Karma
Ra: I am Ra. This is, in general, correct. However, both self and any involved other-self may, at any time through the process of understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness, ameliorate these patterns. This is true at any point in an incarnative pattern. Thus one who has set in motion an action may forgive itself and never again make that error. This also brakes or stops what you call karma. – 34.5
Author’s Note: Letting it Go
First, a disclaimer: this particular author’s note is more subjective than most due to the small number of occurrences of the term in the text. Please take that into consideration when reading the following.
Karma is often seen as something that we gain or accrue through actions or deeds. I hypothesize that perhaps it may better be conceived of as an impersonal force that binds us to the consequences of our actions. Though binding, this force also provides us opportunities to balance, make amends, and forgive, even across lifetimes.
When we take action that is motivated by distortions of negativity, we can generate suffering for ourselves and others that imbalances the self and relationship dynamics in a way that ripples through the incarnational journey and the dance of interpersonal dynamics. That which is set into motion is described by Ra as an inertia—the tendency of something to remain unchanged (whether at rest or in motion). Karma is the mechanism that seeks to re-balance that which has been imbalanced.
How are we “bound” to our actions? One way to consider the question is again in terms of motion: until we practice forgiveness, we continue distorting/blocking love, and the negativity that results from that energetic condition thus stays in motion. It persists and continues to live within us.
Following is an historical example. Don asked about the effect that war had had on the development the allied WWII general, George Patton:
Why these patterns have inertia is unique to the individual, but surely the reason shares something in common with all compulsion, addiction, and other forms of habituation. One way or another we continue acting out of the same mindset, likely attracting to ourselves situations and other-selves that mirror to us and provoke from us that negativity.
This pattern-in-motion (or “wheel”) will loop indefinitely, reappearing in new permutations, coming around again and again—like every energy in the universe, always seeking the ways of balancing. Ra seems to indicate that invoking forgiveness is the key to balancing this energy.
How does forgiveness stop the inertia of karma? To attempt an answer, consider the nature of forgiveness. Forgiveness may be seen as an activity of simply releasing or letting go of a mental distortion and the accompanying burden of carrying that distortion. That letting go is made possible by understanding, compassion, and seeing the Creator in self and other-self. In other words, that forgiveness is made possible by bringing the dynamic into the heart, loving, accepting, and healing it.
Let us take hatred as a simple example. Imagine that, for whatever reason, we genuinely loathe someone in our life. We may relate to them from this emotional or perceptual level. It may provoke similar in them. The situation may worsen. Cycles of hatred continue, perhaps transposing the same emotional energy onto other other-selves in one’s life. We thus continue exploration of this emotion, maybe even into other lives, calling new situations into our lives that give us the opportunity to work this pattern out. Not forgiving (letting go of) this energy, we become karmically bound to its inertia. Resistant to change, that energy continues its trajectory.
The basic mechanic of forgiveness is a simple letting go through loving/understanding, through recognition of the Creator in everything. We let go of the burden we’ve carried. This may come by way of understanding how the situation arose.
But perhaps the better part of forgiveness is faith—faith in the fact that everyone has their reasons, that those reasons don’t have to be known to us in order to trust in their existence and have compassion, and that this is not the density of knowing but of trusting in the perfection of the moment. The more we understand that we cannot truly understand, the more readily we can forgive.
It is possible to forgive without excusing the behavior. We can fundamentally disagree with another’s choice and still have compassion for why they made it. And because our compassion stems from a newfound understanding, we are likely to be able apply that compassion to any similar situation, including to ourselves.
This lifting of distortions in one area causes us to no longer need those specific difficulties that served to catalyze our growth. The problems of that particular nature, in however many variations they manifest, stop repeating. In this way—for this specific distortion or pattern of distortions—we have “stopped the wheel of karma” and have become more balanced.
This works even if the original genesis of the karma was in a past life. We don’t necessarily need to dig up the original root (though that could be a helpful means of understanding), we just need to work with the present circumstances because they contain the same dynamics and energies. Learning how to forgive the present imbalance undoes the knot however far back in time it was tied.
It’s difficult to say whether forgiveness frees up energy so that the perspective may rise to a higher vantage point, or whether a view from the higher vantage point opens the way to forgiveness. It would seem that both scenarios should be possible, and reciprocal. Either way, forgiveness is balancing and healing for the system. It is a primary mechanism not only for absolving the karmic ties, but for merging and re-integrating with the all-Self, the Creator.
Citations:
For further exploration, see also: