Karma. A perspective that’s helpful for us living NOW, in the Age of Awakening
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Karma. Made spiritual but not religious by the Founder of Energy Spirituality®.
How can this ancient concept help you today? And tomorrow!
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So Many Others Have Written on Karma
Why Add More?
Buddhists. Hindus. Sikhs. New Agers. So many experts associated with religion and spirituality have written about this ancient topic. But Karma-wise, I thought there was the need for something more.
Specifically, I felt the need for straight talk, practical talk. Perhaps even a perspective that was spiritual but not religious.
The word “Karma” comes from deep in the Age of Faith. Seems to me, far too many (dusty, antique) bells and whistles are attached.
Therefore, I’m offering you an article that aims to tell truth without being religious. Moreover our conversation here about Karma will be grounded in the time when we live, the still newish, widely-misunderstood, Age of Awakening.
What Does “Karma” Mean? With All Due Respect,
What You Know Is Probably Wrong.
Ever hear this definition? Karma means that you receive consequences for every thought, word, and action.
Sadly, that’s an outdated-and-constricting notion. (Despite my giving all due respect to folks at least 100-years deep into the Age of Faith.)
Despite what you may have been told from outdated beliefs, pre-Age of Awakening...
Your thoughts are private. As the great Traditional Enlightenment teacher Paramahansa Yogananda wrote in one of his books:
“Even Almighty God does not enter without permission into the sanctuary of the human mind and heart.”
At least, that’s my paraphrase. Yogananda’s idea sure is worth pondering, isn’t it?
In Truth, We’re Only Responsible for
What We Say and Do
Such an important distinction!
Of course, life in the Age of Faith was about total surrender to God. Therefore, plenty of old-time religions included a similar belief. (Horrific in its implications.) Supposedly God was totally in your business. Totally privy to your innermost thoughts and feelings.
Well, that was then.
By contrast, what’s life about NOW, in the Age of Awakening? In the opinion of this Enlightenment Teacher:
Life now is about:
- Consciousness
- Learning
- And the use of free will
Notably, ideas about Karma make new sense in this context: We’re responsible for what we say and do. That’s plenty.
Never Use Belief in Karma
As an Excuse
Another way that many people have it wrong: Passively thinking — about anything — “I can’t change anything. That’s just my meant-to-be.”
Ironically…. using the concept of Karma to support surrendering to fate? Of all the ways to create terrible Karma for yourself!
Instead, “Do not go gentle into that good night.“ Or any other version of death, as though limitations were ironclad-inescapable. Far better?
- Acknowledge reality.
- Add creativity.
- Stir. ;-)
Keep reading to learn how you can actually draw strength from contemporary understanding of Karma.
Karma-Related Inspiration #1.
Life IS Fair
Consequences of our actions can take lifetimes to reach us. But reach us they will.
Thus, no act of kindness or compassion is ever wasted. No hard work, either.
However, the why behind our actions is built into karmic consequences. Today, too many of us learn-and-do things (which is good) in the cause of vanity. Or pursuing fame. (Either of which will tarnish the karmic consequence we experience later.)
All the more reason to set worthy goals in life, right? And then pursue them in an honorable manner.
Karma-Related Inspiration #2.
Your Good Choices DO Bring Results… Eventually
Even if not on your schedule. So don’t merely avoid karmic fatalism.
Keep finding ways to solve problems.
And please take it from this experienced practitioner of Soul Energy Awakening Hypnosis®. Specifically, that’s the form of past-life regression that I used until the Pandemic. Your soul will never forget what you say and do in these lifetimes.
So, keep on doing your reasonable best in life. Karma will reach you. For example, imagine a hardworking musician who finds success impossible. Maybe toils away in a similar manner for one lifetime after another. And then is born as a world-renowned musical prodigy!
(What else explains the prodigy phenomenon?)
Karma-Related Inspiration #3.
Karma Means that Bad Actors Won’t Get Away with It
Trust that!
