Karma: Real or Imagined

by Marilyn J. Muir LPMAFA

(archived class material from 1991

with moderate updating in 2025, noted)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Hello, my name is Marilyn Muir and I’ll be your teacher for this lesson on Karma: Real or Imagined. You should always know who your teacher is because, as your source, they will influence your mind and therefore your life. I became a student of Metaphysics in 1970 at which time I received spiritual guidance to eventually teach. I became a Healer in 1971 and started studying Astrology in 1973 when I was jolted by Astrologer Jeannie Kay who briefly read my chart. I began teaching psychic and spiritual development in 1975, astrology in 1976, and healing in 1977. I was ordained a Spiritualist Minister on Palm Sunday 1978 and founded a new age church and teaching center called Mission: Aquarius, Inc. in 1979. During those early years, I was very active in many spiritual and astrological associations and held multiple ordinations (including a Doctor of Divinity) in several metaphysical churches. I was and am a professional member of the American Federation of Astrologers (PMAFA). I did many radio and TV shows, newspaper and magazine columns, and local and national workshops before I retired in 2003. I had an extensive astrological, numerological, and tarot reading practice, having taught thousands of students across the country, until I retired. I am delighted you have chosen my material to study.

(Original version) Each of your classes include a ninety-minute tape, written material, and a homework assignment. please listen to your tape, read your written material, and create your own set of notes prior to doing your homework assignment. it is important for you to study in this manner as it is auditory through your tape, visual through your written material, and kinesthetic through your personally written notes. This combination offers you the best opportunity to retain what you’ve learned. Putting the information into your own words and notes is key. You will then be ready to complete your course homework assignment. This will help me evaluate your comprehension and progress. No grade is assessed, and we have plenty of time, so please study at your own pace – but do study. Feel free to ask pertinent questions with your written assignment. My purpose is for you to learn. No question is foolish if you don’t understand. I’ll ask you to write these questions at the end of your homework assignment. Please use looseleaf paper or various size index cards for notetaking. Spiral or hardbound notebooks are not flexible and will limit your use of them. Repetition is good for you. These tapes may be played while driving, cooking, relaxing, etc. to reinforce your understanding and your memory. Do NOT play a meditation tape while driving. (This was the original method of study. This 2025 version is print only / visual.) For your personal use, you can record the teaching material to play on current equipment to facilitate the auditory repetition element. Assemble your hand-written personal notes as you learn and apply (kinesthetic). And now for our lesson on Karma: Real or Imagined.

“Why me, Lord?” How many times have we heard that said? How many times have we heard ourselves say that phrase as we encounter what we don’t understand? This can be within relationships, or happening in our lives, or sequences of events. Some experiences are considered negative; some are considered positive. We may walk around scratching our heads, puzzled or confused, sure that whatever is occurring can’t be meant for us. Can this be true?

Are there activities or experiences we encounter by mistake?
Do we live in a random, chaotic, coincidental world?
Is “chance” the real name of the game?
Can we be born at a wrong moment?
Can we be born under a dark star?
Can we die before our time?
Do we live in a pre-ordained (the very hairs on your head are numbered) universe?
Can we have it both ways?
Can we believe in purposeful and believe in random in the same breath?

Most of us flit in and out of such contradictory beliefs. Is it a wonder that we get confused? Or could we live in a rhythmic, purposeful, evolving, universe that still contains an element of free will? We’ll examine these possibilities in our attempt to explore the vast concept of karma.

First let us look at random, coincidental, chaotic. That sounds like we’re about to do an essay on my life at moments. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but life seems to be moving very fast! People are trying to move faster and faster to keep up with the pace, not quite sure why, or where they’re going so fast. I am one of those people who want to know. Are you? The old saying “the hurriered I go, the behinder I get” seems to be a commentary on this fast-paced time we live in. Interestingly enough, it is easiest to explain this fast pace in astrological terms. You say you’re not an astrologer… let’s see if I can put this in terms a non-astrologer can understand.

In our solar system we have a Sun (a yellow star) in the center with an entourage of major and minor planets circling (orbiting) that Sun (gravitational attraction). These planets can also have smaller bodies (Moons) circling them. There are other bodies and cosmic matter within the system, but we’ll stay with the major planets for now. Some of the planets, like Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Earth travel relatively close to the Sun. Because they are so close to the Sun, the circle or orbit they travel around the Sun is small, so they seem to move relatively fast. The larger outer planets, lying at far greater distances from the Sun, have much larger orbits. They cover the same basic trajectory as the inner planets, but because of the tremendous distances involved, they appear to be traveling much slower. The further away the planetary orbit is from the Sun, the longer it takes the planet to complete the orbit. The planet on the outside of all the orbits takes the longest. Traditionally (until recently), the most distant planet is Pluto. (In 2025, I still use Pluto as a planet due to personal experience.)

