Voice of the Spirit

Wouldn’t it seem odd and ironic to speak of the karma we have all created throughout the many lifetimes we’ve lived in the same breath with our credit card debt?  After all, what could they possibly have to do with each other?  Our karma is thought of as a spiritual matter that entails our former actions through the countless incarnations we have all led, while our credit card debt is merely thought of as an earthly financial matter.  However, what if I told you that the parallels between the two are spiritually significant and helpful in our lives?

Most of us use them and have seen the blessings as well as the difficulty they bring to us.  While one needs a credit card in today’s world and we all know that the convenience it provides can be miraculous, we can all get carried away with our spending because there is always the thought that we can buy now, and pay later.

How many of us have become overwhelmed by credit card debt and find ourselves barely able to pay the minimum finance charge when the new bill arrives?  Sometimes our spending gets out of control through recreational and indulgent purchases, while at other times, our credit cards are the only way to stay afloat financially and afford expenses that we didn’t see coming, or just don’t have the money for at the time.  Yet as we spend, we often brush off the fact that we’ll have to pay the balance off — and on top of that, with interest that just keeps piling up!

Just like our credit card debt is increased and/or paid down, our negative karma adds spiritual debt while working off our bad karma pays it down.  In addition, the good karma we create always helps us to manifest a better life and move forward in a positive way.  However, no matter what, the debt we accrue both spiritually and financially will have to be paid off at some point in the future.  We must become more cognizant of the fact that we have to pay off our spiritual karmic debt if we want to spiritually advance and while doing so, we need to make every attempt to stop creating additional negative karma in the process.  With that in mind, let’s look at how we can take the steps to become something our soul is forever yearning for and working toward – to become spiritually debt free.

In the beginning…

Long ago, when we first began the reincarnation cycle, we were given complete free will from the divine universe.  We found ourselves in this world of illusion, like an imaginary playground where we could do whatever we wanted to.  Infinite spirit declared to us, “Here is your body, mind, emotions and spiritual self – you have been equipped with everything you could possibly need.  Now go out into this world!” 

An unlimited credit line

Back then, it was just like a 10 year old receiving a credit card that started with absolutely no credit limit whatsoever.  Imagine hearing the words, “Here is your credit card that has no limit and feel free to do whatever you want with it.  It is yours!”  It all sounds magical and whimsical, as if we had just won a multi-million dollar lottery.  Any of us would have probably said, “Oh my God, I can spend as much as I want – and there’s no limit!” But of course, the catch is that we all eventually have to pay off the balance whether now or later.

When it comes to our karma, it is exactly the same thing as having that unlimited credit card.  Of course, we have all spent more on our credit cards than we should have, just as each of us have hurt others in our lives.  We initially began creating negative karmic/spiritual debt by violating the law of love and committing bad acts.  By creating spiritual debts with others, we began owing them.  With the more negative karma we create, the higher our debt goes, just like seeing the charges on our credit card piling up every month. 

Many times we may have disregarded how our actions affected others and just did what we wanted, as if there would be no repercussions for our actions – ever.  But in reality, that is never that case.  As we all create both good and bad karma, it all comes back to us, sooner or later. 

When we’ve accrued negative karma by harming and victimizing others, we will eventually have to take care of those debts which won’t go away until they’re paid off – in full.   Paying our karmic debts from former lifetimes is something we’re still dealing with today, as we reincarnate into the physical world in part because of the negative karmic spiritual debt from our past actions.  It all began in the very beginning with our first violation of the law of love, which led to more karmic penalty, and it all keeps adding up….

Finance Charges Create Even More Debt

As we all know, the finance charges on our credit cards add even more debt. The higher the balance, the more the finance charges, which leads to an even higher balance and the cycle just keeps going….  This is just like the negative karma we create.  Not only do we have to pay off our karmic debts, but also the additional and subsequent repercussions that happen based on the initial negative acts we’ve done.  It is very much like throwing a pebble into the ocean and watching the ripples echo on into infinity.  This is exactly what happened to John and Sarah, a seemingly happy married couple.  

John liked being married to Sarah, but also wanted to cheat on the side to have his cake and eat it too.  Sarah had no idea of John’s affairs and she only found out by “accident.”  One day, John happened to leave his email account open when he left for work.  When Sarah went to the computer to look at her own emails, she noticed an open message right there on the screen. It was from another woman, detailing the wild sex she and John had in a hotel a few weeks prior.  With details of John’s anatomy that only someone would know who had been intimate with him, Sarah knew in one fell swoop that John indeed had cheated on her.  Sarah was just devastated.

