KARMA

Yesterday I was hunting around in my files trying to find some translation work I had done in 2017 and I came across this article which I wrote for a very special friend of mine. I don’t think I have ever published this before on my feed (sorry if I have).

How do you deal with karma? And what is the difference between karma and dharma. In other words: Fate and Destiny. You may all be thinking this is the same, but believe me it is not. Fate is Karma and Destiny is Dharma.

Please read on ….

In these fast moving times in which we live one of the things that I have been thinking to write about recently is: How to cope with Karma? 

First of all: what is karma exactly? This is a word from the ancient Sanskrit language (Hinduism or Buddhism) that literally translated means ‘action’ or ‘deed’ or ‘how you deal with something’. This is an interesting thought and people believed that this is related to physical as well as mental action. In the ancient beliefs people thought that karma was something you would come up against in a future lifetime by means of a reincarnation.

So, on that score, what is karma? Is it something physical or mental that is literally passed down through generations of our DNA?  Medically this sounds the right idea when you think that every human being (and all species too) is formed, by half of the mother (egg) and half of the father (sperm). The fusion of the two literally mean that the genes are mixed and passed on down into another generation. And so the equation splits down and down, time and time again.

If you look back over the past 150 years and think how many generations are there then in your personal family tree?  Literally how much has passed down in the form of character traits, or even literal errors in the double helix of the DNA (by this I mean hereditary disease or how this word is sometimes split into dis-ease). Food for though isn’t it?

To my mind karma is passed down and all about actions taken, either in the past, present or ones to be taken in the future. But on the other hand, dharma is about choices we make during our lifetime. It is confusing isn’t it?

When I look back on my own personal life, I see many traits (good and bad) from my own parents, both of whom are no longer alive. But to this day, there are sometimes still traces of said traits in the actions I take, but how can I rid myself of any karma that does not fit into the way I literally think about life at my present age? Obviously this is a complete different point of view than say when I was a child. Not to mention the huge changes that take place daily on all walks of life itself.

I know from experience that dealing with karma is something that takes a huge amount of effort and over the years of my adulthood I have been busy with this. To such an extent that I often wondered  – have I done enough to clear the dents and bruises in my DNA which obviously I have passed on to my own children too. It’s strange when you look at your children when they are grown up, in my case my daughter has a lot of my physical appearance but my son has my character.  Sometimes I even recognise things in them going back to say the generation of my grandparents. So to my mind there can be no doubt whatsoever that experiences, actions and dealing with things (i.e. Karma) is literally passed down from one generation to the next.

People over the last hundred years or so have been through a lot. 2 World Wars (and not to mention the unrest which is still going on today in some countries). Emancipation between men and women. A hundred years ago, women were not even allowed to vote! In some countries women are still considered to be the lesser race and man still dictates their life totally (in the Middle Eastern countries for example) where for the first time ever women are being allowed to drive a car!

One of the obvious ways to work on clearing any unwanted karma finds itself in many forms of spiritual work, like meditation, workshops, learning alternative methods, but I ask myself is it really possible to wipe the slate entirely clean on the one hand and is it right to do that? We still need the good traits don’t we? What would happen if the cleanse became total and thus blank? We would lose some part of our true identity?

One of the biggest issues I have had to deal with in my own personal life was that of my father and my relationship with him. Thinking back to his own life, I realised that a lot of the problems I had with him were to do with his own karma and the way he had been brought up. He was controlling and very strict indeed and often we would clash on a lot of matters. One thing that I personally found very hard to deal with was the fact that he never thought I (or anyone else for that matter) was good enough. Also I felt during my childhood years that all the love and care I received only came from my mother and her family, despite the fact that I really got on well with my parental grandparents. One trait that I know I received from him and this was a good one, (obviously there are good ones too) was that like him, I am a giver. I prefer to give rather than receive.

It came to such a climax that I decided to literally move to Holland in 1977. It was to put a big distance between my father and me because the way he treated me just created more and more issues in me not to mention the havoc and they began to take a hold of me basically because I wanted to do it all differently. I just needed to actually make my own mistakes and learn from them without any criticism or comment and to become my own person and lead my own life without any form of control. I became unsure of myself, had so many doubts about the way I dealt with things and it was seriously time for changes and most important, making my own choices! It was the right decision to take distance and the North Sea in between us felt safe!

In the end and quite a number of years later, I did some really serious work on releasing myself from all these issues and working on literally cleansing and flushing away all this unwanted karma that had been passed on to me. I did not ask for it after all. It felt so much lighter once I had got rid of it, but at the same time, I came to terms with the philosophy that of course there were good things too and I only needed to just acknowledge that in my father, once I realized that his karma was after all passed down to him from his parents. Again taking into account the idea that children were brought up very differently then, than they are today. Perhaps he was just a very lonely child? I think he was basically. With all his unwanted issues and karma too? Of course. Once the blame had been removed it all felt so much better.

