Everyone has karmic debts . We have to repay our karma whether we are aware of it or not. If we do not repay karma in the present life, it gets carried over to the next life. The problems and betrayals we face are because we are unable to repay karma.
Karma forms the syllabus if a life time. By repaying karma, we pass our soul tests and rise to a higher soul frequency and happiness.
Repaying karma has soul lessons attached. When we repay karma, we learn some positive lessons of life. When we are successful in learning our lessons, we repay karma. In the process of repaying karma, we create positive energy and happiness in our life and in the lives of others.
All our life activities create some karma or another. If we create negative karma , we have to create positive karma in its place to become happy in life.
If we are suffering, it means that we are making wrong choices.
Suffering indicates an inability to repay karma. Suffering happens when we fail to learn our soul lessons and cannot rise to a higher positive frequency.
As explained below, suffering does not help to repay karma by itself . It only makes us aware that we have hurt somebody . Karma is repaid when we can heal the other person with our love, support and sacrifice. If we feel happier, it means that we are repaying karma successfully. If we feel sadder by our choices, it means that we are repeating past mistakes and increasing our karmic debt.
From IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS - chapter 10 Karmic Balancing
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Karma is a measure of energy exchange. It is the amount
of positive energy created versus the amount of negative energy created in the
thought process accompanying an activity. If more negative energy is created,
we, as souls , create a negative energy pool in which we fall or devolve. The
negative karma thus created has to be converted back into neutral or positive
for soul evolution or for realizing happiness. Otherwise, in the negative
energy pool, we keep attracting negative energy in the form of situations which
create sadness, hurt, depression , anger , fear etc..
According to the karmic law, there are two methods
of karma repayment or karmic balancing –
The first method is that the soul chooses to suffer itself in the
same way as it made another soul suffer previously i.e. if it was an abuser in
a past life, it chooses to be a victim in the present life.
For example,
if a soul is a slave-owner in a life and abuses slaves, it chooses to be a
slave in the next life and gets abused.
This step is necessary to help the soul understand
that it committed a mistake by hurting another soul, which it may not realize
automatically.
In the initial stages of evolution, the soul is
young or less evolved. It is like a small child. When the small child hits
another child, it does not usually, realize it hurts unless it is hit back. So,
the soul chooses to get hit back so that it realizes the effect of its action
on others.
However, if the soul, when victimized, can ignore/neutralize
the hurt as it receives it by learning positive thinking techniques like meditation,
tolerance, patience, compassion, forgiveness etc. ; it would be able to break the
karmic cycle then and there by its
positive focus.
It would
emit positive energy which would help it come out of the negative loop.
Also, by facing the trauma of abuse, the soul would
know inherently that this method of pursuing power is humiliating to others;
and therefore, is a wrong method to pursue. Henceforth, it would shift its
focus to achieving its purpose, through another method which is more positive.
In this process, of finding another method, it would learn its soul lessons.
For
instance, in the case history given in the book, Dev’s soul lesson was to achieve justice for the weak by obtaining
power himself. His means of obtaining power led him to committing a sin. He was betrayed in the next life so that he could
understand how it feels to die a death of betrayal, so that he does not use
this method of obtaining power again.
But, instead, if he could have ignored the
betrayal, he could have moved on to achieve his purpose of life in a different
manner, in the next life.
However, Dev could not free himself from feeling
revengeful. The negative energy was too intense and caught hold on him. The
soul got caught in a karmic loop and the cycle of abuse and getting victimized
continued.
Dev’s case was the typical example of a
continuation of the karmic cycle.viz., first Dev betrayed and killed his king
(the tribal soldier); then the king betrayed and killed Dev ( the Greek soldier
); then, again, in another life, Dev betrayed his country and killed innocent
people ( the pirate) - then, again , he
was betrayed and killed ( the Roman soldier ) ; then, again he betrayed and
killed his king ( the farmer ), then again he was killed as a sacrifice for his
country ( the Nazi soldier ) , and there
could be more lives which we had not seen yet.