After all, she didn’t see it coming as she truly believed that her marriage was stable and solid.  She thought they had a healthy sex life and everything seemed to be just fine.  So when Sarah caught her husband John with another woman, she felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under her.

But more importantly, though, are the series of repercussions that happened due to John’s initial cheating, (which were just like the finance charges that add even more debt the principle amount on our credit cards.)  After her devastation, Sarah began spiraling into a serious depression and overeating.  This lead to severe weight gain, which set off health issues that were quite worrisome: her blood pressure increased, and she developed heart trouble.  On top of that, she lost her focus on the job and was eventually fired.  This was all set off by what John had done to her and how the repercussions developed and grew over a period of about a year and a half.

As all of this was kicked into gear by the negative karma John created, and the continual repercussions his wife incurred were just like the finance charges that compound and increase the initial debit we owe on our credit cards.  It keeps building and accruing month by month – year by year and so on. 

As the difficulties with John’s wife and marriage continued, he, like many of us, wanted a quick fix – some easy way out so it could all be ok again, as he really didn’t want to lose his marriage; he had just wanted to cheat on the side.  But with karmic debt, there is no instant solution, as it takes a lot of time and effort to pay it off, which is something we all will have to learn, sooner or later.

Zero Balance – no interest for 12 months!

How many of us have fallen for the illusion of a credit card offer that says, “Zero balance, and no interest whatsoever on purchases for 12 months?”  Most of us have, as it’s so easy to get fooled by that financial carrot being dangled, and we also do the same thing with our negative actions.

We falsely believe that whatever we do won’t really come back to us – or at the very least, it’s delayed way off in the future and somewhere down the road.  “Why worry about it now?  Just do what you wanna do,” becomes many of our mottos, even if we don’t voice those sentiments out loud.

We delude ourselves into believing that our hurtful acts have a spiritual grace period – as if we’re exempt from paying our spiritual debts for awhile.  And it becomes so easy to extend that grace period in our own minds into being indefinite.  But our fantasy is absolutely not true. As every single thought, word, utterance and choice is immediately recorded in the heavens in real time where it is permanently stored, the repercussions always come back to all of us.

And just as the credit card companies lure us into serious debt by these promotional offers that give the illusion of everything being “free,” we do the same thing to ourselves regarding our spiritual journeys.  “After all, God didn’t just strike me down for what I did wrong, so it’ll all be ok,” is something any of us might believe.  This is exactly what happens to those of us who buy into such illusions and ultimately, we set ourselves up to pay the consequences in our lives..

Just making the minimum payments

We may have all bought into the illusion that there’s a grace period for our bad acts or falsely believe that they don’t really come back to us even though they always do.  However, in reality, we need to remember that it’s never simply a matter that all we’ve done in the past has been “wrong.”    

Most of us have created both good and bad karma in any given lifetime; it isn’t just one way or the other.  But now, we need to make sure that we burn off more negative karma that we already have to get our debt down, and simultaneously, create additional good karma in this lifetime.  This way, we keep evolving spiritually as opposed to just squeaking by in our lives.

Instead, so many people get stuck, just like those of us who can only pay the minimum amount on their credit cards every billing period.  We’ve reached the point financially where we open our bill and see that what we owe is far more than we’re going to make in an entire year.  On top of that, we barely have enough money right now to pay the minimum balance shown on the statement.

The same thing can happen to us spiritually where literally, we dig ourselves so deep into our own negativity in this lifetime that it is tremendously difficult to make a real dent in paying off our bad karma.  Yet, just like paying the minimum amount due, we continue to sort of get by in life, and move forward only to a point, as our debt has been in the making for quite a long time.

Shelly was a person who, like many of us, disregarded the consequences of her choices, till her life became overwhelmed by her past acts.  It was just like anyone who one day opens their credit card statement and realizes that after years of spending, they’re up to their eyeballs in debt.  For Shelly, it all started at the age of 20 when she became bored with her education when she was in school to become a lawyer.

