After half a lifetime of way more than average challenges, and intensive research into philosophy and Universal Law, I’ve decided I don’t believe in bad karma, except in very specific circumstances. But in general, we get what we pay for in life. I believe that what you focus on increases, and when you focus on your fears or what can go wrong, that’s what is manifested into your experience through Universal Law. One thing I have learned is when you think about what you want, the Universe allows you to want it. If you think about what you HAVE (even if you don’t – yet), the Universe will allow you to have it. The other interesting thing I’ve just recently discovered is that Universal Law can’t hear negatives. If you focus on something NOT happening, that thing WILL happen, because the Universe doesn’t do negatives: don’t, no, none, never. There are more, but knowing about that no-negatives rule has been a biggie for me. We’ve all made a commitment to what this life would be about for us before we even entered it. We chose our parents, our body, our path in life in order to fulfill that commitment. Some of us have a very easy path, and others walk through hell every day, but we all get out of it what we’ve put into it, and we all must fulfil our commitments. I do believe we can consciously choose, at any moment, to improve the way in which we fulfill whatever we committed to learning in this life through action, thought and belief, and that we can walk a less rocky path than the one that Universal Law may have thrown us onto to start with. By working toward understanding why we’re here, we can find better and more productive roads to that fulfillment. And, by moving toward our inner direction, we can do and be more in this life than if we just wait for life to take us where it will. I think part of the key, for me at least, was releasing attachment to outcome, releasing my attachment to perfectionism – (no one can live up to that, so it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy), releasing fear and any need to control things, and just relax into the journey. My personal path now is much more peaceful and productive, and I don’t waste so much time and energy railing against my lot in life. I look at my path in life with the perspective of Aikido: I feel where the energy is taking me, merge with it in the flow, then exert the tiniest pressure at certain moments to make it flow along the path I have chosen. And now I am a happy, balanced person committed to growth instead of a victim.
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Michael Norwood:
I walk a fine line on what you’ve said, Jana. A lot of the New-Age tenets can make people feel guilty for what has befallen them. And yet, there’s tremendous depth to the idea of not focusing on the so-called "problem" (AKA "Bad Karma")
I believe Balance (Insight 5) puts it into perspective:
I believe it’s unauthentic to try not to feel emotions when we go through very difficult circumstances. I believe it’s counter-productive to feel we must stifle expressing those emotions, and, in fact, makes us a superficial and a potentially "explosive" person if we don’t share those emotions with those with whom we are closest.
And yet, I 100% agree with you that we do have to reach a time where we begin shifting our attention away from the problem, to the solution, and ultimately to the beautiful things in life.
And therein is the beauty of transformation.