Best of all, you and I don’t have to wait around, waiting to see justice prevail. What a waste of our time! For instance, whoever is your most disliked person in politics… Can that person get away with any of it? Absolutely not.
It might take many hellacious lifetimes for that trump — or whoever — to pay back all those misdeeds. So that’s a good thing; we won’t have to stick around to watch every dismal human moment.
About Returning Karma
In the thousands of comments that have been developing at this blogpost, one of the biggest Aha!s for me has been the topic of Returning Karma.
Occasionally you’ll find references to it in the comments that follow. I’m adding this mention on Feb. 25, 2024. When, for instance, I’ve written about the consoling power of understanding Returning Karma. See Comments #5888-5899 at the version of this article at my personal blog.
An Interesting New Development
Does Karma End with Spiritual Enlightenment?
On July 26, 2025, I was in session with “Sam.” While cocreating an aura reading centerpiece, I found that it was important to tell Sam something that seemed obvious to me.
Only it wasn’t the least bit obvious to Sam. That’s why I decided to publish the following. For a relatively small number of you readers, this newly published information may make a big difference.
You see, about some of my clients who are now living in Age of Awakening Enlightenment … A small number of them have had one or more previous incarnations when they lived in Traditional Enlightenment. Also, a few of them even — prior to this incarnation — were serving as archangels.
Trust me, I have good reason to know about these magnificent people.
So What’s the Point Here, Related to Karma?
In session with Sam, I pointed out something that might be helpful to some of you Wisdom Seekers—if you have good reason to know that, prior to this incarnation, you lived in Spiritual Enlightenment. And preferably, this has been validated by your Enlightenment Coach.
In general, more evolved souls have progressively more input into their next Life Contract compared, say, to baby souls.
According to traditional teachings from Hinduism, which I learned during the many years I served as a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation Program, studying avidly with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, I learned the following precepts. (Precepts I also learned from studying other writings by Paramahansa Yogananda.)
Traditionally:
#1. After attaining Traditional Enlightenment, a soul does not return to human embodiment on Earth.
#2. After attaining Traditional Enlightenment, a soul has no further Karma. Any additional, minor, bits of Karma would flow to that person’s closest blood relatives.
Yet Now, in the Age of Awakening
Karma can be understood with more clarity now. With the Psychic Barrier gone and the many changes that have come to Earth life. Now that humanity is living in the Second Consciousness Era on Earth. Based on experience with some of my Energy Spirituality® students and clients, I’ve known for years that:
#1. After attaining Traditional Enlightenment, a soul can return to human embodiment on Earth. A small number of my clients have lived in Enlightenment and, afterward, incarnated many times since.
#2. After attaining Traditional Enlightenment, a soul may have no further Karma. Yet that soul can volunteer for certain kinds of learning experiencein this lifetime: equivalent to Karma although different in origin.
Okay, All That Was a Lot You Likely Never Considered about Karma
Now It’s Your Turn to Respond, Wisdom Seekers
Can you remember when you first learned about Karma?
What do you believe now about Karmic ideas?
And do your current beliefs help you to live as a good person? True for me. How about you!
The point here is to reach more customers than ever. Only, if it’s an empath “expert,” hello! That would be a service, not a product. This kind of service is way personal, isn’t it?
And that service could fail to help empaths to any significant degree. Moreover, that service could leave the questing empath in worse shape than ever.
Business Context: Either Sam makes more money from his approach or he doesn’t. Whatever! People are just income streams to Sam, in a business sense.
Spiritual Context Related to Karma: If Sam succeeds in his branding exercise, let’s say he persuades unskilled empaths to get all enthusiastic about Pop Psychology, which is what he’s really offering them.
Spiritually this isn’t just increasing market share but bringing people into the Pop Psych auditorium through the back door, a sneaky kind of conversion tactic.
A different kind of Returning Karma is likely. (I’m only speculating, of course, not predicting about Hypothetical Sam.) But . . .
Regarding Returning Karma for Sam, suppose that he’s looking for women to date so he joins a group where — in a future incarnation — they’re adults who like to play their society’s version of Checkers.