In her own mind, she just felt that she could quit for the time being, have some fun and come back to school later and pick up where she had left off.  However, many people from her family to friends seriously warned her to not quit, as it would be hard to get back into school later.  But instead, she just did what she wanted to do anyway, took some time off, left her home state of Ohio to hang out in Florida where she started drinking and partying with different guys. 

One night while driving home intoxicated, she crashed into another car and injured a young, single mother named Terry.  She sustained a broken neck which only healed somewhat, and the injury left her with a lack of mobility and severe pain.  Then, because of this, Terry couldn’t work or properly take care of her young son and consequently ran out of money.  Shelly ended up losing her driver’s license for 2 years, and spent 6 months in jail.

At that point, Shelly was 24, decided to leave Florida, return home to Ohio and attempt to get back into school.  However, the Florida incident prevented her from ever getting a law degree, as she was a convicted felon.

After attempting to go back to school for another major, she met a man named Robert who really loved her.  So Shelly decided to quit school once again and focus on her relationship with Robert, but she was still drinking and didn’t really treat Robert very well.  In fact, Shelly never told Robert that she had contracted herpes during her wild times years ago in Florida and put him at risk by having unprotected sex with him.

Unfortunately, Robert did contract the disease from Shelly, but he didn’t even find out when and how he got it till after he and Shelly had been married for a couple of years.  Enraged beyond belief after he realized what Shelly had done to him, he immediately filed for divorce.  So after the marriage ended, Shelly was now 30, by herself and hardly had enough money to live on.  But Shelly now being in a position of barely being able to get by, all started 10 years ago with her initial choices to quit school when she was 20, party in Florida, drive home drunk and injure Terry.  

Here we see in a very direct way how Shelly’s choices led her into the position of struggling to merely stay afloat, just like someone who can only afford the minimum payment on their credit card because of their excessive spending habits in the past. 

Yet, just like Shelly, our spiritual repercussions have been in the making for a long period of time and are based on a variety of choices.  In Shelly’s case, it was over a 10 year time frame and clearly illustrated the fact that as with most of us, it’s the big picture that counts and not just one passing moment in time.

Our credit line is decreased and our interest rate gets raised

The repercussions of our negative choices often don’t come back immediately – as in instant karma.  However, in time, they always do.  This is just like hearing from our credit card company after we’ve charged our card to the limit, that our credit line has been decreased and our interest rate has gone up.  Already feeling financially strapped with nowhere to turn, this makes it even harder to wipe out our financial debt.

It is the same thing with our spiritual journey.  After a while, we’ve dug ourselves in deep enough from our choices that the divine universe limits our options, as we’ve shown that we’re not handling our freedom with the spiritual maturity we need to continue to have a wide open playing field.  Plus, we’re weighed down by the spiritual debts we’ve created.

Just like Shelly, we box ourselves into a corner regarding multiple areas of our lives.  Our choices leave us with so many consequences and sometimes those repercussions restrict us and tie our hands, just like being in school and having a sizeable back log of homework that we haven’t completed.  It isn’t as if we could just start over and do whatever we fancy – there are spiritual debts to pay.

In these instances, it’s always important to spiritually keep our eye on the ball and commit to working off our negative debt and building good karma through positive actions in our lives.  Even when we feel underwater and caught up in our own stuff, the only way out is by paying off our debt and continuing to attempt to manifest good!

And as with most of us, we progress through life with mixed results, ending up with a spiritual report card that has both high and low marks: not all A’s, but certainly not all F’s, but a mixture of all grades from a triumphant A+ to a failing F.  We’ve certainly done legitimate good in this world, but how much of our negative karmic debt have we paid off?  Moreover, have we created even additional bad karma in the process?  When it’s all said and done and we ultimately leave this world, we take that report card with us to the other side.  Whatever the debts are, they don’t merely go away by “dying”; but stay with us even after we leave our earthly journey.

Debts wiped out?

It would be nice to think that our karmic debt is somehow forgiven when we cross over – after all, we’ve just lost our physical life and have to make this adjustment to a new journey on the other side.  Shouldn’t our debts merely be just wiped out, so we could start fresh with a clean slate?  After all, if God could do absolutely anything, shouldn’t He be able to at least do that for us?

As much as these sentiments sound reassuring and comforting, they are simply not spiritually true.  In very sobering terms, whatever good karma we’ve created travels with us, as well as our negative karma too.  It certainly goes with us to the other side and we carry these issues and energies forward, just like on every credit card statement, it says, “Current balance,” and lists the amount of debt we still owe.