The focus
of Dev’s soul on Earth remained on neutralizing the energy of betrayal rather
than on achieving the purpose of life which was to achieve justice for the weak
and oppressed.
As in
Dev’s case, Suffering, usually, does not ensure karmic pay-back.
Self-realization of cause and effect takes a long time to come. Meanwhile,
suffering leads the soul to feel more negative in the short run, leading it to
indulge in revengeful acts. So, with suffering as the repayment method chosen,
the karmic cycle can continue endlessly unless a higher level of realization
comes into the soul with evolution.
In the second method of repayment of karma, to repay karma, the soul has to create
as much positive energy for another soul as it had created negative energy by
indulging in abuse. For example, if the soul had enslaved other people, it may choose to
become a missionary and help slaves or rescue them, in the next life.
This step of karmic repayment can get activated
only when the soul evolves to a higher level of consciousness, and can
empathize with other souls. Continuing on
the above example, a small child cannot help another child who is hurt but an
older child can. While protecting other children, the older child would
understand that hitting is wrong, and therefore, choose not to hit itself. That
way it would learn its soul lesson, without getting directly hurt itself.
This
second method of karma repayment, usually, involves a focus on healing other
souls, which one harmed in the abuser’s life and not suffering itself.
The soul
still has to suffer itself in some way, since it has a negative karmic debt.
But, the form of abuse mellows, because of the life-plan.
For
example, physical abuse may get converted into emotional abuse, i.e., if this
soul had humiliated other souls by beating or raping them in a past life, it
may face humiliation of the same kind in this life but without getting beaten
up or raped. The humiliation would be
experienced at the level of feelings and not physically, like by being unfairly
rebuked, bullied or scolded.
The emotional suffering in place of physical
suffering ensures that extreme negative feelings like revenge remain under
control while positive feelings like patience, tolerance and compassion
develop. Hence, the focus can remain on helping other souls
The
second step of karmic repayment was the method which Dev’s Higher Self told him
to use in this life to be free of the negative karma he had created. “You have
to heal all those souls. When you heal all those souls whose purpose of life
you took away, you will be free “
The second step is usually adopted by the souls in
their life-plan when the first method fails, as had happened with Dev, and
happens with most of us. We keep suffering because we are unable to forgive the
abuser souls.
Whenever we get a chance, we take revenge and
hence, abuse again. So, the karmic cycle continues when our focus remains on
our suffering. The more we suffer, the more we multiply the energy of suffering
as it gets reinforced with constant focus.
When we
heal other souls, the pattern of suffering breaks as we start focusing on a
different aspect of thinking.
For example, if Dev could shift his mental focus
from feeling betrayed and needing to take revenge, to finding ways on how to
ensure justice for the weak and oppressed, he would still have got betrayed to even
out his karma but his focus would not have turned as negative. He could have ignored the betrayals as
being obstacles in life and moved on.
However,
Dev’s soul lesson was a difficult lesson. To ensure justice for the weak and
oppressed, Dev’s soul had to learn to distinguish between fighting for justice,
and fighting for survival while on Earth. To be able to do this, before
choosing to act, it had to understand the intention behind the act, and then,
make the choice of whether to act or not.
Metaphorically, the situation of the soul in a
karmic loop can be compared to a student failing in a class and repeating the
same class again and again.
As the student
keeps repeating mistakes, the soul keeps repeating lives with the same karmic
pattern. Just as the student can pass only when it makes an effort to study in
a more responsible manner, the soul can move up the evolutionary scale only
when it learns its soul lessons, and can create positive energy in place of the
negative karma it had created , i.e. correct its mistakes.
Like Dev’s soul, if the soul does not get over its
belief that it has to suffer because it has sinned, it only keeps suffering
life after life but does not rectify its mistakes. Past life therapy helps
because the soul like the student suddenly becomes aware that it made the same
mistakes in the past, as it is doing now.
By realizing that the methods he used did not help him create happiness
for itself or others in earlier lives, it may choose to change.
But, the choice remains with the person.
