Are We Ever Done With Karma?

by Robert Wilkinson

Today's post comes from a client who asked an important question affecting us all. She told me of an astrologer who said they could tell what age a person would have their karmic debt paid off in this life. However, my client asked her astrology teacher (no, not me!) who does karmic and archetypal astrology (like me!) about this question, and her teacher believes we are never done working out our karma (as she put it, "paying for it, suffering for it, etc...") While this subject could be explored forever, my answer may help explain how the concept of "karma" actually works.

Regarding karma, there is no point in our reality when we're done with karma, since every thing we do this lifetime, even enlightened altruistic works, generates more karma. True, it's good karma, and enables us to be placed into situations where we can do better things in the future, but it's all karma. Every cause has an effect, whether in this life or another. An manifestation on any level brings its results, whether direct or indirect, whether we perceive them or not.

That said, there are definitive points in our lives where we're done with certain lessons for all time. We will never suffer the results of our ignorance, misguided efforts, anger, hatred, resentment once we're over these. We have debts to be paid, and once paid, we're done with them for ourselves.

However, as we learn ways beyond those behaviors that once brought us and others suffering, then we are often called into situations where we can demonstrate the way beyond negative karmas to others. We neither suffer the bad karmas, nor do they stick to us. We are simply there as witnesses to ways beyond those karmas, for those who choose to learn from our example.

Karma is not really such a complex thing, though at times it sure seems to be, nor is it something to be feared, avoided, or something to strive to "end," as if that could ever happen. It is merely the Law of Cause and Effect, the unending chain of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual manifestations that work their effects. By becoming aware of consequences of behaviors, we can redirect the energies to altruistic intention.

Whether we "succeed" or "fail" is irrelevant. What matters is becoming aware of the process, and choosing consciously to detach from the sources of past and present behaviors that will create suffering in the future. It is said this life is the result of what we did and did not cultivate in prior lives, and that future lives will be affected by what we generate in this one. Is it any wonder why we MUST come out of ignorance and suffering as best we can here and now?

For a little more on the subject of karma, you may want to take a new look at Moving through Karmic Storm Zones and a companion piece, Pluto, Cosmic Fire, and Navigating the Karma of Oppositions. And please take a new look at a recent piece, Overcoming Bad Luck, Bad Karma, and Bad Life Circumstances for an elaboration on how much we can and do affect our karma by our point of view. Namaste!

© Copyright 2007 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[DianatheHuntress]

Hi Robert... I've been considering the placement of Mars in the 12th house as an indicator of past-life karmic burn-off in the present life.....an acceleration that (with regard to aspects from all other chart factors)brings us ultimately into a transcendent awareness.
As you stated, detachment leads to joy in voyaging... do you feel it's possible to 'walk outside karma' in our day to day path, navigating all the drama with a different response?
It's such a simple formula, and yet so complicated at the same time..... no ritual, no rigid disciplines, no form necessary... just allowing Spirit to guide us....(-:

With Love (& my eternal admiration for your wisdom), Diana } ----*

[Robert]

Hi Diana - Mars in the 12th can be an instigator initiating karmic situations for others, one who helps achieve immediate closure to things by targeting what needs "excitation." Your recent gift illustrates that sort of thing. Of course what you ask is possible. We can choose any response we want at any given time. Just because cause and effect are in motion, we do not lose our ability to choose.

I would describe more as a "Within You Without You" simulcast, walking within and without the larger cause and effect energy. Over the years I have come to term it "Becoming part of the corrective force of Nature Herself." That most accurately describes the process, since we become agents of whatever is organically "natural" in the moment.

There are rituals - the rituals of Nature in Her infinite variations. There are only the disciplines of Nature Herself, who alternates between hot and cold, wet and dry, windy and still, diminishing whatever is in excess and augmenting what is insufficient, withdrawing life force even as it sprouts seeds. Whatever forms Nature brings forth Nature commands. Once we learn Nature's laws, we are able to cooperate with those laws. Becoming in harmony with those laws allows us to become the embodiment of them. However, there are still individual forms of self-realization that require more of us than simply attuning to the biosphere and shedding old karmas. But that concerns the path of "Initiation, Human and Solar," the more timeless work within a galactic field.