Pluto is peculiar. Eight of the nine planets travel in the same almost circular (an actual ellipse) route on a plane (level) relative to the Sun. That is: if you draw a flat ellipse line around the Sun, all of the planets would travel on or about that flat ellipse or plane, except Pluto which does its own thing. Pluto’s plane of travel is substantially tipped on an angle to the common plane of the rest of the planets (about 17°). Since all the planets are traveling in an almost circular pattern, sometimes that travel takes Pluto above and sometimes below the plane of the other planets. Also, Pluto does not have a truly circular orbit. It has a very eccentric ellipse. Not only is its orbit much more oval than the other orbits, but the oval itself is irregular. What do I mean?

Think of a chicken egg. It is considered oval in shape; but notice one end is wider, the other end narrower, elliptical in appearance. In addition, because of its vast distance from the Sun, Pluto takes about 248 years to complete one orbit. Because of the shape of the orbit, elongated, distorted, enormous, Pluto travels through the signs for irregular durations from twelve years in one sign to as much as thirty years in another. Pluto’s orbit is planet-wise furthest out from the Sun, taking Pluto longer than the others to travel one orbit, is more egg-shaped and more tipped in relationship to the other orbits, irregular. In its passage through the signs there is more peculiarity (eccentricity). All of it sounds peculiar. Explain this specific peculiar.

Because of all this, there are times when Pluto is not the most outer of the planets. Pluto actually moves inside Neptune’s orbit for a twenty-year stay once every 248 years. When that shift of position occurs, Pluto appears to be traveling faster than Neptune. Once Pluto has traveled a certain distance in that closer-to-the-Sun part of its orbit, it moves back outside Neptune’s orbit and into normalcy, whatever that is. For those who might be interested, Pluto’s shortest sign travel of twelve years occurs In Scorpio.

While Pluto is within Neptune’s orbit, Pluto is traveling about 2-1/2 times faster than usual. Why would this affect humanity and its pace?
Neptune has charge of vision, imagination, and spiritual development within our solar system.
Pluto has charge of transformation, change by internal upheaval, and regeneration.
With Neptune (vision) traveling normally, which is faster than Pluto (change), vision moves faster than change. Change is occurring, but we can somewhat see where such change is leading.
For the single orbit twenty-year period, when Pluto is traveling faster than Neptune (actually 2-1/2 times its usual pace), change moves faster than vision.

Can you see what this means? We experience change 2-1/2 times faster than usual, but may not be able to clearly see where the changes are leading us. We run pell-mell (fast) through the changes, but without the preliminary vision to set our course. All this gradually increasing at the beginning of that part of a cycle, then gradually decreasing towards the end of that same part. This sped-up pattern runs full speed for at least twelve years (Scorpio) during the cycle, change moving faster than vision. Guess when that twenty-year occurs? (At the time of the original workshop, it was “Now”!) We were in the middle of that period of change which began on January 19, 1979, and continued for twenty years until 1999.

What did that mean? Our life experience increased in both number and tempo, but was not accompanied by the ability to see where such changes were leading. The faster part of the process began in 1983-84 and the overall continued until about 1996. Now you should understand the accelerated pace of the then-current change. What did the faster process of change have to do with karma? The increased speed with which life passes and changes can make life seem random, chaotic, coincidental, and at times purposeless. Is life that way? Or behind the seemingly rapidly-changing events, is there a thread of reason or purpose?

If our lives are a series of random, unrelated occurrences, then hedonism has all the answers: live life in its fullest sensory dimension, think only of yourself and your pleasure, express your free will, think nothing of the future, or of the rights or the effects of your actions on others. Show no concern for tomorrow, for tomorrow may not come. If you see life as random and coincidental, then you must believe in luck, good and bad, and happenstance. If random events are the norm, then there can be no sense of continuity: when you’re dead, you’re dead! There is no afterlife, because there is no secure future in a random universe. The future could as easily become the past without warning. There is no purpose to life or to experience other than the experience itself, which may or may not last. Each event in a random universe can lack continuity, definable shape and evolution, because continual, unrelated movement is the norm. Do you see life and living occurring in that manner? I don’t.

