Would you like to live a life that is void of problems related to money, love, family, or career?
Some New Age “gurus” claim to be able to clear karma. Our findings show that notion to be pure fantasy.
“Change or create your destiny,” some say, not understanding it doesn’t work like that.
Our empirical evidence indicates that almost everyone has good and bad karma, and you usually need to live through difficult experiences, which are often but not always karmic, in order to learn. This is the essence of the meaning of life, in our view.
Challenges and rewards in this life have been earned in previous lives or agreed to before incarnating. They don’t happen by chance and are not given out randomly by some higher power.
You can’t simply skip out on your difficult karma in this life. You can, however, create a future existence for yourself that has far fewer difficult, karmic circumstances. Even if you don’t believe in reincarnation or that you’ll live future lives, the following ten tips will also help improve your present life.
10 Ways to Reduce Your Future Negative Karma
1) Do what’s best for yourself, and also for the highest good of all involved, but avoid self-sacrifice, as well as excessive selfishness since both create bad karma.
2) Do the right thing in all situations, even if it means growing a pair and breaking with the crowd.
3) Always be honest with yourself and others. An occasional white lie to protect someone else doesn’t count.
4) Pay your dues and put in the time now so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor later.
5) Refrain from judging others just because they have a different skin color, sexual orientation, nationality, gender, belief, religion or are of a different class or income. It doesn’t matter what your religious, political or community leader told you about a certain group of people. Treating everyone with respect, no matter how different, does. If you can set aside the criticism, put yourself in another person’s position, attempt to understand and feel compassion for them, you are way ahead in the game of karma.
6) Forgive everyone, including yourself, for everything. This includes people who are or were close to you, and people you’ve never even met. Any grudges will add to your collection of karma.
7) Never retaliate if someone mistreats you. Yes, you should always stand up for and protect yourself, and self-defense is perfectly acceptable, but starting a battle will only cause you more problems in the future.
8) Take responsibility for all your circumstances and actions. If you look at the big picture, you really can’t blame anyone but yourself.
9) Do what you can to help others, even in seemingly insignificant ways. A kind word or gesture can make someone’s day or even change their life.
10) Be who you are. This includes sharing your talents, skills and interests with the world, and letting go of or powering through the fear and living your life as you feel instead of as expected. The world needs you more as you are than as you are “supposed” to be.
No one is perfect and you likely wouldn’t be here if you were. But striving to live your life without creating negative karma and living by the “golden rule,” treating others as you want to be treated, will create a better present and future life, perhaps even one filled with rewards.
Copyright © 2013 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo