Breaking Away from Karmic Debt

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”

Galatians 6:7

Karma, the law of cause and effect, has always been one of my guiding principles in life. What ever you do, it always has its consequences. It can either be good or bad, depending on what you planted. However, according to some philosophies, the current status that we are in right now is the result of our past lives’ actions. Thus, there is what we call pre-determinism. It was difficult for me to digest. I can understand that my current action has its own respective results yet I can not take the idea that my past lives’ ‘mistakes’ are affecting my present conditions and the things to come. You may call this karmic debt. And they say, we are paying it in this lifetime.

There are times when frustrating events burden me, then I ask myself, ‘Is this bound to happen because of what I did in my past?’ Though I have started to accept the belief that these things, perhaps, are meant to be, it just leads me to another disturbing thought that ‘we are at the mercy of our past actions and that there is NOTHING we can do to change it’. This still had to be resolved within myself.

Reading Seth Speaks – The Eternal Validity of the Soul, gave me another nudge towards understanding WHO I TRULY AM, and that includes my past lives. I am not asking you to believe me on this since my truth may be different from yours. Yet this is what i choose to believe in. He, referring to Seth, said that our current situation is predetermined by our soul before we were born. Our soul decides to which kind of life it will live in this lifetime hoping that it will add up to the experiences that it has amassed from its multi-dimension personalities and past lives. It is not because we are doomed by our previous ‘mistakes’ and that our current life is bound to repay those ‘debts’.  Yes, we are in control of our life. We are not constrained. We are completely free to do our will. As what Seth has always been reiterating,

“And as I have said time and time again, you form the physical reality that you know.”

The things that are happening right now are caused by our thoughts, desires, and emotions, and not by predetermined events caused by our past mistakes.

In my search to resolve my belief of not being able to do something to change my karmic past, I came across these incorrect understandings of Karma,

In Buddhism, karma is not pre-determinism, fatalism or accidentalism, as all these ideas lead to inaction and destroy motivation and human effort. These ideas undermine the important concept that a human being can change for the better no matter what his or her past was, and they are designated as "wrong views" in Buddhism. The Buddha identified three:

• Pubbekatahetuvada: The belief that all happiness and suffering, including all future happiness and suffering, arise from previous karma, and human beings can exercise no volition to affect future results (Past-action determinism).
• Issaranimmanahetuvada: The belief that all happiness and suffering are caused by the directives of a Supreme Being (Theistic determinism).
• Ahetu-appaccaya-vaada: The belief that all happiness and suffering are random, having no cause (Indeterminism or Accidentalism).

With this I have found my resolve. I am free. I am not subject to my past mistakes. If I did act wrongfully in my past life, I can correct them now, in this present moment.

Thus, I came to this conclusion,

Before you were born, the stage has been set, the conditions have been established in advance, but the outcome is still undefined. It is up to you then on how you want your story to end. It is only you, and no one else, who chooses your destiny.

Namaste.