What about the concept of experience based on a patterned, structured universe? Continuity, form, and definition become not only possible, but are the norm. How far do we go to accept this pattern to life? Do we limit this pattern to the comfortable, allowing stability, structure, tradition and responsibility? Do we take the concept so far that all the hairs on our heads are numbered, or all our breaths are counted? Are we predestined on a wheel of life, doomed to play out a locked-in pattern, without possibility of alteration, despite our best intentions and efforts? Taken to the farthest dimension, we are fore-ordained, there is no hope, there is only the possible grace of a merciful God. Can you live with that? I am not comfortable with that reasoning either! Since we live in a world of duality and contrast, the mirroring partner of random is orderly. Let’s look at that contrast more closely.

Visual: Think of a house in an empty field, in a totally random universe. What house? What field? Or for that matter, what universe? All is in motion, without rhythm and purpose. Change itself is the experience, and it leads nowhere in particular. There is no shape or constancy to anything. If constant change were all that was possible, how could you experience any form or structure?

Many think of a universe as either a kaleidoscope, or as dark and / or black: sort of a black trap! If we look at the same house, in the same empty field, in a totally ordered universe, it would remain static and unchanged. A universe patterned completely on order would have no possibility of movement. It could not change or be changed. In a pristine “Snow White” orderly universe, the house itself could not exist because it would interrupt the flat, probably white view of sheer existence.

Are you flawless and pristine? Are all your actions correct? Are you God-like in all you are and do? NO! Or at least I am not! This sounds like a white trap to me, similar to, but different from the black trap. If you see life as purposeful rather than random; if you see synchronicity and pattern at times, despite at times chaotic appearance around you, then there can be no accidents. People cannot die before their time; or succeed or fail where not earned. Negative relationships or experiences are not mistakes on our part. Positive relationships or experiences are also not good luck! Order and movement co-exist for us to experience. Why?

Movement without purpose or form are only half the equation of living. We spiritually experience this contrast between the Lords of Light or Law, or the Spirits of Chaos, as well as other contrasts. How can we experience light without darkness, or up without down, or yes without no, happiness without sorrow. We can’t. For us to experience, we must have the contrast. We must have form, definition, continuity, purpose, and we must also have movement, chance, and free will. Both concepts have individual value. To me, together they form what I call life! What we must not do is confuse ourselves by flitting in and out of the diametric opposite concepts, as we can see purpose and reason for both.

What we call God: Creator, Supreme Intelligence (you choose the label), created the manifest universe as we experience it, out of itself, out of the substance of its own being. Do you believe that the Creator would create something out of the substance of itself… and then allow those minute portions of itself to die, to enter non-existence one piece at a time? Just how intelligent an activity is that? Or did the Creator create out of its own substance and experience, that which can change? Such creation is made of the life force of the Creator, which cannot die. If this spark of God has eternity in which to grow, develop and become, do you believe one specific lifetime experience is all there is? Can you deny the possibility of that life spark having a past, predating this birth? Can you deny a future extending beyond the physical death of this particular form? Do the actions of the past, the present and the future interact?

Are all men and women created equal? Do you see a clone-like state of intelligence, capacity, motivation, physique, opportunity, and so forth? Suppose a man is born black in a remote tribe, half-starved, primitive, perhaps abandoned. Does such a man have equal potential for “success” and evolvement as an Anglo-Saxon born in a privileged, cultural society, well-fed and educated, supported to some degree by the existing system? Is this equal in your eyes? Redo that scenario as a woman’s experience. Is the seeming inequality the act of a capricious God and Intelligence that creates and supports such blatant favoritism?

If there is more to the continuity of that God-spark we call our spirit or soul, more than this fleeting personality or experience, then it is possible that in time the opportunities experienced by one consciousness can equal the realizations of other consciousnesses to do so. Each consciousness would require a full range of experience and opportunity. This appears to require time, and therefore implies multiple existences.

There is no rule that I have encountered that such multiple existences must all be physical, earthly experiences. I’m sure in this vast universe that other possibilities exist. If such multiplicity of experience exists, are such experiences all perfect and whole in themselves, but unconnected, therefore suggesting a lack of continuity? Or are these experiences partial, incomplete, sometimes negative or sometimes positive? Are they connected in some fashion, therefore possibly continuous? Such a continuous pattern suggests that one experience may have an influence on another experience. Perhaps it is a continuation of an incomplete experience, an opportunity to perform more positively than a prior attempt. Perhaps it is an eye for an eye to exact justice. Or perhaps a balancing of the scales. Perhaps it is an exploration into various avenues to accomplish a single purpose or lesson. A mutually agreed upon relationship, a respite from a tough round, a reward for a job well done, a step of initiation into a higher order of realization, and so forth. As a spiritual being developed in the image and likeness of the Creator, you have been: past, you are now: present, you evermore shall be: future or eternity. You are Spirit.

Your soul uses the physical incarnation process, as well as other means I’m sure, to develop itself and its knowledge through experience. The state of your soul’s development and the abilities and talents already developed by the soul through experience, are the psychic and physical genetic equipment you as an individual possess. There are no freebies in the universe. Everything is earned or deserved. One way or another, all that you have ever been conditions your now. All that you wish to become also conditions your here and now, since we are constantly in the state of becoming. If there were only a dead-end to achieve, what would be the purpose of life? It is therefore important to recognize that patterning from previous experience, plus our intent for development now, molds our current experience.

One of the first axioms a student of metaphysics learns is that for everything which exists on the visible plane there is a non-physical form from which it is derived, the idea behind the thing. If the invisible idea did not exist, the visible manifestation could not exist. If the physical counterpart to the idea should cease to exist, that invisible idea can create anew. For example, many snapshots can be created from a photographic negative. Think of your spirit as a photographic negative able to create anew your physical experience. Since our spirit is the creative spark of God and is inherently God-like and creative, it may recreate its image anew identically: a cloning, or perhaps even non-identically, and as many times it chooses. Also, a photographic negative may be altered even on our human level. Now that we have set a foundation, let’s take a look at karma.

So just what is karma? In the west, Karma as a concept is largely misunderstood and misapplied. Most of the world’s major religions or philosophical teachings recognize the law of cause and effect. This is known in eastern circles as karma. Physics states every action has an equal but opposite reaction. Same concept. The Bible states, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Eastern philosophy, from which the word karma was taken, sees life as a gigantic wheel with all things in continual rotation. The goal of life is to rid yourself of karmic residue through experience and awareness of your actions. Another method is to elevate your consciousness to the degree that you are no longer karmically bound to the wheel.

Whatever you do or don’t do, there is a result to your action. Think about this life, with all its choices, as spread out before you. Think of your individual life as a path stretching behind you into the mist (your past), as you face those potential choices for the future (also a mist). You choose the next step, and millions of possible futures are eliminated. You commit to that step and to the consequences of that step. And again, life with all its choices spreads out before you. Again, you make a choice that opens the next step on your path and its consequence; and you eliminate millions of other choices. You can do this repeatedly, throughout your life. You take a step, experience the results of that step, and eliminate (move beyond) all other possibilities.

If at all, rarely can we change our mind or step back to try another path. I’ve had students ask, “What if I don’t choose? What if I stand still, or don’t get involved, or refuse to play the game?” Sorry, the game still goes on. You can be a proactive participant, making conscious choices regardless of where those choices take you. Or, you can try to stand on the sidelines, passive or reactive, avoiding choices, allowing life to make your choices for you. I think that’s called being a victim. To refuse to play is a choice of sorts, and you are bound by the results of your refusal to play. Life and experience will continue, and your life will be a result of the position you’ve taken, whether that be self-chosen or chosen for you. Passively or actively, you get to play the game anyway, even when you think you’ve chosen to stay on the sidelines. Why? Because the game of life continues and includes you in its process.

We are a result of our past choices. We are also currently making choices that will affect our future. Karma is simply the law of cause and effect. What you have sown, you’ll reap the reaction of life from both your passive or active choices. In the modern vernacular, “What goes around, comes around!”

Is all karma bad? Is karma positive or negative? I think that’s a judgment call, which depends on your perspective. For example, delivering food to a starving person should be considered a positive activity. Here the old adage “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” comes into play. What if the food delivered were considered culturally or spiritually “unclean”. Would the starving person consider that food a positive gift? Or a negative temptation? What if the person in the depths of hunger chose to eat the food given, despite its cultural or religious overtones. When one is hungry enough, the alternative doesn’t work. How might they handle the knowledge of their personal betrayal of their beliefs? They might see the whole process as negative, including their original hunger. Your intended gift and their consumption of forbidden food was a lesson.