[DianatheHuntress]

Beautiful! And what a perfect description of how we reflect our starry natures through the 'initiations' of the transits (unique at every turn in this
dynamic...). I'm so happy that I made it through to experience this wonderful time we are all sharing....
(I have Mars in the 12th, too)..... so here's to old souls and more Good Karmic Blessings for everyone..... D. } ----*

[kathy]

Hi Robert,

What do you make of someone with pluto and/or uranus in the 12th?
Thanks for the tip on the Sabian Symbols! Also, now you've educated me so much, is there like a membership fee i could offer you? I won't name the other sites, but uh, this is WAY beyond.... them. IMHO.
xxo, kpd

[Shelley]

Another great article, Robert! Answered lots of questions for me on this topic. :)

Blessings on your weekend...

Peace,
Shelley

[infinity]

Hi,

You may be aware of a wonderful comedy about what happens between lifetimes, what we "did and didn't cultivate," and how we handle our biggest challenge, fear. It is called "Defending Your Life," starring albert brooks and meryl streep. The depiction of the place Robert Monroe called the "park" is great.

[Robert]

Hi Diana - Yes, each turn is an opportunity for renewal, resolution, and transformation of our future. And thanks for your appreciation of this cantina. Professor Robert makes good pizza too.....

Hi Kathy - 12th house is a universal gateway. Those planets in the 12th show great protection against everything except the self. And those planets are the symbols of how to achieve closure in outer affairs opening gateways to Spirit and Cosmic Consciousness. As for "membership," well, I'd never belong to a club that would have guys like me for members, ;-) but all quoting Groucho aside, you can always just paypal a donation, or send a check if you'd rather, though you'll have to email me for an address. It's all good. And truly, thanks for the offer. I hope someday this site can be sustained (and expanded!) by donations.

Hi Shelley - Somehow I knew you'd like this article. I trust it took care of some concerns. Enjoy!

Hi Infinity - You have hit upon one of the all-time greatest movies for telling it like it really is. I have recommended it to hundreds over the years, since truly, COURAGE is what we are here to cultivate, and when we are called to watch the movie of our life on the other side, I'd rather have taken my best shot than bailed on giving a talk or a chance to tell someone how much I love them. Your suggestion is absolutely 100 percent endorsed by the caretaker of this establishment! LISTEN UP EVERYONE WHO READS THIS: As soon as you possibly can, go rent this movie, or better yet, buy it. It is perhaps one of the only movies ever made to hit the nail on the head, "in-between lives" speaking. Thanks for the reminder, infinity. You obviously have the sensibility of playful compassion.

[Chickie]

Your Highness,

One thing's for sure, and whether this is a current hurdle over another karmic episode I've been through or maybe it's about going through another.....I've had an incredible sense of emptiness. I'm even finding that I've lost some of my obsessive compulsive tendencies for about a month now.
Mostly I'm tired.....really tired and very weird.

Ciao for now my friend.

[Robert]

Hi Chickie - Emptiness is good, since it lets you know what's done is done. When we sit with the emptiness, it may seem very weird, but it's a clear signal that our lives are not cluttered with white noise and distractions. As for tired, me too. 22 months of working 6 days a week has exhausted me, along with a cat that demands to be fed beginning 4:30-5 am every day, Sundays included, so I never get to sleep in. I believe the hectic pace of our existence, along with demands that pile up in a New York minute, are driving most of us to the breaking point in America. So find time to sit in the spaciousness, relax as much as you can, and love yourself for making it this far.

[Chickie]

It's interesting that you have been working at the same pace as I have. I began a project May 2005, 25 months, ago and it's been a non stop rollercoaster ride, computer break downs. communication with people break downs. Talk about Karma! I'm pretty sure my father who passed away in July 2004 navigated me down under the water and the earth when Saturn went into Leo

I think I may go home to mom for a week or 2 to spend our bdays together. Her bday is 7/22 (Mary Magdalene's Feast) and I'm 7/23.

Go get some rest Your Highness!!

[dcu]

Here is an article that is getting broad play around the netroots. I know that it is not protocol to copy entire articles, but in this case the author has given permission. Here it is:

DOES EVERYONE REALLY CREATE THEIR OWN REALITY?

