Within the spiritual community, karma is a buzzword often used to describe the idea of fate or destiny. The term has also been used to imply the pedestrian notion of payback, and for many people that’s about as deep as they give karma any thought.
In truth, karma is not in and of itself merely relegated to some mystical force of destiny or fate, nor is it a cosmic equalizer that seeks out revenge for misdeeds. Karma is a powerful instrument, a tapestry woven throughout time, over eons, and it represents the sum total of our individual and collective thoughts, deeds, intentions, and actions.
Ancient Principle Of Cause And Effect
The origin of the word karma can be traced to Sanskrit. Derived from the word karman, meaning “action” or “deed,” karma is meant to represent the total effect of your soul’s progress through many physical incarnations. Although the spiritual concept of karma was first recorded in Hinduism and later in Buddhism and Jainism, it is a concept that permeates many traditions and cultures, as the idea that where you go in this life or the afterlife is predicated on your actions and behavior is not endemic to any one people or culture. The principle of cause and effect is ancient, and it transcends any single population or time frame.
A belief in reincarnation is not mandatory to make sense of karma. Heaven and hell are the results of your choices, actions, and even your thoughts, according to the Abrahamic faiths. Similarly, the ancient Egyptians taught that the heart of the deceased was weighed against a feather in order to determine the fate of a person’s soul in the afterlife.
Newton’s Third Law Of Motion
The concept of karma is inextricable from the universal law of cause and effect, in which each and every action or choice results in a certain effect or series of effects. This is very much in evidence in the microcosm of our individual lives and is echoed everywhere on a macrocosmic level.
The idea behind karma is the same fundamental principle found in Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. However, karma is not limited to the physical force exerted on material objects. The universe is a dynamic collection of energy fields interacting with one another. Each action or event at the energetic level also exerts an influence on surrounding fields, and this results in an equal and opposite reaction, too. Karma is thus the end result of causal imprints of actions and reactions.
In the case of karmic reactions, the energy fields in question and their activities do not necessarily have physical counterparts. This means that spiritual, mental, and emotional energies can incur karmic debts and credits, too.
Karma Is The Measuring System For Our Choices In Life
We accrue karma from each action and every thought or intention. When our choices limit or harm another energy field, whether it is a person, animal, plant, or idea, we generate a negative karmic imprint, which is a debit in your causal bank account. Conversely, when we engage in choices and behaviors that support and uplift others, we gather good karma—what is known as merit—which is a karmic credit to your soul. Karmic debts inhibit spiritual growth, and they can lead to a variety of challenges in life, including those that affect physical and emotional health.
Causal-level credits and debits are not limited to our own actions and energies. We store information for life at the cellular level, in our DNA. Science has termed many of the sequences in our genes as “junk DNA” because these sequences do not code for protein production or other necessary biological functions. In these seemingly inactive parts of the DNA there is important soul information being stored, such as the spiritual information contained in your soul blueprint. It is here, in the junk DNA, that one finds the energy of karma stored at a sub-cellular level.
DNA and Genealogical Karma
The DNA also holds genealogical karma, which is the karma associated with one’s family or tribe. Family constellations therapy, an alternative approach developed in the mid-1990s by German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger, addresses the hidden dynamics of the family into which we are born, including the patterns of mental health, illness, negative emotions, and potentially destructive behaviors that people within families unconsciously adopt. These patterns ultimately are representative of the sum of karmic debits and credits within our families and communities.
Genealogical karma offers a unique opportunity to learn lessons associated with the previous experiences of your loved ones and ancestors, as well as predecessors in your communities, organizations, and nations. This level of karma is often very impersonal, and it is more far-reaching than the karma of an individual person.
Healing and resolving family-level and group causal patterns has a liberating effect among all members of the target population. Some experiences are so universal that each person incarnated shares in this inherited karma.
Accumulation Of Negative Karma
On a broader scale, inhabitants of our planet have participated in huge learning opportunities, many of which have contributed to the accumulation of negative karma. Some of these include wars, famines, slavery, genocides, and many other similar events in Earth history.
Even though many people today may have grown past and worked off their own personal karmic debts at the soul level, there is still karmic debris from these planetary events hanging around Earth. And so learning to heal and release karma allows us to not only affect our personal growth in a positive way, but also to contribute to the well-being of humanity as a whole.