When we are having experiences that we define as negative, we tend to call this bad karma. Unfortunately, in our ignorance of the process, we have come to believe that all karma is bad. Some of the results of our activities can be rewarding and the resulting experiences pleasant. Both are karma in action. Again, karma is a consequence, which may turn out to be pleasant or unpleasant, which in turn depends upon your individual perspective. Karma underlies and shapes our personalities and physical lives the way a living hand underlies and shapes a glove. Without the animating force, the glove is lifeless and inert. Karma explains the why of our lives, the invisible shaping force behind the manifestation of our personalities.

Your personality out pictures your soul at its current stage of development and intent. What you know as your soul is a temporary end product, the result of its many previous experiences. Your life is a result of what you as an evolving consciousness have set into manifestation through eons of time. Soul is continually changed and hopefully uplifted with each experience. Karma is neither good nor bad, it simply is a result.

Karma can, by virtue of the need to balance or discharge itself, become causative. Our spirit desires to know intimately its own nature through experience and drives both our soul and our personality into experience. This can occur even when our personalities are clinging to the safe places or the knowns with symbolic psychic fingernails. Have you ever noticed how experience happens anyway? And that sometimes we go kicking and screaming?

Past, present and future: Your current lifetime is the crystallization of the state of consciousness you had attained at the moment of your birth, conditioned by your residual karma and your soul’s intent for continuing development. Did you really believe this current personality and life is all you are, all you have ever been, and all you will ever become? Should we dwell in the past to work out those patterns? If you can learn from your past, you should do so, or you may be doomed to repeat the error. The universe has all the time it needs to teach you whatever you need to learn. Can you fully change anything that has already occurred? I doubt it. Perhaps it may be modified by emerging realization.

My suggestion is that rummaging around in your past should be purposeful and specific. You never know what you are going to dig up! Should you do this, I suggest you have a person who is qualified to handle whatever is encountered during such psychic and psychological rummaging. It is possible to encounter experiences and relationships which are painful and traumatizing, both physical and non-physical. Whether that helper be psychic or psychological, choose wisely.

Can and should we focus on the future in order to foreordain the experience? If you dwell on the future to the exclusion of the now, you will waste your present, the time when your specific actions influence all your futures. Of course, you could have a game plan for some of your activities, especially those that will take time to develop. But you should also be aware that today’s actions and reactions are tomorrow’s memories. To be truly successful, we must live in the now. We must learn to be aware of our past as it has conditioned our present and will condition our future. We must also be aware that our present actions, behaviors and attitudes will to some degree condition or determine our future. We must live in the now, fully awake and aware of our responsibility to live in the now, because now is all we can truly control or experience. Karmic patterns, which we are in the process of forming or setting into motion, are called Dharma. I think of it as a “seeding”. Remember, to dwell completely in the past or the future is to forsake your now.

The Laws of Being Did we have laws in the primitive world? Original law appears to have been natural, mostly determined by environmental circumstance. Moral or ethical law was nonexistent, it developed through experience. As man struggled for survival, and in the karmic residue in a hostile environment, might was right. Personal need fueled and fired action and reaction.

As man developed a sense of community, the need to recognize the rights of others and the rights of the group emerged. No longer was a member of a community able to act spontaneously and individually in all instances. There were others involved, in or by his actions. In at least some of these instances, the rights of other family members or the tribe had to be considered. Over time, the primitive culture began to evolve into a society, requiring more concessions to individual rights, to make the collective more workable. The laws were enacted to bring about fairness to prevent victimization or ruthless intrusion into the rights and lives of others, to protect the innocent from those society deemed less scrupulous as society became more complex. Rules became more numerous with more exceptions than rules. Arbitrators became necessary to sort through the morass of laws society was creating, especially at those moments when one rule conflicted with another rule. Not everybody had knowledge of all of the rules.

Eventually there emerged a group who made it a specialty to understand and apply those various laws. They also began writing the laws in a more complex manner, in the language of “legalese”. And as with all segments of society, some learned how to circumvent those laws (loopholes). In our miscellaneous world court systems, law is supposedly interpreted word for word, letter by letter, including any injustices or loopholes in the wording or structure of the law. This is what criminals and their attorneys rely upon to circumvent the exercise of those checks and balances in human behavior adapted by the human community. This is called interpreting, judging, and executing to the letter of the law. (2025: Boy, are we learning this lesson right now!)