Sam finds a Checkers Club and assumes that the point of joining is to make friends with people who like to play Checkers. But noooooooooo.
All the people he meets are secretly members of a political cult, who try to recruit him to become a spy.
Preposterous example, I hope, but the point is this.
By using people for his business purposes, by manipulating them to do something they never planned to do, Sam could be generating bad Karma about also being deceived and manipulated.
Thanks for asking, KENDRA. I look forward to ideas that you and other Blog-Buddies may have about “It’s only business” as an approach to developing an “empath enterprise” in order to make money and influence people, etc.
Thank you for answering my question, Rose.
The possible outcomes and Returning Karma were really eye-opening.
I hadn’t drawn a connection with business language or context from my question. I can see now how it could possibly be used as a way of to try and introduce a different set of ethics or priorities.
But the outcomes for the people on the other side of those subpar empath teachings doesn’t change because it’s been put into business language.
And the potential Returning Karma for the so-called “experts” selling themselves as Empath Teachers doesn’t change either.
Points well taken, KENDRA!
I have some client sessions coming up this afternoon. When I have a chance I will be delighted to respond to your thought provoking comments.
I hadn’t drawn a connection with business language or context from my question. I can see now how it could possibly be used as a way of to try and introduce a different set of ethics or priorities.
Exactly. To some, “It’s just business.”
Not to us. Ever. Idealists like us work to help people as best we can. We earn that living.
Just yesterday I researched an interesting “empath teacher.” Amy Baack, is the author of “What It Means To Be An Empath”. Read about her — and, sadly, her lack of standing to teach empaths — at Comments #795-853.
One thing that really leapt out at me from reading her work is that she describes herself as “ambitious” and she is trying hard to market her services to people who are “ambitious.”
It’s just a short hop from that, surely, to “I’ll teach whatever people will buy, and tell them whatever will impress them. Whether true or not. Since it’s only business.”
About the Returning Karma from such shenanegans? I suspect is for the Future Incarnated person to approach experts in good faith, or enter into a love relationship in good faith, and then discover that he or she was just being used.
You know. Because, to the other person, “It is only business.”
But the outcomes for the people on the other side of those subpar empath teachings doesn’t change because it’s been put into business language.
Exactly, KENDRA. So Returning Karma is probably quite straightforward, multiplied by how many people have been snookered.
Trusting that another person is on the level. Then, being cheated.
Thank you, KENDRA, for advancing our Karma conversation.
These days what do empaths need to be protected from most? Hands down, it’s empath writers and teachers who don’t know what an empath even is.
Instead they’re using the word “empath” to mean a psychic, like missionaries who want to turn all people who feel the least bit intuitive into students for life of psychic development.
Sometimes they call this kind of work “spiritual” too.
Obviously I’ve been avidly following our new popular post “Can That Empath Teacher REALLY Help You?”
Almost always the answer is no. The empath “experts” shown here are a disgrace as psychic. Or as pop psychology guides. Even the Celtic witch who had her own unhelpful kind of teaching for empaths.
Far as I can tell they don’t help readers except to confuse them. I happen to think that confusing people who are looking for help as empaths is a spiritual crime.
I wonder what the karma is for these dreadful empath “experts”?
Thanks for asking about Karma here, MARTY.
One thing all of us know by now, at least if we’ve been reading at this comment conversation about clueless “experts,” is that the degree of honesty is not like what we’re used to here at the Energy Spirituality® Blog.
I don’t plan on doing this kind of research forever. It kinda feels like forever, reading books and articles by “empaths” who aren’t empaths.
Still, it is educational, isn’t it, MARTY and other Blog-Buddies?
So far only 2 out of the 33 empath writers that I’ve researched ARE actually empaths.
* Some may purposely attempt to deceive readers. Here I think of Sarah K. Grace. You can read about her at Comments #1,726-1,777.
* Most strike me as careless thinkers, who are simply going along with the crowd.
When they researched “empath” they probably saw the title of at least one of my Empath Empowerment® books, but they didn’t have enough respect for what a trademark means to find out what I have to offer. For whatever reason.