The way that I did this work was with Sacred Geometry. A friend of mine (Janosh) makes beautiful holograms and it was using this, as a visual aid, and meditation on a daily basis (I find this easy in the mornings to either set the alarm a bit earlier so that I can wake up and spend a small amount of time on a meditation, or when I go to bed at night). You don’t need to spend hours and hours meditating, merely focus on the centre of the image below. Making this into a literal physical ritual and even having a photo of the hologram on my laptop (screen) and phone (wallpaper) meant that I literally could focus on it a lot during the day. I also have the same piece of artwork hanging on the wall where I work. Doing a meditation with the aid of the hologram literally speeds up the process. I used Authenticity. That was the whole point I wanted to be the ‘authentic me’ and not a vessel of passed down karma.

It is a shamanic belief that actually performing a ritual (i.e. a physical deed) strengthens the energy immensely. Believe me it does. Working in this way and again using compassion and love, I released literally everything hanging around in my karma as unwanted spam!

The hologram Authenticity above is just one of the more than 120 available, so why don’t you have a look at his website and have a go? What have you got to lose? If you find meditating difficult pre-recorded meditations are also available, so you only have to listen to someone else talking and use your imagination.

I wonder how many people have similar issues with their past/passed generations? Virtually everyone I expect.

How many of you are reading this and thinking like I did: when I become a parent I will definitely ‘do things differently’. I know I thought this.

But at the same time I also wonder, will my children think the same one-day? Will they want to get rid of some of my own karma?

In the present times everything that we say, do, or think (‘present and future karma’) become something that will come back to us. It is almost comparing karma to God. Good deeds, thoughts or speech will be rewarded and bad deeds, thoughts or speech will be punished? Why?

Should we all literally cleanse and perhaps get rid of some of the karma that has been passed on down to us by previous generations? It is not our fault. It’s hard enough dealing with your own present issues let alone those of our entire family as well!

Really I think that karma is something where no judgment at all can take place. How can we judge the actions that others took in their own lifetime and blame each and every mistake on karma and the fact that people literally believe that karma comes back to you, in this life, or the next life?

Is this just action and reaction then? Things we do now, come back to us at a later stage? Whether you want them to or not? Or is there really a possibility to spiritually wash and cleanse away unwanted karma. I believe there is a way, whether or not I have been totally successful personally I don’t know, but I know that I have cleansed my own system from all the ‘junk’ I did not want.

Also what is important is the outcome of something you do? Something you do, in maybe all innocence, can have a huge impact on another person. Whether you meant it to or not. Could it be that you have the opportunity during your life time to work on and clear away the unwanted karma (if you like compare this to a computer, download and upgrade your DNA!). Bring your DNA in line with present times and the energy in this fast changing world. In other words a fresh start with the latest software? No one can deny that change is so fast and the energy itself moves as such a speed, we just have to do this! Actually becoming a 2.0 version of yourself?

Medically and scientifically such huge progress is now being made that is genetically possible to literally modify the DNA. This is something completely different and quite mind-blowing. Obviously to ensure that severe diseases and/or disabilities do not occur in future generations is a good thing, even going so far with genetic manipulated therapy to ensure that a future generation does not for example have cancer. This is meaningful change in my opinion.

But what if changing the DNA is almost going to point where you are either creating a clone, or that we have a choice, do we want a child with blue eyes or brown eyes, tall or short, fat or thin. This is quite weird because the whole process of creation itself is being manipulated then. The magic of creation has all come down to a laboratory and medical science?

Although I am a firm believer that it is possible to change your karma, does this go so far as to change your DNA? Probably this is going to be the case for the future. But what about all the good things in someone’s karma, are they automatically destroyed as well? 

Good and bad are two sides of the same coin in fact. We all have our good traits and bad traits, and in some people it can be seriously out of balance, meaning that they undertake actions and deeds that are so awful (like murder, rape, theft etc) that they are beyond hope altogether? But we still have to think about the ‘life contract’ a person decided to take before birth. What is the effect on our karma then?

Based on the theory of what we transmit, we receive; suddenly takes on a new meaning when karma is included in the equation. What if we are sending out thoughts, which really do not belong to us, we have just ‘inherited’ them through karma? What do you then do if something comes back to you that you really don’t want to receive? Answer might be just to duck down and let it pass over you. Physically possible, but spiritually, emotionally, or with empathy? You get it back whether you like it or not? So you just have to accept what is, is? That well known phrase: ‘what goes around comes around’?

Eventually I ask myself, as the world we now know today, also becomes the past, will karma improve generally because the unity consciousness of all mankind is changing? Jung once said something along the lines of: every action is a choice, do choices literally contribute then to our consciousness and also the consciousness of mankind?  I believe they do. It is up to each and every one of us to make choices and preferably the right choices, made entirely from the heart.

So what do you do if you have stuff stuck in your karma that you really don’t want? Well, the only way to make a choice to take action. If you think it will help then by all means attend sessions, workshops, lectures whatever; anything that helps you to cleanse unwanted karma. But I think there is also another way and that is to get rid of all thoughts of judgment. That is the way I did it, I stopped making judgement on my father and let it go, as simple as that. I imagined in my mind that all the things passed down onto me, were just what they were and it was really up to me to either accept some things and release others. Just ask what the things are that are no longer of any use to you as a person right here and now and release them with feelings of love. Try not to make it too complicated. Just release with feelings of love, no matter what. You will actually begin to physically feel lighter if you do. From then on, when a ‘cleansing’ has taken place, then ensure that you always make choices that are right for you. On that score it is a free world after all. The only person that controls your thoughts is you!

After all we all want to be authentic, our true self and does this start by looking at ourselves in the mirror every morning and making a pledge? Probably. Seeing ourselves for who we really are and not just an imaginary image we want to either see or just to be successful. Authenticity is an important word here.

Personally I think this is the way to cleanse karma and to take different choices and not allow yourself to just be lead and ‘follow the herd’, so to speak. Dare to say what you think and be different. By this I don’t mean that you have to tread all over others, but be firm and direct and speak your truth (gently at first is probably a good idea). In fact everyone has their own version of truth and the whole idea at the moment is going forward with love and respect for our fellow men. Ego is now totally unimportant anymore, (a lot of people might disagree with this), you need a little of it to improve and it forms the basis for your quest for more information, more facts and more opportunities. But too much ego can be dangerous and lead you to a life when you are merely performing to keep up with, or be better than the rest. Remember each and every life is a journey where you are always searching for answers and when you find them making improvement. The destination is not that important. This counts in all walks of life. That is pure growth.

If there is pain or bad karma in your personal family line, just look at it with a feeling of love and some compassion as well. Realize that it is merely something that has been passed down, is not a torch that you still have to carry blazing brightly until the end of time. You can acknowledge it and then release it with love. Love is a very important factor here as well as a form of forgiveness. Remember people a hundred years ago, lived in a totally different world than we live in 2019. 

One thing that it is important to remember about karma is that it is a sort of circle. 

Formed in death, re-birth, and so on and so. This is known as samsara. You have to make choices yourself to either keep some values of karma going but at the same time, release the parts you do not need. In that way, eventually the karma becomes cleansed as it is passed down to the next generation.

But all the time you are working on releasing old karma, new karma is replacing it, your personal struggles, triumphs, feelings, choices, thus the endless circle of life itself.

According to ancient Buddhist beliefs, a person on death rises above personal suffering to what is known as ‘extinguishing’. In other words: The ultimate nirvana. 

The taking or making choices or actions just because, without thought for the value of same, means that the choices or actions become worthless, and just store as spam in your system. Therefore, it is really important in these times to pay attention to what you actually transmit in many ways. If there is no follow up to such thoughts then even more spam is created. Eventually the entire DNA system, which in actual fact is the backbone of your existence, becomes totally clogged up with useless information. Dis-ease is then the result. Not only disease but dis-ease too. Dis-ease means that you are basically uncomfortable being who you are.

Isn’t it worth taking some time now, before you think it is too late, to clear away any issues you have with family. We all have them. I believe that big happy families are a fairy story. It was something I always dreamt I wanted, a big happy family who really get on with one another. Yes, dream on, I think it’s virtually impossible because of the demands of society on us. However, there must be some of them somewhere.

Learn to know and understand what your personal karma is and if necessary take action but remember all the time with compassion and love. Sometimes things happen, which are not our fault and we cannot be held responsible for everything, not now or even in future generations. A mistake is in fact a learning curve.

But the thing we all can do is pay attention to this and consciously do something about it. You can start with small steps and then take bigger ones. Ensure that everything you do, is because you make a loving choice, a choice for you first and foremost and then your loved ones and family, friends, colleagues etc.  It is not egoistic to think this way; it may sound so, but believe me it is not. Change really begins with you. Just the fact that you make a choice for change, then others do too and a wave of energy occurs which ripples across the globe and through many generations in time for the benefit of mankind as a whole.

Your dharma is in your own hands! Destiny is all about the choices you make!

Images: Hologram/Image Authenticity Janosh (copyright)

other Images from Google (acknowledging any copyright).