Spirit Garden: Explorations in the Spiritual

Author, artist, and spiritual advisor Catt Foy shares experiences and knowledge on a wide range of spiritual topics.

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"What do You want to know?" Follow up: Karma

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The questions that my last post raised covered a lot of ground.  I hope to address the largest of these issues one by one, and hopefully answer the questions of many. I continue to welcome additional requests for information. 

I have been studying religions, the occult, the metaphysical, and all things “woo-woo” for over fifty years.  I have read an uncountable number of books and had an amazing roster of personal experiences.  The one thing I have found is true:  if I have a question, all I have to do is ask the Universe/God/Spirit, and eventually the answer is delivered to me.  It may come in the form of a conversation, an experience, or a piece of literature that makes my internal lightbulb come on!  But when it has been answered, I know it.  I cannot claim that those answers are the perfect answers for everyone, but they made sense to me.  I hope to share some of this knowledge here.

Today’s issue is karma.

Many people seem to think that karma is a law of reward and punishment—you do good things, you get rewards.  Do bad things and the Universe will punish you.  But the idea of reward/punishment is really a Western concept—a duality consciousness of polarity that requires one side to be good and one side to be evil. 

Karma is a law of the Universe, like gravity.  And like gravity, once a law has been employed, it must behave the way it was meant to behave.  The universe acts and reacts in certain unchangeable ways—that’s way they call them Laws.  The Law of Karma simply IS.  No judgement.

Think of it like gravity.  Here is analogy:  if you are holding a ping-pong ball in your hand, it is stable, not moving.  But if you drop it, simply let it go, it WILL fall to the floor.  This is the Law of Gravity. 

Karma is most often compared to the Law of Cause and Effect.  If you take an action, or in any way put a particular kind of energy out into the world, you will get an equal and opposite reaction.  Anger going out means anger coming in.  Throw a ball against the wall and it will bounce back to you.  Love going out brings love back in.

Now, this reaction is not always instantaneous.  It may take a short period of time or a long period of time.  Like an echo or a ripple on a pond, it takes its own time in spreading and returning, dependent on a variety of factors that I do not pretend to understand. But come back it will.  And from that reaction, you learn something.

If you are a child and you touch a hot stove, you will feel a burn.  This is not a punishment from the Divine, it is simply a cause and effect.  And you learn not to touch a hot stove!  Or you could listen to your parents, who tell you the stove is hot and avoid the painful lesson.  With karma, you can listen to the wisdom of the sages and avoid many painful lessons.  Remember, too that karmic energy can be quickly reflected back to you by other people.  Smile at someone and most of the time they will smile back. 

As for the justice aspect of life,  I believe that everyone who does something “bad” will eventually learn why it is considered “bad”—like the burn.  These lessons may take a moment or many lifetimes. Our spirits are immortal, and cannot truly be hurt, because they are expressions of the Divine.  I also believe that before we are born in to a physical body, we examine what lessons we need to learn and agree to undergo certain experiences—however unpleasant—to contribute to our spiritual growth.  Does that mean we have to put up with horror, cruelty and injustice?  No, of course not.  We strive to create balance, kindness and harmony.  But don’t overlook that fact that many who experience hardships of all kinds become truly inspirational people in the world.  Think of the people you admire—aren’t many of them folks who have faced adversity and survived with a good attitude?  And they are creating “good” karma—not just for themselves, but for us all.

Oh!  And one last thought:  forgiveness is a way to discharge karmic debts.  Not because the other person is sorry, but because it is a way to sever any ties to that person's energy pattern, and to wish them well--generating more good karma!

 

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Catt Foy has been a professional psychic and astrologer since 1978 and a freelance writer and photographer since 1981.  She is the author of Psycards: An Oracle of Archetypes, Rune Stones & Their Interpretations, and the novel Bartleby:  A Scrivener's Tale.  She holds an MA from Western Illinois University and an MFA in Fiction from Spalding University, and is currently Queen (CEO) of Psycards USA.  Catt likes to garden, paint, and make jewelry, and is currently working on several other novels.  Catt is also an ordained minister and certified hypnotherapist specializing in past-life regression.

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