It's All About Entitlement: How To Manage Karma

It's now 2012 and with all the hype in media, TV shows, books and the Internet, I'm sure even the most skeptical out there are wondering, in a very little corner of their minds, if there really is anything to the buffet of scenarios that are supposed to come about this year. I just thought that it may be helpful if people became aware of certain tips to take note of as it applies to all these supposed predictions and prophecies.

One critical key that one must understand is the role that karma plays. Karma, in a nutshell, is similar to Newton's Third Law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. There is good and bad karma, representing the results (consequences) of positive and negative actions respectively. In the case of good karma, it tends to manifest as good luck, good health, prosperity, etc. Bad karma tends to manifest as bad luck, sickness, hardship, etc. A very simplistic illustration is that if you smile at someone, the person will smile back at you; if you punch the person, the person will punch you back. What you give out comes back to you, but magnified many times to emphasize the results (whether good or bad).

Materialization of karma need not happen immediately and can come up in future lives. Hence anything currently happening in one's life right now is simply karma (good or bad) that is finally materializing. Entitlement means you deserve it, so whatever happens is simply a matter of entitlement. As Master Choa keeps emphasizing in his teachings, everything that happens has a cause, it's just that we are not always aware of the causes. This may be a difficult concept to accept, but the sooner one comes to terms with it, the better one will be able to start managing the course of one's life.

If you're experiencing bad luck, but cannot trace it to anything you have done recently or earlier in your life, chances are your bad luck is a result of something you did in a previous life. Obviously, an acceptance of the concept of reincarnation is necessary for all of this to make any sense.

There is planetary karma, national karma, family karma, personal karma, etc. You can go crazy trying to trace all of it. However, it's not always necessary to trace the exact causes. In the case of hardship (bad karma), learn your lessons from them and strive to make sure no one else gets into the same situation you were/are in. In the case of blessings (good karma), be thankful for them and use them to improve not only your own life but the lives of others as well.

But more important than that, if your current situation is a reflection of your past actions, the corollary also holds true that what you do NOW will define your future. This is why karma is not fatalistic, because you can shape what your future will be by performing good actions now. Like a farmer planting seeds in order to have a bountiful harvest, you can plant good karmic seeds, and continue to plant them, so that you keep reaping good results. Of course, there are many dimensions in how this works. But generally, keep the principle in mind of planting good seeds now to reap a good future later.

Good karma can also neutralize or at least mitigate materializing negative karma. One particular aspect of good karma is the Law of Mercy and Forgiveness. According to Master Choa, the Law of Mercy and Forgiveness supersedes the Law of Karma. Which is why the Lord Jesus also said, "Be merciful, so that you will be forgiven."

Let's now go into the HOW of things. Like in anything, there is a Yin (Don't) and a Yang (Do) aspect. If you're in the red and trying to improve your bottomline, it not only makes sense to earn more money but also to reduce or substantially limit your expenses. The same principle applies to managing your karma. Avoid doing anything to increase your negative karmic debts while at the same time, keep planting good karmic seeds.

Eventually, your good karma will tend to overtake your bad karma, but you need to be patient and persevere because we're not talking about quick and instant fixes here. After all, we may be talking of several previous lifetimes worth of negative karma. Master Choa, in his booklet Achieve The Impossible, also adds that deliberately committing a mistake and then trying to "pay it off" with good deeds does not work.

Service and tithing are some of the quickest ways to generate good karma. Character building is what helps you avoid creating additional negative karma. In general, you need to give what you want to receive. As it applies to managing the predictions for 2012, if you want food security, then give food to those who need it (e.g. feeding programs). If you want security of shelter, contribute to the welfare of the homeless. And so on. While it would be great to personally participate in these works of mercy, it's not always possible, so you may instead just donate money or resources to the many charitable foundations who undertake these projects full time, such as the Red Cross, Food for the Hungry Foundation, Gawad Kalinga, etc.

In his book Psychic Self Defense for the Home and Office, Master Choa Kok Sui mentions that good karma is the ultimate protection. This is why in Psalm 91, "You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." This is also why there are skydivers who survive a failed parachute opening, or passengers who come out unscathed in some air crashes. The most extreme case I've read about is the amazing story of the 8 German Jesuit priests who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima despite being only 1 kilometer away from ground zero.

The topic of karma and its overall role in spiritual evolution is a vast subject that would require a book, if not several books, just to discuss. So by necessity, this article has been quite limited in scope. But I hope that I've presented enough information to show that one need not be held hostage to the prospect of dire predictions and events. It is possible to shape one's future by using esoteric laws, particularly the Law of Karma.

Here then is to our bright future, a future that we can start creating even today!