On the subject of karma:

On the subject of karma:

From both the Christian and the reiki perspective of karma I would have to say that I look at it differently than my hindu brothers and sisters. The hindus seem to believe from most of the teachings I have read by them that one is forever trapped in an eternal cycle of reincarnation with no hope of escape. As if one’s life cycles were a prison of sorts. The hindu people I have spoken with at least most of them seem to think that one is a slave to ones karma. Well I will respectfully disagree with this concept of karma and incarnation. They also much like the buddhists seem to believe that one can be “punished” by one’s karma in the way one incarnates. They believe that one can come back as something less then they were before. I don’t think that one can ever be anything less than they are. They seem to justify their concept with the idea that “well if I use to be a priest or a king and I come back as a peasant then I was a bad king or an evil priest”. To me this is a rather juvenile notion that is dependent on a human higher-archy and a caste system. To me one could have been a very wise and great king or a devout truly loving and knowledgeable priest and come back as an average person to learn yet another aspect of life. Why would the system of reincarnation whose entire purpose is to evolve one, turn around and demote some body? Where is the lesson in that? The evolution of our soul seems to me to be dependent on us never taking two steps back in the eternal sense of things. In other words, if I do something that requires me to come back and learn a lesson over that I didn’t get, then I will come back pretty much in the same set of circumstances and human dramas that forced me to come back to begin with. Why would I get sent back to lessons I already learned. You always start from where you left off I think. I also believe that a human soul has always been a human soul and will never be anything else. A human soul will always and forever be a human soul. We are here to become the best humans we can be in the spirit world. My soul was never an animal or a rock or a tree. I have always been human. Like wise an animal spirit will always be an animal spirit, a rock spirit will always be a rock spirit, and a tree spirit will always be part of the plant kingdom. Though I do think it is likely that a cat can come back as a dog, an oak can come back as a lavender plant, and an amethyst that gets shattered well that energy might come back as a moonstone or a quartz crystal. So I disagree with my druid ancestors on this subject as well as with the buddhists and the hindu peoples. They may find my ideas strange and wrong, but I like to look at things logically! Lets say there was a bad priest in ancient India, what good would it due his soul to send him back as a goat who has no hope of learning any true lesson from the experience. So to me he would come back and have to learn about being a priest again from the most basic ideas to the higher mysteries of some sort of priesthood. It would not evolve his soul or do his soul any good to go backwards. We should always be looking forward. Also the Christian idea of reincarnation only works if one believes that once saved by Christ always saved by Christ. In other words I think that if one was saved by Christ many lifetimes ago than one will always find their way to Christ no matter how many times one incarnates into after being saved. “once saved always saved”, Christians are forever saying and I think this is true. Thankfully in both the Christian religion and in the reiki philosophy we humans are given ways by the compassionate creator of the universe to break our karma and be free from it. Karma in my opinion has very little to do with “past lives” at all. There may be some issues or tendencies carried over from other lifetimes but I don’t believe the wages or consequences of my past sins are among them. Karma to me is all about this current life and what I do now. The choices that I have made since I became a spiritual adult in this life. The ancients taught us that this happens at thirteen for boys and at the time of first menses for girls. And my karma has been incurred from the time this happened. What you do comes back to you, you reap what you sew, what you send out comes back to thee three times three, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, what goes up must come down, all of these are ways to describe or explain the incurring of ones karmic debt in life. While my current karma may decide where I am placed in a future life it certainly does not decide my fate, or my fortune in that future life. In Christianity we believe that Christ through his redemptive work on the cross atoned for all of our sins past, present, and future. We are washed clean of them through the blood of Christ, and the salvation that his Holy Spirit brings us. All we need to do is ask for forgiveness and try to right the wrongs we do and we are freed from karmic debt. For one to break free of their karma and be healed from it, one must first be made aware of it. We Christians are blessed because we have the Holy Spirit of God to convict our spirits and tell us when we have crossed the line and done something wrong. We as humans almost always know don’t we? The reiki philosophy is in harmony with the Christian idea of karma. There are many symbols that masters use to help people change, heal, and break free of their karma. These symbols go inside our beings on a deep level and help us to awaken to the reality of our karma so that we can change it. They help us to deal with our karma in a practical and very real way. Once we are made aware of our karma we can then decide to make better choices and to try and make restoration for anything that we have done wrong. I don’t think the Buddhist idea is to far from this. Monks seem to know this at a very early age, in fact it seems to be one of the first things they learn as a monk, and they spend the rest of their lives very keenly aware of this truth. That is why they live and lead a life of service and meditation. They are freeing themselves from their incurred karmic debt as they see it. Once we understand our karma then we can begin to in a very dynamic way change what is, to what can be. I am not writing this to offend my hindu brothers and sisters or my buddhist brothers and sisters but to clarify the stance and position of the reiki philosophy and its idea that people can be made free of their old karma, and change their paradigm so their new karma will be good. The first step as I have said from the reiki stand point and also the Christian standpoint is to be made ultra aware of ones karma. The second step is to unravel its mystery and learn to understand it and how one earned it. Then finally one is free to ask forgiveness and make atonement and reparation for their wrong doings. Asking forgiveness and being repentant isn’t enough. One must take steps to right their wrongs, to bring justice and mercy to a situation they helped create. They must help balance the scales the helped to imbalance. This is true repentance. And God can see into the hearts of mankind. There was a saying I heard a woman preacher by the name of Joyce Myers speak one time that has always stayed with me. “If we do everything that we can do, then God will do everything we can’t”. I think this is one of the truest things ever spoken. I am writing this commentary on karma in response to an experience I had not long ago. A friend Rhonda Taylor an I who are both reiki masters were teaching a class on the second level of reiki together. Symbols were discussed that we use as reiki masters to help free people from their Karma. A dear and very intelligent woman named Roshi in the class as a student looked at me confused and horrified when I spoke of people being freed from their karma. In her opinion this can not be. And more it seemed to me that she thinks it would be a blasphemy to try. Well I got so intrigued and entertained by her response that I prayed and meditated on this for a several days. I organized my thoughts on this and came to my conclusions after speaking with God and the teachers that he sends to me. For one to be trained as a reiki master one must learn this basic concept of reiki that teaches one can be made free of their old karma and change their future karma. Other wise why are we even here at this earth school if not to learn, evolve, and grow? One does not have to believe this, or hold it as a truth, or even teach it to their future students but one must be made aware of this part of the reiki philosophy to become a reiki master in my opinion. Even though me and darling Roshi apparently disagree on this issue I still love her and hold her as one of the dearest women I have ever had the honor and privilege to help teach. I hope she still loves me after reading this. I also want to thank her for bringing light to this particular subject for me. She made me see that there are certain concepts of reiki that might need further explaining for future students and now I have a way of addressing these better. It was her questioning of this part of the reiki philosophy that made me re-educate myself as to why I think what I think, and now I understand reiki even better then I did before. As a teacher there have been a few students who challenged me and made me grow as a teacher, to become a better one then I was before. Roshi is definitely one of these special students and again I want to thank her!

Rev. Loush M. O’Raven
In the year of our lord 2009