I wrote this for Cygnus Magazine in June 2007. The editors asked me to write something in response to some of the terrible comments around the kidnapping in Portugal of the little girl and other comments concerning Darfur and other world crises.

Over the years it has been an honor for me to advance and defend new age and holistic spirituality. I love its open-mindedness, its embrace of metaphysics and the way it combines spiritual work with healthcare. But I have also despaired at times about its apparent lack of morality and compassion when faced with the realities of people’s suffering.

This coldness is often explained away with half-baked ideas about how energies, karma and the laws of attraction work. This often reaches a peak of disturbing smugness when a new age ‘philosopher’ faced with cruel suffering says authoritatively: ‘People create their own reality’ or ‘Their soul chose it – its their karma’ or ‘Everything is perfect in God’s Plan – you just need to perceive it differently’. People who say such things seem to have no idea how smug and nasty they sound. Nor of the hurt they cause.

Fourteen years ago I had a lower back crisis in which three disks herniated and a tendon tore. The pain was as high on the scale as it can go. I was bed-ridden, then on sticks and it took seven years to recover. Early on, as I hobbled awkwardly on sticks, a new age woman came up to me, poked her face in mine and loudly stated, ‘You know what Louise Hay says about lower back crises, don’t you!’ She was typical of many.

A friend recently had a severe heart crisis, was suddenly taken to hospital and told that his life was at risk. He told me that what really frightened him was the thought of informing his spiritual friends, because they would use it as an opportunity to be self-righteous and tell him what he was getting wrong in his life.

Of course in both my and his case there were good lessons to be learned, but our life or mobility were threatened and we deserved compassionate friendliness. Isn’t spiritual development about increasing compassion and love? It does not help to have someone chiming, ‘You asked for it. Told you so.’ Even if we did create those illnesses, kindness and support are needed so that we can begin to understand the process..

These minor examples of personal distress are nothing compared to the more dramatic tragedies being endured on the world stage. What follows is recent testimony from a woman at the centre of the Darfur crisis (New Internationalist, June 2007):

‘My baby boy was thrown on the fire in front of me. My daughter was older. They thought she was a boy so they slaughtered her too – they snapped her neck like a chicken. Some of the children they threw down a well …. After they raped the women they cut off their breasts to make them suffer. They used those of us who were left as donkeys.’

Her experience is not unique. Recently too there has been the incident of the little girl kidnapped in Portugal, the tip of an iceberg of the sexual abuse faced by hundreds of thousands of children every day, not to mention the thirty thousand children who daily die of starvation.

In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. Anne Frank.

Surely all this suffering can only be approached with stillness, humility and wisdom of the heart. Not with half-baked metaphysics and denial. It is pure ignorance, shameful and cold-hearted emotional cruelty to suggest that these women and children asked for this destiny, deserved it, chose it or created their own reality. It completely misunderstands karma and the laws of attraction.

There is a frequent error of assuming that souls have complete control and choice over their incarnations. New souls entering for the first time, for example, may simply be drawn to where there is a newly conceived fetus. They may have no choice but to participate in the collective rhythm and cycle. There are more dynamics in incarnation than simple choice.

Equally we do not create our lives in isolation. We pass through collective historical and karmic events over which we may have little individual power. We are participants as souls and as biological creatures in a constellation of relationships that includes our species, our gender, our family, our ancestors, our ethnicity and faith. Our parents and children, for example, are within us, as we are also within them. We are not just individual souls creating our own individual lives and futures. We are also subjects of the group soul and our histories and futures are entwined. As a species we have created a shared karma of suffering, and it is as a collective that we experience, redeem and heal it. The collective affects even the most forceful individual.

The redemption of all this lies in the fact that each of us has the freedom and power to adopt our own inner attitude regardless of circumstances. I am inspired, for example, by the Catholic priests who chose the way of self-sacrifice and walked with their Jewish parishioners into the Nazi gas chambers.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

It is also completely banal and naïve to suggest that everything in God’s world is good and that it is all a matter of perception. Faced with the reality of a three-year old child being sexually abused, it is simply not possible to make such a statement and be moral. It is in facing reality, not denying it, being in our hearts, that we grow and become wiser.