The planet is a manifestation of the choices of its denizens. It emanates beauty, love, healing, and peace, but it also radiates pain, suffering, fear, and entropy. Karma exists in order to resolve the negative aspects of the human condition by facilitating learning at the higher level.
When a particular lesson is painful or difficult, the teaching opportunity is presented again and again. Unlike our current concept of schools, the Earth plane allows you to repeat any exercise or assignment as many times as it takes to fully integrate the lesson. If the same imprudent choices are made more than once, in this lifetime or across several lifetimes, the effects begin to grow exponentially in an effort to help reveal and resolve the underlying lesson.
Healing work at the causal, or karmic, level tends to focus on finding the roots of any recurring cycles and releasing or discharging any of the remaining causal information regarding the initial imprint. In doing so, the entire pattern can be slowed, stopped, or erased, depending on the degree of efficacy.
Why Karma Matters
Karma is much more than just a buzzword among New Agers. Karma affects your health, abundance, relationships, and growth. Although it is entirely possible to live a happy, healthy, well-adjusted life without ever contemplating the concept of karma, doing so can give you a leg up on your life’s journey.
A glimpse into your karmic patterns can help you understand the “why' behind current events in your life. Recurring themes, repeated relationship mistakes, even chronic health problems may actually have their origins in your karma.
Think of your karma as your credit score. An abysmal credit score can prevent an able, driven, and intelligent person from growing in life because of past errors. It takes time to correct through conventional means, and such a person can languish in the meantime.
More importantly, karma matters because we have collectively arrived at a pivotal time in the history of humanity. Massive adjustments in the energies present on Earth at this time are yielding untold shifts of consciousness among all inhabitants of this planet. It is now possible to co-create with the higher planes—an opportunity that has never before been available to us, and as a result we can grow and evolve at an expedited pace.
In light of this, it is critical to know that negative karma that is not cleared or released cannot be permitted into the new, higher-consciousness reality being birthed at this time. For this reason, it is an evolutionary imperative that the karma of our entire planet be amended or erased.
The weight of negative karma slows down spiritual unfoldment in the way that carrying a fifty-pound weight inhibits a marathon runner’s progress. It is necessary to fix and release the causal patterns of the entire human race in order for the next stage in human evolution to unfold.
Healing The Karma Of Communities, Nations, Races, And Generations
We are now being asked to widen the scope of our healing work. The spiritual community is tasked with working not only for their individual, personal good, but also for the benefit of all of humankind.
Helping others and healing the karma of communities, nations, races, and generations enables humankind to move forward with a clean slate. The evolution of human consciousness depends on the amelioration of karma; without clearing the slate, we are unable to move forward.
Critical mass is defined as the minimum quantity of material, fuel, or energy required to initiate a given reaction. Historically, the critical mass for our next phase of evolution would have required 100 percent of a person’s karma to be cleared before any major shift to the higher dimensions. Similarly, the entire planet’s sum total karma would have had to have been wiped clean in order to begin the process of planetary ascension or integration.
Now, according the the ascended masters teachings, because of the collective spiritual growth and evolution taking place, we are only required to purge 51 percent or more of our karma in order to ascend. This is a huge gift from the higher realms to humankind, especially since so much has happened to create more and more negative karma down through the ages.
There is more good news. Not only is karmic release so vital in today’s world, it is also easier than ever before. Unlike previous eras, the generations alive today are being supported by the cosmos and by the higher intelligences who dwell among us on all planes to transmute and transform our negative karmic patterns. They actively want to witness our success, so they have given us innumerable tools for co-creating at the causal level. Thanks to this singular occurrence by the cosmos and the higher intelligences who dwell among us, we have nearly reached a critical mass. The time to act is now.
Subtitles by InnerSelf
©2017 by Nicholas Pearson.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Destiny Books,
a division of InnerTraditions Intl. www.innertraditions.com
Article Source
Crystals for Karmic Healing: Transform Your Future by Releasing Your Past
by Nicholas Pearson.
Click here for more info and/or to order this book.
About the Author
Nicholas Pearson has been immersed in all aspects of the mineral kingdom for more than 20 years. He began teaching crystal workshops in high school, later studying mineral science at Stetson University while pursuing a degree in music. He worked for several years at the Gillespie Museum, home to one of the largest mineral collections in the southeastern United States. A certified teacher and practitioner of Usui Reiki Ryoho, he teaches crystal and Reiki classes throughout the United States. For more info, visit his author page.
