Happy and Prosperous New Year
The end of the old year and the beginning of a new year is a poignant time to review, renew and revitalize. More than 40% of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions. Surveys reveal only 8% achieve them. The one New Year’s Resolution that is seldom on anyone’s list is reflecting on one’s behavior patterns and actions to determine if one needs to amend or create repatriation for possible actions that created karma*.
All human beings no matter one’s religion or spiritual practices are governed by karmic law*, however, you aren’t imprisoned by it. Many people think of themselves as victims of karma, powerless to change it. This then becomes the bane in many people’s lives.
No matter what karma you’ve brought to this lifetime or you create in this lifetime, day to day or year to year, you can change it. The literal meaning of karma–“action”–implies the potential for change. Yet, few people reflect on their actions to determine if they created karma so that they can change it now.
Your thoughts and emotions, no matter how aware or unaware you are, affect others and are mirrored in your world. All thoughts are energy and every thought sends a vibration that affects everything in the environment, from your own physical body to every aspect of the external world … all the people, animals, plants, and the cosmos itself. Actions of deception or lies to gain an advantage in a situation are usually immutable unless one atones for the damage done to the other person.
Some Karmic debt is immutable once karma is created by an action and a price of one sort or another eventually will come into play. This is not to make a judgment on anyone. Good people make mistakes and often enough they are big ones. However, each person will pay for them one way or another at one time or another. The fly in the ointment is people seldom connect the dots from their ‘bad luck’ to their actions (karma) that created it.
Remember the clichés – 7 years of bad luck. Ignorance is bliss. “Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don’t even notice it.” – Sakyong Mipham
Karma is usually something we think only bad people will incur, or not right away after or during making a decision. It is something we realize afterward which is why karma is difficult to spot. Decisions are made on the spot and karma is not taken into consideration. “The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered until you experience it properly.” – Ben Okri
Introspection is important to discern what Karma you engendered in the past–not only 2019, previous years and previous lifetimes are all recorded and impact your current intentions, goals, aspirations, and dreams.
May the vicissitudes of Karma be merciful.
*Karma: (Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.
- Informal: destiny or fate, following as effect from cause.
**Dharma: (Indian religion) the eternal and inherent nature of reality, regarded in Hinduism as a cosmic law underlying the right behavior and social order.
***Buddhism teaches the nature of reality regarded as a universal truth taught by the Buddha; an aspect of truth or reality.