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Karmic energy is a vicious cycle of the impact of all you have done in the past through your emotional, mental, and physical energies. The effect of all your good and bad actions in your lifetimes impacts your reality today. In short, karma represents your accumulated memory from the past till now.
The karmic cycle is an ongoing and everlasting loop of similar incidents and impacts created over lifetimes. Any negative karma affects not just the doer but the person impacted by that particular act. It is a binding energy between two or more souls. So how does this karma create cyclical loops?
Let’s consider an example when one of the partners cheats to be with someone else. In this case, the cheating partner incurs the negative karmic balance of cheating, while the other partner attracts negative emotional karma of mistrust or hatred. How is this balanced? Switch their roles. It is believed that the two people involved in any karmic ties are likely to balance karma by reversing the role. So while the actions and intent can change, the impact between these two people will remain the same- betrayal and hatred. The karmic cycle continues until one of them breaks the chain and lets the other person go in peace and happiness.
The karmic cycle isn’t a rare phenomenon and impacts us all, making us balance the equations of give and take.
6 Ways to Overcome the Karmic Cycle
Karmic cycles are like revolving in circles; we end up where we began from, incurring the same karma and the same impact. These are the biggest roadblocks to your growth.
Here are seven ways to overcome the repetitive cycle.
1. Meditation
If the karmic cycle is a continuous phenomenon, meditation is the pause by offering thoughtlessness. When you meditate, you bring a shift in negative emotions and reduce your incidents of facing stress, anxiety, and anger. This means that you garner less emotional memory for the future karmic cycles, opening the possibility to strengthen your Agami karma, which represents the future karma based on your actions and choices made today.
Meditation also helps you to deal with life challenges better. When you practice meditation, you are more mindful of your emotions and can learn to observe them from a distance rather than get entangled by them. Meditation also helps you clear your mind, bring in more focus and peace, and increase self-awareness, all of which help you manage your Prarabdha karma, that of the accumulated past actions.
It doesn’t matter which meditation you try. The purpose is to spend some time to pause your random thoughts and observe your life as it is going on, without judgments and expectations. Needless to say, practicing mindfulness meditation and focusing on the present moment also helps you to prevent any unwanted addition to your karmic cycle.
2. Forgiveness
Most of our accumulated karma of the past has been because we could not let go of various incidents, or forgive ourselves or someone else for their actions. Considered as the most powerful tool to enable karmic balance, forgiving someone who harmed you, immediately disconnects your karmic cords, liberating you from the unending karmic cycle.
Let go of all the grudges and bitterness for your worst enemies, critics, and friends who hurt you in the past and all your relationships. Sit back and honestly assess all the wrongdoings of yourself and others. Avoid judging anyone too harshly and practice empathy in your interactions. Effectively communicate your concerns if required and apologize where required.
You can also try forgiveness meditation.
3. Detachment- Surrender the outcome of your karma to the divine
The karmic cycle is governed by outcomes of action, but what if you renounce all outcomes?
According to Bhagavad Geeta, when you act without the expectations of the results, you become free from the bondage of karma. Put your focus and energy into doing things rather than worrying about future possibilities. Worried about whether you will be able to complete that assignment? The more you think about what may turn out to be in the future, the more you shift your focus from something you hold maximum control- the present moment. When you detach from the results of the job, you can perform better, be more mindful of other people around you, practice more empathy, and remain grounded, all at the same time.
Detachment also helps in strengthening relationships, removing unnecessary expectations, and reducing stress and anxiety.
4. Be Conscious of Your Choices
Your most natural habits, behavior, personality, emotions, and mental state are believed to come from past karma. Your lived experiences define who you are today, and govern how you perceive the world and the choices you make every day.
Sadly, most of the karma we incur is due to unconscious thoughts, words, or actions. We either automate our life or drive it with our natural instincts or behavior. So you eat, talk, and act based on how you are used to doing it. You will get irritated if your child throws tantrums to finish the food because you have been doing it for the past many months or years. You can’t wake up early in the morning and meditate because your body prefers to get a few extra minutes of sleep.
Breaking your pattern of behavior or thoughts comes with conscious choices. What you do now changes your karmic cycle and also the possibility of bondage or freedom from the past.
5. Take Responsibility
No matter where you are and what your challenges are, take responsibility for everything that has happened in your life. Having loving relationships, being successful in your career, and ensuring mental and physical health, is by all means, your responsibility.
When you blame or get upset with someone for what they have done to you, you place the responsibility of your issues and circumstances on someone else. It is because you married the wrong person, you face abuse in a relationship; because you found traffic on the way, you got late for a meeting; or because you do not have time, you opt for junk food. There is no undermining the truth that we face seemingly unmanageable and extremely difficult problems in life, however, the solution still lies with you. So take responsibility for all that exists and resolve to bring a change.
6. Spirituality
When you embark on the path of spiritual awakening, karmic balance happens on an automated fast-track mode. Spiritual awakening breaks the comfort of your soul and causes some serious transformation in the beginning, which isn’t a smooth ride. However, remember that the not-so-easy energy shift will bring phenomenal healing and clear karmas of lifetimes.
Conclusion
If you think bad karma leads to a poor, painful, treacherous life, it may not be the case. While karmic energy is exceptionally unbiased and accurate, we have a very limited perception of the impact of ‘good vs. bad’ karma.
Karma is a massive accumulation of your actions, so nullifying it all in a span of one lifetime is a stupendous task. What you face right now is managing a very small fraction of your karma, and balancing it all may take hundreds of lifetimes. Souls are believed to reincarnate with specific life purposes, soul contracts, karmic cycle, and above all, their free will, a combination of which defines the progression of life incidents.