Finally, a few of the empath authors I’ve encountered so far seem to me to have significant mental health problems. In which case they may not receive much bad Karma for their articles and books, however unhelpful.
Before I get to Karma for the authors are in the category of Lazy Thinkers and, following that, those in the the category of Purposefully Deceitful, how about a little upliftment?
I would like to give a shoutout to the one of the empath “expert” authors I have liked and respected a great deal: Laura Chan. Author of, “Are You an Empath? Learn How to Turn Your Sensitivity Into Your Strength.”
If you see Comments #1,105-1,188 – ah! That is, over at, “Can That Empath Teacher REALLY Help You?” – then I think you will appreciate why I feel so much affection and respect for Laura Chan.
If you read about her bio at that blogpost, you’ll see that she has worked really hard to earn credentials in mind-body-spirit healing. Worked really, really, hard!
She hasn’t had the Karma to find this founder of Energy Spirituality® on her own. (That’s how I think of it.)
You know, regarding those of you who have managed to find your way to any of the Energy Spirituality specialties at this website? IMO, you have some pretty great Karma.
Side note:
Have any of you searched on “Empath Empowerment”? I’ve had to, in order to find authors for the research project into empath “experts.” Well, if you do that kind of searching, everywhere you look, what will you find?
Advertising. A great deal of advertising.
Expensive advertising on Amazon, for instance.
Which authors advertise the most, advertising as if they were actually empath “experts”? Judith Orloff and Judy Dyer. (Orloff was, but lost that long ago, when she moved into Extreme Spiritual Addiction. While Judy Dyer has also been living in Extreme Spiritual Addiction, and she has curated her photos online so I can’t find a single one to research before she moved into that consciousness lifstyle.)
Ads by these non-empaths show up prominently. But not ads about Rose Rosetree’s books. Readers can find me. However, my policy is not to advertise. (Maybe you’ve noticed.)
I did contact author Laura Chan through an email, after writing as I did at “Can that Empath Teacher REALLY Help You?” I introduced myself and Empath Empowerment®, inviting her to read my comments about her approach.
Her response was gracious and respectful. I hope some day we meet again.
Actually, I have contacted some of the other empath “experts” too. Ones I thought might want to know what I wrote about their empath work. I reached out in a respectful way. But Laura Chan is the only one who got back to me.
Why bother to do this outreach? So I wouldn’t be totally “talking behind their backs,” although if any of these authors get Google Alerts on their names, they’ll be notified about all online writing about them.
Now, to answer your question, MARTY.
In Comment #6427.
First, here are my thoughts on the possible Karma for the authors are in the category of Lazy Thinkers.
Following that, I’ll do the same regarding those in the the category of Purposefully Deceitful.
As always, at this Karma blogpost, I am sharing ideas as I sit here in my pink office, cocreating with a Divine Being. I don’t presume to know for sure, but there are some general points that are worth making.
Possible Karma for the empath authors who are in the category of Lazy Thinkers.
Many people now are writing about empaths as though it is a wonderful new way to publish about the “great work” they can do as pop psychologists. Teaching about how to apply boundary work, etc., to the empath market.
It is my understanding that, since we live in the Age of Awakening, we do not receive Karma for what we feel or think.
Not even if we have a personal reaction like, “This isn’t exactly true but I don’t know why, so I’ll tough things out and publish my very special ideas.”
That said, all humans definitely receive Karma for what we say and do. And publish.
What the Lazy Thinkers have in common, seems to me, is that they have published self-help writing with very Low Truth Value.
If inwardly they knew better, guess what?
* When they typed their manuscript, or dictated it.
* If they read it aloud.
* If they promoted theirwork over a podcast.
Then their typing fingers or promotion-seeking voices had underlying qualities that reflected their inner lack of integrity.
That counts in objective reality, and therefore would be the first way the Lazy Thinkers would have generated Karma for their writing.
What kind of Karma? Let’s talk about Hypothetical Gladys, a very slick empath “expert”.
