Bad Luck and Bad Karma Can Be Changed to Good Luck and Karma

by Robert Wilkinson

Many times difficult things happen without any apparent reason. Too often I've heard blame or fault attributed to the one who suffers the difficulty, as though they were somehow the reason that such difficulty occurred. This points out a widespread misunderstanding of how karma actually works.

I've addressed this topic in several articles and across many comment streams. Various kinds of karma and good and bad "fortune" have many potential "reasons" for occurring. Sometimes we believe we know a reason, but just as often it may have nothing to do with what we believe.

Since our evolution is endless, and our lives are like ropes woven of Divine Threads, we'll never stop moving through experiences and gleaning wisdom from them. Sometimes these experiences are happy, seemingly forms of "good luck" or "good karma." Other times, they are difficult, seeming to be more "bad luck" or "bad karma." How can this be, if the universe desires only good for all of us?

I wrote some things about this a while ago. What follows is an elaboration on what I offered then, with edits for comprehensibility.

Every so often I get asked if there is such a thing as bad luck. The simple answer is yes and no. Often "luck" is a product of our attentiveness, preparedness, and willingness. We can turn difficulty into triumph, uncertainty into character strengths, and ignorance into wisdom. Who is to say that something that seems to be "bad luck" isn't the perfect opportunity to change our lives to the good forever?

As for bad karma, we all know there is such a thing, but often have a hard time dealing with it, whether our own or another's. Finding a new point of view regarding these things that seem to exist, we find that we have far more power to overcome and transmute bad luck and bad karma than we usually think.

Over the decades, I've observed there are two kinds of karma. These are what I call "big K" Karma and "little k" karma. While somewhat interrelated, they are distinctly different types of karma.

"Big K" Karma is built into our hologram at birth. These are primary causal energies that we must understand as part of our journey of Self realization. They include Sacred Wounds by which we will come to powerful forms of compassionate service for others who suffer the same challenges, as well as those major lessons we must learn in order to move beyond our lesser self.

Every being has at least one of the Sacred Wounds. Some have more than one. Each one cuts us to the core, and by moving into the "underworld" associated with those sorts of Divine wounds and coming back to life in the appointed season, we contribute to the greater good in our world.

These help us serve with authenticity, since no external thing can take away the primal power of the direct experience. Through healing these wounds and learning to live well despite them, we teach a higher Way by example.

Then we have "Little k" karmas. We create these lesser karmas as we move through life experiences, which yield "good" or "bad" results according to what we do or do not do. They are only important in the sense of being markers of greater lessons, or ways to modify our behavior, feelings, and thoughts.

Unfortunately, there is a widespread tendency to attribute guilt or blame when "bad things happen," even if that blame is misguided. These judgments naturally program us to take these on ourselves when "bad things happen," even though taking on guilt, blame, or shame cannot help us transmute much of anything.

Many take the attitude that because it's karma, we have little or no control over what manifests or not. This of course is an illusion. While we cannot do much about causes set into motion in the past, whether by ours or another's actions or inactions, or merely by circumstances, we can always transmute the energies in the NOW.

When we can learn to examine "bad luck" or "bad karma" as indicators of important lessons, and modify our response to better what we can, we learn how to transmute unfortunate illusions, attachments, and aversions into more positive and enjoyable lives. That's why no matter what life dishes out, we can always find a way to use those energies to our good, whether by diminishing the negatives or boosting the positives.

It's the same with "luck." Often "good luck" is merely the circumstance we have prepared for, knowingly or unknowingly. As with karma, we do have major control over what forms of "luck" do and do not manifest. It all depends on our willingness to rise to the needs of the Eternal NOW, and grow into a greater response-ability.

I elaborated more on these rather complex subjects a while ago in the article Overcoming Bad Luck, Bad Karma, and Bad Life Circumstances. Please take a new look at the precepts outlined there, and apply them as needed until you see your luck, or karma, shift to the good. After that comes an entirely new set of lessons!

© Copyright 2009 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Marie]

Thanks Robert!
Very encouraging thoughts...I'm also wondering about what you say in a few posts about befriending Saturn and paying attention to the lessons. I had a feling about that at the end of my training as an art therapist but not very clear and havn't followed it up though I think it has, me!
Much Love
M

[anu]

Dear Robert
That was so enabling; probably why I come in everyday to check for new postings.

What karma does a tiger create?Or a woodlouse? Or a mycobacterium? Or is it for humans? In which case is karma a concept created by human consciousness to assuage our fears a sort of pattern recognotion, pattern imposing? Only the mind wants a reason, other beings areokay with carrying on without wanting to leave an imprint on the planet.
Good luck like you say, is mostly mindfulness but there are hereditary donees too which no amount of mindfulness can change.
Only our attitude and non controlling acceptance can redeem life and help us live fully.

