A few words on Karma

Every once in a while I come across a client who blames most if not all of their misfortune on karma. Effectively what they say is 'it's my karma to - be afraid, have a phobia, be overweight, be depressed, or whatever. At its root, this stance misunderstands what karma is.

 karma is not some sort of divine judgement, nor is it a punishment. In fact, karma has no relationship to good or bad because these are mere value judgements ascribed by people, who will often disagree what good or bad is anyway in any given instance, or at any given time.

It is better to view karma as being related to flow and balance. In being related to flow, it is similar to the law of attraction which states that whatever you focus your attention on, is what you will attract. Serge Kahili King also mentions a similar idea when looking at the basic tenets of Huna (Hawaiian shamanism) in his book 'Urban Shaman' - 'energy flows where attention goes'. Its relationship to balance invites us to address those issues that do not serve us well and look to see how we can refocus our attention to move us away from distress and towards happiness.

Viewed in this way karma becomes dynamic and a force for change, rather than fatalistic and a way of abdicating responsibility for the state of our lives. karma opens the possibility for choice and change rather than denying it.

Of course, as ever, this is talking cures training's own idiosyncratic view of the subject - but what do you think?