On the other side, it’s not as if we’re being judged, or having the finger pointed at us – it’s just a matter of spiritual law.  And the law is very fair to everyone – no one gets preferential treatment as the rich and the famous do in the physical world; everyone is treated equally.

So what can we do with these debts on the other side?  Can they be worked off there?  First, negative karma is not always able to be worked off on the other side.  While there may be instances where certain karmic issues can be resolved on the other side, for the most part, negative karma must be burned off in the physical world with the other souls the karma has been created with.  It’s not as if we can mix and match and burn off karma with random souls; it must be done with those it’s been created with and vice versa.  At the very least, what we can do on the other side is to look at what we’ve done, educate ourselves, spiritually grow, and plan for our next lifetime. 

A good way to think of this is that the other side is more likely to be a dress rehearsal: you practice, rehearse, and evaluate what you’ve done prior and prepare for your up and coming performance.  However, the actual performance is in our earthly journey and that’s what ultimately counts.  What we do in the physical plane determines whether we create good karma, burn off negative karma and/or create even more debt for the future.

In the physical world, it would be as if we lost everything we had financially and then called our credit card company on the phone and asked, “Can my debt please be wiped out, as I’ve lost my job and all the money I had?  I don’t know what to do.”  Of course, the company would be unwilling to oblige and you would still be liable for the debt you’ve incurred. 

From a spiritual perspective, that sense of liability is something Gerard experienced quite graphically when he reviewed his journey on the other side and through his teachers and guides, he became aware of just how much karmic debt he was still carrying.  In Gerard’s most recent incarnation, he mostly cared about one thing: himself.  He wasn’t exactly horrible to his wife and kids, yet he didn’t offer them any sense of emotional support or nurturing ever. 

Before entering this incarnation as “Gerard,” he promised he would do these things for his family.  Part of his karmic debt was to extend himself to those he had not supported before, meaning his wife and kids.  He owed them that debt from his neglect of them from prior lifetimes.  However, as is often the case, his ego and emotions got in the way and instead of resolving the negative karma he was supposed to, he created even more, and therefore, was further spiritually in debt being on the other side.

Therefore, when his life as Gerard was finished and we was reviewing his status in spirit, he was devastated, overwhelmed and racked by guilt from his actions and how he didn’t provide what he was supposed to for his wife and children.  His unwillingness to display genuine care and concern prevented him from not only working off his debt, but also helped to hold back his wife and children from manifesting their dreams.

“What can I do?” Gerard asked his teachers.  “How do I pay this off now?” he pleaded.  However, there was no quick fix or easy answer, as it couldn’t be paid off  from where he was at, as that would need to be done in a future physical lifetime with all of the principle parties who had been involved coming back together again on earth. 

It is just like reaching a point with your credit card debt where the only option that’s left is to rollover the balance onto a new card and start over.  From a spiritual point of view, that is just like bringing your karma (both good and bad), into your next incarnation, where we have our next opportunity to work off the bad, hopefully, not create any additional negative karma, and try to bring about as much good karma as we can.

Rolling the balance over to a new credit card

With our next incarnation, we have a fresh start and a new beginning – yet it is so important to take advantage of the opportunity to burn off our negative karma, not add even more bad repercussions for ourselves, indeed create good karma and spiritually move forward with our eternal journey.

We’ve all treated others badly and at some point, we all need to be humbled to that fact — not just saying it, but owning it.  Through humility, we’re able to approach our journey correctly, not from the point of view of just wanting what we want – like recklessly putting charges on our credit card as if there’s no tomorrow.  We must remind ourselves of what we’re here for, which is to spiritually evolve and pay off our debts from the past – as they hold us back from manifesting our divine highest good.

Yes, with each lifetime we get a fresh new start, but our former balance is there as well – just like rolling over our debt onto a new credit card.  Yet, as we look at something so cryptic and endless as the countless lifetimes we’ve lived and all of the incalculable karma we’ve all created (both positive and negative), we can use each new lifetime as a representation of what we can do today, right here, right now.

And of course we have debt from before, but by looking at today with a completely fresh perspective, we can continue to work it off – just like we can enter into a financial plan with an expert who knows how to help us out of credit card debt.  We can look at this day as a new beginning, as a moment to be able to truly spiritually advance ourselves.

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