[Robert]

Hi Marie - Will try to find other things to comment about Saturn in the future. It's the one part of us that will not overlook what we must learn, whether we want to or not.

Hi anu - A tiger, or any other thing in the natural world, is part of a "cause and effect" cycle. It is the karma of things that cannot outrun a tiger to be caught and killed. It is the karma of tigers who kill cattle of the Masai to be poisoned. It is the karma of flesh eating birds to die if they eat poisoned cattle or tigers.

Karma is many things, the field of activity, the level of activity, the form of activity. All arises from karma, all is recorded by karma, and all have a karma to move with and through. The difference between a jellyfish and a human is that we have the tool of Manas, or mind, to reference whereas an oyster does not. Manas creates kama, or conscious desire, which a mycobacterium does not have. Karma usually does not assuage our fears; if anything, our minds delude us as to its workings re: cause and effect. Our mind throws us into desire, which creates us seeking pleasure and consistency, from which arise pain when these are no longer appropriate to our evolution.

Pattern exists wherever there is a stable form, if only for a nanosecond. We do not impose pattern; pattern exists as a function of "nama and rupa." This "name and form" quality is in all observable things, and are how we define our reality so that everything = everything doesn't drive us to madness trying to believe a butterfly wing is the same as a jet engine. I have observed that the correct quality of mindfulness at the right time overrides all hereditary qualities that do not exist within Dharma. And there are many things we should not accept, since we have the power to override tendencies leading to suffering and replace them with tendencies of compassion, detachment, discrimination and Bodhichitta, or the will to good.

[anu]

That was so so clarifying. So well enunciated.

It is also in the nature of things that man has a manas, imagination, discrimination and therefore/yet he will fall prey to the half aware decision making that is sometimes all he can do. Noo not at all--- we must not lapse into chimpanzee like caprice, I agree and must control the mind through awareness.
At one level the acceptance and mild course correction that a sadhu/ monk in a monastic order does is no more than the life of a bacterium, in the sense that he is in flow.Why do smartgurus not live a life like us and preach about cool centre and mindfulness. COZ I think they are oxymorons.It is simple to go away and preach about wonderful stabilising stable situations. Normal life is about the crash bang of emotions and really hairsplitting decisionmaking though one can try and be aware of the process within, reactions and the like.
What i am saying is that you can live with zero resistance which is what at least Hindu philosophy advocates--- a desired state where against nature you "advance" to feeling a painless, no hot , no cold state. Everything is mitigated.Isn't that at one level saying be as of nature, like a spore, or a virus. embracethe itness of yourown Self--- do not think, worry yourself too much.But our modern life asks us to do social acrobatics, take tough financial/career calls that foster the ego -thinking that leads to pain coz you are drowning your essential nature. Evolution seems to direct us to a pathway of greater stress at the cost of this mind-less but aware living. Unfortunately, we cannot live in that kind of mode unless you opt out which can't be an option if you have kids and parents to support. I'd like to see a harried urban man preach beatific stuff in the middle of his life-clutter.They are two modes of living --- easiest way is to opt out even as you use the surpluses of a capitalist society and preach at them. I guess this uneasy commerce between the two has gone on.

[Robert]

Hi anu - Yes, all duality, for good or ill, arises on the Manasic subplanes. That's why mental self discipline is good, since the mind's nature is to be eternally restless, exploring all the ideas that resonate in the hologram (including some that don't but which must be examined and evaluated as a function of evolution.)

The difference between a Monk/Sadhu and a bacterium is that the former choose to withdraw from worldly things, while a bacterium does not. The last time I took instruction from His Holiness in NYC, he made comments to the effect that he could not live in NYC since there is too much noise and disturbance. While we should learn to meditate with as much inner peace as possible under ALL conditions, I must admit I prefer meditating in silence, not when there are car alarms going off and leaf blowers buzzing outside the window.

I believe that we are here to be fully human and fully Self-realized. That would mean every "enlightened Being" at one point in this life or another had to be immersed in and learn to deal with "the crash bang of emotions and really hairsplitting decisionmaking" that is forever a part of human life. Even Sri Yukteswar had to involve Himself in legal things to save his ashram.

You're hooked by the dilemma between Eastern and Western Spiritual practice. In the East, cessation of causation is the object. In the West, perfection of forms is the object. The two are opposite sides of the One Coin of Life Itself. By going within, you become more capable of serving suffering humanity. By serving suffering humanity, we become more aware on very deep and subtle levels of Higher Awareness. The outer can reveal the Divinity of the Inner if we are doing our Being.

We need a strong, well-developed and integrated lower ego if we are to live in the world. The trick is to make that the servant of Ego, the Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the Higher Triad that ultimately merges into Anupadaka within the Adi. We are collectively evolving into a much higher state of viewing and dealing with "reality" than we've known for thousands of years, and much that we suffer of material chaos will be resolved as we find that emerging view.