At the same time I fully appreciate how difficult it is to be fully present to suffering. For some people it is overwhelming because it triggers their own pain. But sooner or later on the spiritual path we have to develop the courage and strength to stay stable and loving when faced with these horrors. In the words of Carl Jung: One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

All my love

William
www.williambloom.com

[Chickie]

To Willam,

I have just joined your email list. You are 100% correct! The so called spiritualist who get in one's face in the style posted in the article, gives a bad name to those of us who are making attempts to open people to compassion. Those who have not been "paying attention" might just NOW be getting glimpses of a "shift." For someone like me, it corks me way off when someone before me already "stained" them with aggressive and fearful spiritual thoughts!

Thanks for the article.

chickie

[DianatheHuntress]

Yes, thank you dcu... as usual, you really brought it on home! What a poignant and CLEAR reminder of how important it is to focus our heart light through the maze of rampant insanity in our world as it is now..... and to Wm. Bloom, may the blessings be many, many............

With Love, D. } ----*

[Robert]

Hi dcu - Thanks for this one. As you know, it's what I've maintained for many, many years. There is much we didn't create, but were born into. When younger, we all suffered the "free will" of adults who also didn't create their world. While our thoughtforms matter, so do the thoughtforms of those Souls who suffer needlessly due to another's free will. It is not they who fail themselves; it is adults who should know better who have failed them.

I am reminded of a true story: When touring a liberated Nazi concentration camp a priest was asked by a journalist, "Where was your God that He would allow such a thing?" The priest answered, "The question is not 'Where was God?' The question is 'Where was man?'"

[Chickie]

I neglected to thank DCU on bringing William's article to the table thinking it was he who wrote it. Thank you DCU, for paying attention!

[dcu]

Hi Chickie. With Mercury retrograde it remains so easy to not communicate well. My apologies for not stating more clearly up front that I was posting the article, not William Bloom.

Here is a link to two video clips by Bob Doyle, one of the presenters in "The Secret" movie. He does a nice job on the second clip explaing in more detail how karma works with the Law of Attraction:

http://www.wealthbeyondreason.com/bobresponds.html

Thanks Robert as always for all your good work. Thank you for the Vedic hymns from Sai Baba's site. Interestingly they are very similar to the ancient Dine' (Navajo) songs about the Beauty Way. My wife and I just returned from a Spiritual Unity of Tribes Gathering in Mexican Springs, New Mexico. One of the Elders there did a short teaching on the Beauty Way. May all of us always walk in Beauty.
dcu

[Mary]

It seems karma or energy is moving a faster speed. I have noticed anything dark comes to light quickly. Personally and collectively

An acceleration of time. Saturn rules time and karma, maybe Pluto in Capricorn. Since Saturn rules Cap. Pluto digs out anything and everthing. Maybe Pluto just passing the GC.

Anyone else noticed this?

[Robert]

Hi Mary - I've noted for a few years that the time stream is indeed quickening, and I believe it's due to the evolutionary leap that confronts us relative to life, each other, and the planet itself. GC perhaps, but there are other more local influences leading us back to collective sanity.

For many years I've noted that due to our drilling and underground nuclear tests conducted over decades, we have altered the speed of the interrelationships between the core, crust, and everything in between in the interior of our fragile and beautiful magnetic Earth. This has created a geophysical effect of screwing with the hydraulics of the Earth Herself, pumping whatever and strip mining whatever and replacing it (or not!) with anything from sulfuric acid to salt water.

We are told from esoteric sources that the birthing of a New Era will necessitate a quickening. This intensifies our striving, (whether we want to or not, or are aware of it or not) which in turn feed the wheel of evolution of what we are, could be, and the larger reality as well. I gave a series of talks on the quickening of the time stream back in 1991 due to some very unique configurations. Since Cosmic Time works at a different pace than our usual human perceptual mechanisms, it usually takes us a while to see things from a broader perspective. Finally, 18 years later - one Nodal cycle - we are becoming perceptually aware on a constant basis. Realization is, after all, a 24/7 proposition.