Karmic Debt

As much of a cliché as it’s become, I do believe that what goes round come round. That what you send out of good or bad energy/actions will come back to you again. That we all get our comeuppence; that God - whether that be Allah, God as depicted in the Bible, the Cosmos or any other form of deity - does repay all debts.

Everything we do on this planet (or elsewhere, if we happen to be astronauts!) has an effect on other people, creatures or nature otherwise. Our actions create a reaction - cause and effect- which is sometimes immediate, other times not so, but a reaction will happen regardless. It may not always be a serious reaction that has any noticeable effect, but sometimes the reaction can be devastating.

I don’t care who you are or how you’ve lived, some of your actions WILL have created a negative reaction. And while most of those actions will have been unintentional, I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that there are times when I’ve been a damn right nasty cow. There’s not a shadow of doubt in my mind that some of my past actions have had a profound negative effect on others.

No doubt I've created some bad karma for myself but I'd like to think I've created some of the decent stuff too, although I would have liked to have done more good. But we can’t change the past, can we? Or can we?

Is it possible to go back and settle our karmic debts?

I believe it is.

After a good session of theorising and generally putting the world to rights with a couple of people last night, we concluded that if karma really does exist in our lives then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be to create some better karma for ourselves by righting our wrongs and that there are two ways that this could be done.

One is to simply stop and actually think before you act. What might the consequences of my action be? Would buying a new car put too much of strain on the environment for it to be acceptable for me to have something that I want rather than need? Would it hurt this person if I tell them they look tired when they’re on their way to a hot date? I’m not saying we’ll never make mistakes but by stopping and thinking a bit more we can at least minimise the amount of damage we cause by our actions.

The second way is by repaying our debts by helping those we‘ve wronged. If you know you once did something that that had a profoundly negative effect on a person’s life, whether intentional or not, then you should do something that will have equally as great an effect on them, but in a good way in order to balance the karma again.

Personally I’d start with the things I’ve consciously done - those time I’ve just been down right horrible. Selfish acts that I did regardless of the consequences even though I knew what I was doing was wrong. Then would come the times I’ve hurt somebody because I had PMT and couldn’t control my tongue, and the times when I’ve been stressed or worried or for some other reason took my problems out on others and hurt them more than is excusable. Because I haven’t been an angel, and although I don’t consider myself a horrible person, I’ve have been a right bitch unjustifiably horrible at times.

It doesn’t matter whether the other person knows we’ve paid off the debt or not - this isn’t about getting thanks, it’s about balancing your karma which is a private thing between you and your creator, whoever/whatever that may be; as long as the debt’s paid, the karma’s rebalanced and that’s what matters here.

And what’s more, even if this is just a load of old poppycock, we’ll have still touched a few lives and some people will feel a little bit happier along the way. Knowing we've made others happy ultimately makes us happier too so everybody wins. And that can't be bad, can it?

Sharon J xx

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