Many spiritual beliefs define karma (Sanskrit for ‘deed’ or ‘action’) as being the result of good or evil thoughts, actions, or words towards the self or another person. The basic principle states that thinking or performing positive thoughts or actions will result in a more positive life. The opposite holds true for negativity. However, you don’t need to believe in karma to know that doing good deeds, and having positive thoughts, generally means life is happier and more rewarding.
There is another school of thought regarding karma, and that is our higher, or soul selves, have contracts with other souls to learn certain lessons from one lifetime to another. These lessons are crucial to a soul’s growth, and its ability to fully awaken to its true identity within the one Self (or God). Karma is the terms of the contract; the lesson or lessons that need to be undertaken in order for the soul to complete its human experience. Unfinished karma between souls will re-surface in another lifetime until their contract is completed.
For this reason, the relationships we share with others all involve karma; all have something to teach us about ourselves. In fact, since we create our lives and the people in it, we must do so with karma in mind to begin with, and that is the reason certain people are in our lives at certain times. They exist to promote the growth of the soul, or the Self, with the ultimate goal of bringing enlightenment, or awakening to the true nature of the Self as it exists in awareness of heaven.
Defined this way, karma is not a case of divine retribution, or punishment by the self towards the self. Guilt performs that function quite readily. There’s no reason to learn life’s lessons through ‘bad’ karma, unless the soul has contracted to experience a life full of apparent hardship in its relations with other souls. In that particular scenario, one’s chosen lot is a still a matter of learning the right lessons at the right time. The soul cannot grow at its desired rate otherwise, yet the end goal is the same. Waking up to the true nature of the Self is a process, and one which every soul in this illusory world must undertake at its own pace.
Love and karma are inextricably linked to one another. Through the manifestation of love between two people, the soul ensures that karma will be pursued with greater focus, and will result in learning more important lessons. Love comes in many forms, and even hate is a form of love; while it may seem that a certain relationship doesn’t involve love at all, since love is the creative force of the Self to begin with, every relationship has love as a component. The key to seeing love in all relationships is the belief that love is the only aspect of life that is real; everything not of love is illusion.
This may be difficult to accept given the nature of some relationships. However, if you accept the concept of a loving God, and subsequently the idea that a loving God is incapable of creation without love, then it stands to reason that love exists in everyone, because we all have a soul created with it to begin with. This also means love exists in every relationship, no matter its form.
Sometimes, we experience relationships that are intensely loving, and yet also highly challenging. This is the result of two souls nearing the end of their human journeys, and as they near their completion, it becomes all the more important to unearth the fears and beliefs of the self that do not serve the soul’s growth. Soul mates and other terms used to describe these relationships are symbolic of souls contracted with one another to strive for their final destiny, or awakening.
People can have more than one soul mate, but if the lessons needed from one aren’t learned, they’ll have to be taught in other ways. In some cases, this means repeating a life experience with another soul mate, having the lesson surface in another life, or finding ways to reconcile with a particular soul whose only purpose is to teach us about our deeper truths. When ego gets in the way of learning our lessons from a soul mate, we often find that our connection to them doesn’t go away even after the relationship has ended, and won’t go away because we’re destined through karma to fulfill our contract with that soul. This is especially the case for souls nearing the end of their human lives, and can be determined by the strength of love that is shared between two people, as well as the nature of the challenges they face with one another.
These challenges often take the form of seeing the best and the worst aspects in a partner, in order to learn what beliefs must be changed to further growth. Fear will have to be faced in these instances, because it’s only fear that prevents us from rising to the challenges of a deeply felt, intense love relationship in the first place. Any ego issues will need to be dealt with, or they’ll threaten the relationship’s foundation, and the soul’s ability to learn. If ego comes between two people in a relationship of this kind and it ends before karma is complete, their soul contract means they will manifest serious messages to themselves as the soul pulls out all the stops to get itself back on its chosen learning curve.
This is why the people who challenge us the most are the ones we learn the most from. In love relationships, it’s doubly true; the most challenging relationships have the most to teach us. Avoiding learning our lessons by denying what needs to be changed within ourselves results in feelings of dissatisfaction and incompleteness, and sometimes more dire consequences, like accident or illness. Only until we have faced the fears that another person brings to our attention are we able to move forward at the rate our soul’s desire.
Karma is the way our souls pursue their agendas of growth and enlightenment. Accepting this as true means accepting the challenges we’re presented with through other people, especially those involving deep love of one kind or another. They’re essential to the soul’s progress through life. Learning our life lessons often involves achieving a greater level of self-awareness before we can finish the toughest ones. That means facing our fears and challenges, rather than denying they exist, or running from them. Sooner or later, they’ll surface again, until we’re ready to learn them.
