
Just as the “Law of Gravity” always works to pull things toward the Earth, these “Laws of Karma” apply to all equally, with no exceptions. The universe is neutral: there are no favourite ones, there are no cursed ones, there are only divine beings created by the Creator and all these divine beings are loved by Creator equally, deeply, and completely.
2: LAW OF AGREEMENT
The most terrible truth that anyone will ever learn while they are on Earth is that they agreed to come here and to experience all that has, is, and will happen to them. The universe operates under this simple rule: all that happens is by prior agreement based on karmic justice between all the parties involved to balance past karma.
3: LAW OF LESSONS
We reincarnate to learn what is and is not like love. In the worlds of duality, we learn from experiencing polar opposites: “good-bad”, “problem-solution”, etc until we evolve into divine love, joy, and awareness. We walk the divine circle – where there is no saint without a past and no sinner without a future – until we learn our lessons.
4: LAW OF CAUSE & EFFECT
What you have done unto others in past lives or in this one (cause), weaves the karmic agreement of your present and future (effect). Consciously acting from loving kindness to yourself and others instantly reweaves the present and future karmic agreements into greater pathways of empowerment and unfoldment.
5: LAW OF BALANCE
The point of learning lessons is to achieve balance. Imbalances drive your personal cycle of reincarnation. “What you bring hate to, you reincarnate to” is how balance is achieved. For you can only truly understand a thing when you become that thing and cease to judge it, cherish unloving opinions, or harbour unrealistic expectations about it.
6: LAW OF ATTRACTION
Your consistently repeated thoughts packed with your consistently felt emotions become magnetized and attract similar thoughts packed with emotions to manifest your desires into reality. Whatever thoughts and emotions you focus on the most – with the most intensity and the most time – whether intentionally or unintentionally, becomes your belief-karma. The more you invest in them with your focus, the stronger they become. Your belief-karma generates your thoughts, forms your attitudes, guides your actions, and creates your results.
7: LAW OF CONNECTION
You connect with the people, opportunities, and events necessary to manifest your desires if you allow, believe and expect it will happen for you. Allowing means you open yourself to let manifestation flow to you by believing what you need to manifest your desires will come to you and by expecting if-when you take consistent and appropriate actions your desires will manifest into reality as you have asked.
8: LAW OF EXPANSION
Since everything in the universe is energy, the universe is always expanding from lower to higher vibrational states. Change and growth are inevitable because energy is always expanding. The universe expands through chaos, reorganization, and order in an endless cycle of change and growth to create continuous improvement.
9: LAW OF UNFOLDMENT
Your internal map of reality is always changing to reflect your personal state of learning and growth. Your map of reality is always being refined into greater levels of truth as your consciousness unfolds. Unfoldment is a gradual process so that you can learn life lessons at your own pace as you reincarnate through time.
10: LAW OF EMPOWERMENT
If you “let whatever happens to be ok”, you are accepting the “default” pattern of karma. Empowerment comes from a conscious decision to take control of karma by accepting absolute and total responsibility for your life and by always consciously acting with loving-kindness.
11: LAW OF ALL POSSIBILITIES
There is no end to the joy you can experience or to what you can create. For all the power to get what you want comes from within you. Every moment brings with it new possibilities and opportunities for action. Whatever you can dream, you can do, be, or have in the universe of all possibilities… this is your birthright as a divine being.
12: LAW OF LOVE
Karma begins and ends with love. Karma was created to propel you as a Soul on a personal journey of reincarnation through the universe. Karma ends when you have perfected your ability to love unconditionally. The sole purpose of karma and reincarnation is to bring us all to a state of divine love, joy, and awareness.