What is Karma, and Can it Be Changed?

Let's have an example

TimePhoto byBy Jordan Benton

If you have a challenging relationship with your father, let’s say that your father is very controlling by nature, and that growing up, he always tried to control you. It’s normal that as an adult, you become difficult with yourself. You may question your every move, you may doubt yourself, you may feel irritated with yourself, and all this frustration may get bottled up within yourself.

With so much under the surface, you may in turn become bossy. With this formed personality, you may not like it when your father, who didn’t work on himself over the years, still tries to control you. In fact, it’ll irritate you even more because who does he take himself for?

So now, you have your controlling father trying to control the current version of you — that is the product of his parenting, and because you have strong triggers around being controlled, there is a clash between you two. The relationship is challenging.

As long as neither of you makes a conscious effort to change this dynamic, which means asking yourself…

“Hey, wait a minute. My father has always been controlling, and I don’t like being controlled. And because neither of us makes an effort to change things, we keep fighting over petty matters over and over again. I’m tired of this circus. I have to do something about it.”

…your relationship remains repetitive and limited in its expression. Your actions create the same reactions. And because no conscious effort is made to change things, it’s your “karma.”

This is a small example but thankfully, as above, so below, as within, so without — we can therefore learn from this example and get a grasp of how “karma” functions at bigger scales.

Karma can be described as loops we live in. Cycles we go through. As long as we remain unconscious in how we deal with those cycles, they won’t change. The moment we make an effort to 1) pay attention to them, the moment we observe 2) what triggers them, 3) into what they unfold, and 4) what ceiling we keep hitting and are limited by — we have the power to change it.

Forgiveness is key. No one’s perfect, and it is not our job to change others because they’ve been given free will just as we’ve been. We can express ourselves, we can establish healthy boundaries, but ultimately — we decide how to respond to the events in our lives.

I hope it brought you clarity on the subject. We could go on and on on karma’s mysteries, but it’s not important. What matters is being practical, and using the information we get immediately into our lives. That’s how we grow.

Strength and love on the path.

As a final note.

Most people embarking on the spiritual path, actually, even those who have been on it for a while now, are confused about what they should do due to the conflicting information out there.

What’s the cause? People trying to compensate their lack of understanding through the use of fancy explanations. The result? Confusion.

The spiritual path shouldn’t be confusing. It requires simple directives and consistency on your part. If you resonate with those teachings, I wrote a book with the only purpose of helping you understand what the main blocks to spiritual growth are, how to overcome them, and grow spiritually as a result. Check the book here.

Thank you for reading!