Our subject for this lesson is karma. Is karma like this practice of the law, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the letter of the law? Do we have to repay our excesses, our inadequacies, our injustices, or all of our imbalances in kind? If we are insensitive in one lifetime, must we be subjected to insensitivity in another? If we are bigoted and prejudiced here, must we experience bigotry and prejudice there? If we killed then, must we be killed now?

For the purpose of a law as described above, why would laws be conceived and enacted? If a law is enacted to prevent me from intruding on your rights, does it make sense that I use a loophole in the legal wording to eliminate my responsibility for my actions? If I am allowed to do that, if I am not stopped in my continuing actions, I am instead rewarded for my illegal, immoral, or unethical behavior. If I am allowed to do so, I have not only broken the law protecting your rights; but have been given tacit approval by the system to continue to do so. More importantly, the victim is again victimized, this time by the flawed system.

At this time (2025), there is a great deal of controversy about victim’s rights. That is because we somehow have forgotten that the purpose behind the law is to protect the innocent, and we have gotten hung up in the wording of the law. Is karma the letter of the law? Or, is karma the spirit of the law, the principle behind the lesson itself? Should we judge or weigh an action by the fine print or the intent? 1st Corinthian 13 reads, “If I bestow all my goods, and have not love in my heart, I gain nothing” (paraphrased). I chose to apply that phrase to the principle question in this circumstance. I interpret that phrase to imply that if I satisfy the letter of the law and I do not do it in the right spirit, which is unconditional love, then I have achieved nothing.

If the purpose of cause and effect is to teach us and to make us aware, then the grasp of the principle behind the experience IS the lesson. If instead we have to pay off our karma in kind, we are in a bit of trouble, aren’t we? Metaphysically it is believed, and is a collective opinion, that the lesson is more important than the word-for-word definition, because words and their understanding are relative to the role of the participant.

Needless to say, I’m a proponent of the spirit of the law rather than the letter. This doesn’t make me right – it is merely my opinion. We cannot escape the consequences of our actions, whether I encounter those results immediately after my action or later in my experience, perhaps even in a later lifetime. I, as a consciousness, will reap those results because the lesson is mine. This should make you pause, reflect, and reconsider those actions you contemplate. Do you really want to own the results? Now or in the future? Fully aware or surprised?

People use karma as a cop out, an excuse to avoid blame or to actively participate. Ooohh, I must do or not do this action, experience, relationship, and so forth. It’s my karma… as if they have no conscious choice or participation in their own lives. We are not here to play victims to ourselves, to others, to some imaginary karmic board in the sky, or to a vengeful God. What we are here to do is to learn to experience and to grow. How will we ever become conscious co-creators with God unless we accept responsibility for our own lives?

Is karma my whole life? Is every relationship, activity or experience governed by our past or our future? Is there no input from the here and now experience? Hindu religious cultures have a strong fatalistic or pre-deterministic attitude towards a life experience. You are born into a caste, a type of experience. There is no escape from the wheel of rebirth. Only those who reach Nirvana ever escape. Think of how this attitude would shape all your thoughts.

Western culture, that which conditions our western thinking, emphasizes free will and self-determinism. It is difficult for an eastern mind to understand free will, believing that it is self-delusion. It is just as difficult for a western mind to grasp that the life could be totally foreordained, as noted in the early part of this lesson. It would be difficult to exist in these either / or situations, somewhat like a pendulum swinging first to one side and then to the other. Life is lived and balance is achieved somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

Karma implies continuity: past, present, and future, life’s ongoing oneness. Karma implies an opportunity for an eventual balance and equality achieved through multiple experiences. Karma implies the absolute need to be responsible and aware of all your actions and consequences; to live your life fully awake and fully consciousness. If I do all or most of my current actions awake, aware, alert, responsible, and conscious, then I should eventually create positive karmic responses. I will not only pay back or balance any karmic indebtedness, but I will perhaps store up some treasures in heaven, or create karmic consequences I will enjoy, feel blessed by, or lucky about.

And now for the wider perspective. We have looked at the possibility of karma in terms of our personal evolution. Is karma strictly personal or can it be applied on a wider basis? Let’s look at collective or group karma next. As a member of the human race, am I personally or perhaps proportionately responsible for its collective karmic behavior, cause, and consequence? This is like being a little bit pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. Either I am karmically responsible, or I am not. If I am a little bit, I am. This is an enormous implication. I am personally responsible for the collective karma of the human race? Mind boggling! All that has gone before, is now, and evermore shall be? Even more mind boggling! The implied burden is overwhelming in concept.

