Karma and relationship

            Karma and relationship

Sometimes a soul will choose a particularly challenging lifetime in order to accelerate its spiritual progress, or as an act of love to help, guide, and nourish others who are also going through a similarly difficult lifetime. A hard life is not a punishment, but rather an opportunity. We change races, religions, sex, and economic advantage because we must learn from all sides. We experience everything. Karma is ultimate justice. Nothing is overlooked or missed in our learning. Grace, however, can supersede karma. Grace is divine intervention, a loving hand reaching down from the heavens to help us, to ease our burden and our suffering. Once we have learned the lesson, there is no need for further suffering, even if the karmic debt has not been fully repaid. We are here to learn, not to suffer.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the internationally famous psychiatrist and author whose pioneering research into death and dying and the NDE changed the way we deal with death, told me the following story. Elisabeth was born an underweight triplet and the doctor told her mother that at least two of the babies would not survive. But Elisabeth's mother was a woman of exceptional strength and courage, a woman who freely gave anything and everything to others but refused anything in return, a proud and extremely self-reliant individual. She vowed that all three daughters would survive. She nursed them for nearly a year, keeping them with her in bed at all times for body warmth, like a present-day neonatal incubator. All three children survived and flourished.

Elisabeth was on the faculty of the University of Chicago, Department of Psychiatry when she visited her mother in Switzerland, the family home. Her mother had an unusual request. "Elisabeth, if I become a vegetable, I want you to give me something to put me out of my misery," her mother said. "I can’t do that," Elisabeth quickly replied. "Yes, you can," her mother insisted. "You're the only one of my children who is a physician. No u can give me something." "No, I can't do that!" Elisabeth repeated. "Besides, people like you, you've always been healthy, hiking and climbing, you'll live to be ninety and go like that," Elisabeth added, snapping her fingers.

Elisabeth refused to discuss the subject of any assisted suicide further, and she returned to Chicago. A month or so after this visit, Elisabeth's mother suffered a severe stroke that paralyzed most of her body. Although her mind remained relatively intact, this proud and independent woman had to rely on others for most basic needs. "I learned to listen to the premonitions of others," Elisabeth told me. Her mother died four years later, never having regained physical functioning. Elisabeth was furious with God. Working with dying children and their remarkable drawings, Elisabeth's spiritual horizons were expanding despite her anger. She also had begun to meditate.

One day, soon after her mother's death, Elisabeth was "rocked" by a strong inner voice or message during her meditation. "Why are you so angry at me?" the voice asked. In her mind, Elisabeth replied, "Because you made my mother suffer so much: This beautiful, caring person who never accepted anything for herself but would give everything to others. You made her suffer for four years and then she dies!"

"That was a gift to your mother," the voice answered gently, "a gift of grace. Love must be balanced. If nobody were to receive love, who could give it? Your mother learned this in only four years, instead of coming back for one or several lifetimes severely retarded or physically impaired where she would have to accept the love of others. She has learned, and now she can move on."

Hearing this and understanding the message, Elisabeth let go of her anger. Understanding can immediately heal our deepest pain.

After our birth in the physical state, our main source of learning is through relationships. Through the joy and pain of interaction with other people, we progress on our spiritual paths in order to learn about love from all sides. Relationships are a living laboratory, a field test to determine how we are doing, whether our lessons have been learned, to discover how close we are to our pre-determined life plan. In relationships our emotions are evoked, and we react. Have we learned to turn the other cheek, or do we retaliate with violence?

Do we reach out to others with understanding, love, and compassion or do we react with fear, selfishness, or rejection? Without relationships we would not know; we could not test our progress. They are wonderful but difficult opportunities to learn.

We are here in physical state in order to learn and to grow. We learn traits and qualities such as love, non-violence, compassion, charity, faith, hope, forgiveness, understanding, and awareness. We must unlearn negative traits and qualities, including fear, anger, hatred, violence, greed, pride, lust, selfishness, and prejudice. It is primarily through relationships that we learn these lessons.

More learning can occur when there are many obstacles than when there are few or none. A life with difficult relationships, filled with obstacles and losses, presents the most opportunity for the soul's growth. You may have chosen the more difficult life so that you could accelerate your spiritual progress.

Sometimes a negative event, such as losing a job, may be the hand opening the door to a much better opportunity. We should not grieve prematurely. Destiny may need a little more time to weave its intricate tapestry. In addition to pain and hardship, there is also love and joy and ecstasy in this world.

We are here to be in community, learning about love by being amidst other human beings who are on the same path, learning the same lessons. Love is not an intellectual process but rather a dynamic energy flowing into and through us at all times, whether we are aware of it or not. We must learn to receive love as well as to give. Only in community, only in relationships, only in service can we truly understand the all-encompassing energy of love.

Over many years I have treated countless couples and families who had been suffering in their relationships. I regressed some of them, and we often found the past-life causes of their current-day conflicts. Others needed better skills in communicating, and others needed to understand each other at deeper levels. Some needed to revise their values and priorities. And some needed a technique or two to help them climb out of their ruts, to become unstuck and begin to change. Which type of intervention they needed became clear to us over a brief period of time.

Growth occurred and their relationships were enriched when they honestly tried. Many of the suggestions and techniques I use with my patients are based on a deeper and more spiritual understanding of our lives and destinies than are the assumptions of traditional psychotherapy. I have found that our hearts and our souls yearn for and respond to psycho-spiritual therapy much more than they do to purely intellectual or mechanical approaches. Because relationships are the soil of our growth while we are in physical state, I offer you some of my thoughts, suggestions, and techniques to help you in your relationships, especially if you feel some difficulty in this area of your life. 

Many of these thoughts and ideas came to me one day while I was meditating in the foothills above the city of Medellin in Colombia. I value them highly because they arrived in my consciousness during meditation and I could sense the presence or at least the influence of the Masters around me, and thus I have barely edited this advice. I realize some may seem didactic and difficult. They were received, however, amidst a tremendous energy of caring and compassion. In reality, the messages and information are filled with love and healing. I can tell you from my experience in using these principles with those patients who needed help with their relationships that these techniques really work wonders.

The ideas are presented to you in a brief and crystallized form, and are not designed for speed-reading. You may want to take some extra time to think about or to meditate upon those suggestions that apply to you or those that stir some kind of inner resonance. You might want to put your reflections of these ideas into your journal. There is no hurry, there is no schedule, there is no test, and there certainly is no competition between you and your partner, whether your partner is your lover, your parent, your child, your friend, or any other with whom you are in a relationship. I hope these help you to love more freely and without fear.

- Excerpt from Messages from the Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss