“Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don’t even notice it.”
Sakyong Mipham
Irrespective of your religious beliefs or your spiritual persuasion, the concept of karma is really useful.
Like the word ‘ego’, however, the concept of karma has been hijacked by some people for dogmatic and controlling purposes. It is also sometimes castigated by the secular cynics for being utter nonsense and no more than a fairy tale.
Some people see karma rather simplistically as some form of cosmic retribution and magisterial system, doling out fines for transgressors and rewarding the good.
In fact it is even simpler than that. All it really means is that our current situation is a result of the summation of our life experiences to date.
It is completely optional, in my view, whether you choose to extend that over lifetimes we may have had before this one - or for lives yet to come.
It is however a good bet to look after the planet for our children and maybe just in case we have to come back to it one day.
One way of looking at karma is that it is a system whereby we can evolve, grow and learn. Now I have no proof or desire to postulate whether the multi-life version of karma is real or not. What I have experienced is that thinking and acting as if it might be true, seems to have a beneficial effect on our current lifetime, right now.
For some people, throwing salt over their left shoulder brings them good luck. In any case, it stops them worrying about bad luck.
If embracing the concept of karma helps you get along and improve your lot, it would be churlish to ignore it. So long as the salt doesn’t go in someone’s eye, and there’s a little left for the meal, there is no harm done.
When you see karma as a model and not as a dogma, it brings a new insight that helps with the creative process.
In the multi-life version of karma, the belief is that we go to a place after we die to review the life we just had. In that same place, we plan the life we are about to have in terms of the learnings we want to embrace. This place has many names from simply Heaven to the Akashic Records Office. These are of course metaphors to help us understand something that, if it does exist, sits outside our current existence and comprehension.
From the perspective of successfully grounding our light bulb moments, it brings a fresh and useful perspective - if not admittedly a little left field.
As you go about the thrill and pleasure of experiencing light bulb moments, perhaps during the grounding of them you experience certain trials and tribulations.
It is worth noting patterns that occur or recur in any hurdles you come across. In the context of karma, one theory is that these barriers are the types of experience you karmically agreed to tackle in this lifetime.
Another theory would be that you have somehow created these hurdles by one action leading to another. The helpful aspect of either of these theories, is if it makes you think about the situation a little, this may help you to be open to finding a solution.
In the same way that your thought patterns influence the world and your attitude to it, your reaction to these challenges completely affects the outcome and can alter the many possible outcomes.
You might easily be dejected by any adversity - your glass is half empty - or you can be thankful for the experience they bring - a glass half full attitude.
For example, you could be just about to launch your product but the beta testers find a flaw. Imagine how much time that would save compared to a product recall. You and your business might never recover from the financial implications and the marketing embarrassment.
A good indicator that a challenge has a karmic component is when you hit the same barrier a few times. It’s like you are being reminded you need to deal with something.
What’s more, when you step up to embrace challenges you end up with a ‘glass over-brimming’ situation. By dealing with the one thing you’ve been avoiding, opportunity seems to flow and something else changes, you get into your own flow.
If you have ever played a sport like golf or darts, you sometimes know when the dart leaves your hand or the ball leaves your putter that it’s going exactly where you intended. Oddly enough, the flavor of thought you experience when you’re in such a ‘zone’ is exactly the same as when you have a light bulb moment. I would hazard a guess that you weren’t thinking at that exact moment of what you were having for supper.
So when you shift your thought pattern so that the internal dialogue is reduced, you allow space to notice more serendipity appearing in your life. You could also envision that the connection with the ‘future you’ from the superconsciousness is allowed to strengthen.
Once you cross this mental tipping point, all the events that help you with marketing and promotion of your idea start to happen around you, seemingly without you doing anything.
You find the perfect cornerstones for your business. You even meet the perfect investor to help you leap the Chasm in one go. In fact, the Chasm disappears from your life path. It was only there anyway to give you the karmic experience of learning how to cross it.
You friends, colleagues and family will recognize a new version of you. People will want to work with you, be with you and share with you.
What’s more, in this new paradigm, you become cherished for the role you play as the progenitor of light bulb moments, and your team has bundles of complimentary flashes of inspiration to make your idea fly even higher.
Another karmic challenge you may experience now is having too much opportunity and choice. This soon dissipates when you realize it was something else you had to learn.
The answer, of course, was in your head all the time or, more specifically, it was blocked by the internal dialog and flavors of its thoughts.
When all this happens to you, then you might be hit by a pang of guilt. This is just too easy - there has to be a catch. So guess what happens then? A catch appears to confirm your suspicions.
If and when this happens, all you need to do is to realize the catch was only there so that you could learn and evolve some more. You then get back more into your flow.
Does all this sound too trite and too easy? Well the investment in trying it out is minimal as it just involves a slight shift in mindset. There is no particular downside. You do not have to change or adopt a new belief set or sign up to any mystical cult.
All you have to do is see potential challenges as being good things to help you grow as a person as opposed to some insidious agent, aimed directly at your ego, with the specific purpose of grinding you down.
This is why the management of your ego is such a crucial stage in capitalizing on your light bulb moment. Until it is brought home to roost, it will just create mayhem for karmic purposes.
You can of course ignore everything in this chapter. If you believe in reincarnation anyway, anything you don’t quite achieve in this life, you can deal with in the future. Now I’m not banking on coming back again. Accordingly, my aim is to get as much out of this life time as possible.
Even if you do believe in a multi-life model, none of its sensible proponents adhere to this instance of ‘you’ coming back but that your soul essence carries the karmic bank balance. So there won’t be another Tom Evans quite like this one. This is as good as it gets for me and for you - unless I choose to make it even better.
What you can do is to simply choose to ‘a-void’ your karmic challenges.
The opposite approach is to void karma. To start this process going, complete the Mind Map, starting top right and going anti-clockwise as follows:
Step 1: Top right, list what goals you would like to achieve within these timescales with no limitations.
Step 2: Top left, list what physical, practical & psychological blocks stop you achieving all you desire.
Step 3: This is a win-win process, bottom left list what habits you would like to break at the same time.
Step 4: Finally, bottom right, in clearing these blocks & old habits, list what possible learnings you think you will obtain.
Now this latter step is something you may not be fully aware of at this stage. If you were, then you would be able to see the future. It does however give you an indicator of the areas in your life where karma can be voided.
Once you start to void karmic challenges, you move to a whole new level of operation, you start to live magically.
Karma might seem a strange concept and have awkward connotations for you.
It is however another useful model to embrace.
Using it does not mean you have to change your belief set.
See it the bank account of your life and that you want to not only be in credit but for that credit to be increasing.