There must be a way or a better answer than what I’m examining! The bridge looks like a good alternative at this point. I could place my trust in a superior force or God, who hopefully keeps my proportion in mind. Such God may demand obeisance or face its wrath. Or perhaps it’s a benign God, like a forgiving parent. Perhaps I should place my trust in a superior savior figure, who by grace of their sacrifice intercedes on my personal behalf. I must do nothing but believe. Or, in worship I could place my faith in myself and the God within to become wise, so that I may walk the way of man, but be within the heart of God.

Supposedly God never gives us more than we can handle. I should know that I can do the task before me no matter how enormous it seems. I should know that I will always be guided by my own spiritual intentions or by higher awarenesses. To act each day in every way to the best of my ability is all that can be asked. I must remember that we as humanity are in this together and there’s no individual escape. We either all get out of it, go on with it, or grow up collectively, or we don’t. Sink or swim. I choose not to sink, so I must swim.

As people come to collective conscious awareness, they realized the importance of this collective sense. So, do we drag this albatross of dead weight or baggage of human kingdom karma with us? Do we have to spiritually awaken each and every individual of the approximately 5 billion persons alive at this time (8.2 billion in 2025) on our globe? How long will it take to clean up our collective karma? Is this the way to go about it? It doesn’t seem too probable! Is it an eye for an eye? More trouble. Or is awareness the key? Again, the letter or the spirit? For example, I am a female descendant of three countries, Caucasian, Christian from a state in the United States, and so forth. Each of these supposed divisions carry a cultural and karmic implication. With that previous sentence I have implied collective species karma as a human, sexual or physical karma as a female, sociological karma as an Anglo-Saxon, religious karma as a Christian, ethnic karma as a countryman, cultural karma as an American and state karma, and there might be more!

Family: We can also get into family patterns and their potential karmic patterns. Note the similarity of patterns and experiences in families. Do you suppose there is some continuing thread of experience weaving families together? Perhaps they have karmic patterns or karmic residue to workout with one another, positive or negative? Perhaps they’ve banded together to experience a similar karmic experience. This might be readily shown by comparing the astrological charts of family members. Perhaps they believe that there is strength in numbers, and that they may be better able to see it in their karmic evolution as a member of a collective.

We transport ourselves across continents, countries and states and involve ourselves in other karmic patterns. This is way too much to absorb. At some deep level I can know I am connected and therefore somewhat responsible. However, at this conscious level the concept of all this potential karma is overwhelming, and I can be defeated before I begin… unless there is another way, again, the letter or the spirit.

Ken Keyes tells the story of the 100th monkey. The setting is a group of islands populated by monkeys. Man comes to the islands planting some sweet potato crops, underground tubers. Even though a new food source was introduced, the monkeys would not eat the potatoes, as the food was dirty. A child monkey on one of the islands washes and eats the new food, and excitedly tries to teach the community to wash the potatoes. Instant and total rejection! So, the child teaches the other child monkeys, who in turn teach their own parents. At some point in the experience referred to as the 100th monkey concept, a shift in consciousness occurs in the monkey population. All the monkeys instinctively know to wash this new food, so it can be eaten. A simple enough story, but with a twist. At the point of a shift in consciousness, all the monkeys on all the islands, experience the awareness to wash the new food, even though there is no physical interchange between the islands. The monkeys did not build and row boats to exchange gossip. The analogy of this story is that if a certain number of humans elevate their awareness, all humans can experience a shift in consciousness. That offers hope rather than a feeling of being overwhelmed.

Relationships: What about relationship karma, which is possibly the most difficult thing we do? It has the greatest potential of satisfaction, and that is to relate to one another. We are not islands. We seek union with one another on all levels. Sometimes our needs and desires drive us into inappropriate relationships. That which we believed to be uplifting and fulfilling becomes stagnant, destructive, limiting, disillusioning, or bitter. It is important to hold in mind that all experience has purpose in any orderly and rhythmic universe. Chaos and coincidence can occur in a random universe.

