Thoughts on Karma

Many years now, in fact pretty much my whole life the concept of karma has intrigued me. I remember in my youth thinking karma was "bad" although I couldn't define why or how. For that matter I couldn't even define the definition of bad with any clarity and I'm not sure I can to this day. At that point in my life, teens and early 20's karma was something you "got" for doing something bad to another person. An eye for an eye, was the only explanation of karma I knew and to me that meant "do something bad and something bad will happen to you" I'm not sure I totally believed it though cause there were times I would do things that could be defined as "bad" and the thought of karma didn't stop me from doing them it only allowed me to place huge amounts of guilt and fear on myself after the fact!

Eventually my imput expanded and I started to learn new phrases such as " what you put out, you get back" NOW this was thrilling to me because for the first time there was the possibility of a "positive" attached to the word karma... put out good, get back good! woo hooo a new view!
A bit on down the road I read (against my will) Conversations with God. I bought the book with the intention of reading it, read the first page thought "Oh my this person needs help" and placed it on a shelf where it sat for roughly a year until I picked it up again and started to read farther. (I have now realized that when I feel this kind of resistance to anything, it is definitely something I need to dive head first into! Now this book was not necessarily about karma but it "connected alot of dots" for me in regards to karma.

My view of karma now is much different and I really went all the way around the barrel to get to where I am now on the subject. Even as I was going around the barrel to get here I stumbled over a couple rocks turned around and tried to go back the other way and finally found a clear path. My view of karma now has affected my life in amazing ways, including empowering me even more with a sense of my own inner strength.

When I started putting it all together, karma became clear. It wasn't some sentence we got from God, it wasn't some unexplainable universal law that controlled karma, it wasn't someone's voodoo being placed upon anyone. In fact it was, like most everything in life, so much more simple than that.
It was or is ......... our own mind!

Our perception of our deeds and our judgment of ourselves have very powerful effects. When "we" believe we have done something "bad" to someone "we" create an energy that needs to be cleared. We do it everyday without realizing it. Maybe we said something to someone we felt needed to be said but regretted saying it soon afterwards. Maybe we cut someone off in traffic cause we were in a hurry, maybe we decided that the person we were seeing wasn't meeting our needs and started to venture off without being upfront and telling the person we didn't want to see them anymore. Whatever the cause the effect is the same, we feel bad and we feel a need to be punished.

Who does the punishing? We do! We set up situations that will clear this and if we are unable to clear it we will hold it till we die and beyond that and if we feel particularly bad about such an action we will literally live lifetimes trying to make it right.

The nice thing about all this is that it kinda puts a light on peoples natural desire to not hurt others and to do "right". People in general are good hearted even if we at times do things that go against the grain.
Just for the record my use of the words "bad" "good" "right" and "wrong" are general terms only. In reality there is no right or wrong or good and bad there is only what is right and wrong or good and bad "for YOU". This is where judging comes in and where karma begins.

When we judge our own actions we are not being true to ourselves. When we judge we are not loving ourselves, when we judge we create karma.
It's kinda sad really when you see so many people who have been hurt be able to let go and forgive another person who has hurt them or who they felt wronged them, they will tell you they can't forgive or they can't let go but then argue the other persons actions as valid which means they already have in a sense forgiven, who they forgot to forgive was themselves! The hanging on and the need to punish come because we cannot seem to forgive ourselves for ALLOWING someone to hurt us, or allow someone to treat us a specific way, or allow someone over and over to do things we didn't like!

Without confusing myself anymore I'll stop here and just ask that anyone who has thought about karma on a deep level look at their view and see if it isn't something you have created. The thought of this will lead to other areas and then others and soon you will start to see very clearly how life isn't something you deal with like a hand of cards dealt to you that you would have rather not gotten cause you can't "win" the game with this hand, but more a creation of your own thoughts and feelings in everything you do.
Karma is a choice not a sentence