Karma is a spiritual understanding or moral cause and effect. The concept revolves around the idea that good and bad deeds have consequences that influence the future. The philosophy of karma is commonly associated with eastern religions such as Buddhism, where positive deeds correlate to a positive rebirth cycle. Despite this, the modern understanding of karma is often detached from a religious grounding. You do not need to be religious to gain an understanding of the workings of karma. What is the cause of karma? Traditionally, the understanding of karma relies upon the idea that the universe is an observer of all your thoughts and actions. Put simply, karma works as either positive or negative reinforcement for your positive and negative thought patterns. When you act well, or think good thoughts, you are repaid for the positive energy you exert. Alternatively, negative action returns to you in the form of bad karma, such as an increase in negative thought for the negativity you created, or a negative action as a result of spiteful behaviour. Think of when things are going well. You feel on top of the world, unstoppable. The positive reinforcement that comes from both success in action and positive reinforcement in thought puts you in a great place. The negativity we feel when things go badly for us can easily land us in a spiralling of negative thoughts that simply overwhelms us until we feel like we can’t cope. Many consider this to be an understanding of the way Karma shapes our world. Why do we need to understandkarma? Most essentially, we need to understand that nothing we do goes without consequence. By failing to recognise the power that all our actions have, we neglect to remember the power the universe has in the energy we create and take in. If we aim to have positive thoughts and act purely out of good intentions, we are exerting positive energy and as a result we can expect to feel good. Our greatest mistake is forgetting the importance of the karmic principle of the universe, similar to Newton’s third law, and the way it guides all behaviour. If we lack understanding of the value of our own intentions, we are likely unable to control the impact that karma has on us through the energy we have put out. Reclaiming our thoughts is the essential way around this. How guided meditation can help to deal with karma? Many struggle with aligning their thoughts with the karma they seek to attract. We can unintentionally overpower ourselves with negativity, sometimes not even by our own fault, but by the way we have been conditioned by family, friends and media. Grounding ourselves back to the value of our thoughts is imperative if we seek to establish good karma. By practicing guided meditation, the power our thoughts hold over us lessens and we can gain control over the energy we exert through our intentions. This can be achieved in meditation through activities such as visualisation, affirmations, and breathing techniques.