Too often karma is blamed for our inappropriate or painful relationships. Just as often, karma is at work in our relationships. If you and I have encountered each other in several experiences, it is only natural that we would be drawn together in a subsequent experience. We are simpatico. The vibes are right. If we have benefited, grown, or enjoyed those prior experiences, we will be comfortable with one another. If we have been victimized or betrayed, or if we have done some victimization or betrayal in those prior experiences, we will be uncomfortable with the current encounter. We may instinctively know each other, while objective reality tells us we’ve only just met. Karmic seeds have been sown, perhaps in multiple prior experience. Just as reaction follows action, those seeds shall sprout, perhaps in our current lives.

I personally know of two methods to determine the potential of past association karmic patterns and possible soulmate ties.

Method #1 would utiize past life regression and / or therapy by either hypnotic or non-hypnotic methods. I have done both; they are very similar in effect. Nothing teaches like a personal experience. This can require time and effort, but it is possible. If you encounter a good self-induced method or a good regressionist, you can develop very detailed, accurate, and helpful information. This can eventually aid you in your personal development and in understanding past associations or karmic implications that affect current relationships. I do wish to interject a note of caution. While past life therapy can aid you greatly as a purposeful exercise, it is not good to randomly activate old memories. You never know what you’ll stir up! Purposeful regression can help you understand or clear up karmic debris. It may take some effort and time, but it can be done.

This life you are experiencing should keep you occupied, and that’s where your primary attention should be. A life well-lived in the now provides you with wonderful memories and excellent karmic implications for your future experience. You are always in the becoming.

Akashic Records: Whenever we encounter this area of memory or psychic residue, we are encountering Akasha, the memory of what was, is now, and evermore shall be. An Akashic Record exists for each individual: incarnation by incarnation. The collective Akashic Records contain all those individual records, as well as the group or species record and the earth record, etc. And yes, earth is a living entity; and Akasha is also its universal record. All life and experience is held within Akasha. A good Akashic Record reader is able to “read” those records. It is also questioned that Akasha contains the potential for the future, which can also be read individually. And collectively? We tap into this information during our regression work. Our past life memory can sometimes be vague and elusive, and at other times stark, vivid, and specific.

The Barbra Streisand / Yves Montand movie On a Clear Day briefly explores the potential future memory. If you ever get an opportunity to watch it, do so. It is entertaining and informative. We should travel knowledgeably and consciously into those records as we may face some surprises. Having a talented guide does help.

Earth is a big schoolhouse and we’re all in school, as I tell my students. Think of the photographs taken of earth by our astronauts in outer space. A huge blue / white ball hanging in an inky black sky. Perch a little red schoolhouse roof on one corner and you have the picture. Learn to look at your life and your experience as an observer. Look at what you’re learning. What is the purpose behind your experiences? Claim your experience (even though you may not like them all) as purposeful, meaningful, and as belonging to you. Know that, at some point or on some level, you are working through a pattern that is yours, whether it be from this lifetime or another.

Method #2: I said I knew two methods to explore karmic influence on your life – the second method is Astrology. The subjects would be karmic relationships such as Soulmates and Twin Souls. This requires that you develop this astrological skill, way beyond the scope of this article. Please refer to my Karmic Astrology workbook (marilynmuir.net) for instructions on how to construct and read natal and progressed karmic charts, and how to determine karmically influenced relationships and activations. Be prepared to invest the time necessary to learn the skill.

Conclusion: We’ve covered a great many concepts in this lesson. Please go back and take it one section at a time, study each thoroughly, give each some thought, and then proceed to your homework to help you capsulize what you learned and accepted. Each of us is an individual and unique. We may not agree on every point. You may have other reasoning.

Homework: For aiding your progress, base your thoughts on the general discussion, as well as your own personal belief system and prior study.

(2025: Do the homework as an exercise to complete this lesson. It is no longer possible for me to respond to my students. I hope you’ve enjoyed this lesson and this discussion, and that it has stimulated your thought. Remember my intention is to get you TO think, not to tell you what to think. Thank you for allowing me into your life.)

Is karma real or imaginary to you? Remember, there is no right or wrong, there is only concept and discussion.
If your conclusion is that karma is real, then relate this lesson to your own life, and seek to apply the principles we discussed. Give an example of the various forms of karma as applied to your personal circumstance.
If your conclusion is that karma is imaginary, give thought to develop and explain your own concept, replacing that of karma.
If your conclusion is that karma is real, but not in the manner as given, explain your alternative concept. I love to learn, and I can learn from you as well as you can learn from me.
What about collective karma? If you can relate to specific examples in your own life, discuss them briefly.
And lastly, in your own words, what is Akasha?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.