Very likely, Returning Karma for Gladys will feature incidents when she sincerely seeks help. Needs help! It could be help about anything. Like, if she lives in the U.S. these days, and she’s an undocumented immigrant, she might desperately seek knowledge for avoiding her local group of masked men from ICE.
Or she might be a pregnant woman seeking reliable knowledge about whether it will be safe for her and the developing fetus . . . for her to receive a Covid vaccine booster.
You get the idea, Blog-Buddies. Gladys really needs this information. She might have a lot at stake.
Due to her Returning Karma, Gladys receives “information” with Low Truth Value. Then she acts on the advice of “experts” whose advice is worthless.
She might blame her bad luck. Or feel sorry for herself and seek to understand,”Why God is so mad at me?”
But it’s just Returning Karma. We humans can’t set the schedule for when it will happen, nor do we have clarity in the specific situation, like: “This is your Karma, Gladys.”
Confusing Karma, even tragic. Returning Karma is not designed as fun. The purpose is to be educational.
To complete my answer about Lazy Thinkers who become empath “expert” authors, let’s consider part of Gladys’ Karma that she winds up creating further. Because, in objective reality, what might happen?
* A reader of her article with bogus info asks a question. And Gladys needs to answer it.
* Or Gladys gives “thousands” of sessions (as some of these authors refer to their careers). Sessions to help empaths with what they need.
Only Gladys is pushing boundary work, etc. Pop psych hits of dubious effectiveness for clients in therapy with a mental health professional and, by definition, can never improves the lives of born empaths. (If you don’t yet know why not, just COMMENT below with a question.)
Every time, Gladys is racking up even more bad Karma of the kind I began describing (hypothetically) in Comment #6452.
Finishing up my answer to you, MARTY, let’s consider Karma earned by those empath “experts” in the category of Purposefully Deceitful.
Within that group, some of the empath “experts” are in the consciousness lifestyle of Extreme Spiritual Addiction.
I do not know enough to comment on their complex Karma, as people who are now living as puppets run (to some degree or other) by discarnate astrals.
However, within that group of empath “experts” who are Purposefully Deceitful, imo, I’ve encountered many who are in the consciousness lifestyle of Spiritual Addiction. Examples from our research so far, at “Can that Empath Teacher REALLY Help Me” include:
* Christine Bravata. Author of the book, “The Empath’s Guide to Setting Boundaries”
* Nancy McCartney. “The Empath and the Narcissist: Break Free from Toxic Relationships and Reclaim Your Life”
* Tanya Carroll Richardson. Author of the book “Empath Heart: Relationship Strategies for Sensitive People”
What do these authors have in common? They’re playing around, for their own reasons.
But they’re not like two-year-olds, playing around with their dollies at a special tea party. Rather, they are giving human readers totally unhelpful instructions that they may FOLLOW. To their detriment.
Moreover, they are keeping their readers from finding advice that might help them far more.
So, how to give you readers some ideas about the kind of Karma these Purposefully Deceitful – Knowingly Deceitful – authors may be setting in motion for themselves?
Here I’ll give the example of Hypothetical Sam. He really wanted to interest his readers into doing psychic work, and expanding his brand by calling those readers “very sensitive” and “empaths.”
Sam’s Possible Kind of Karma #1: Treated Like Someone He’s Not
When Returning Karma comes to Sam, he may often be treated as though he is a very different person from who he really is.
Actually, one of my Energy Spirituality Clients, Sammy, was on the receiving end of this kind of Returning Karma. (Although it could have been set in motion by doing something different from writing an unhelpful book that was supposed to produce “Empath Empowerment.”)
When Sammy was in Elementary School, he deserved to be selected for a Gifted-and-Talented Program. He really was smart.
But he had a LOT of Returning Karma during his “Early Karmic Years” in this lifetime. So his mother persuaded the school principal to put in in a special class for children with learning disabilities.
Until Sammy had paid back that Returning Karma, he was stuck in that learning track for (as I recall) a couple of years.
That is, he was treated like someone he wasn’t.
Sam’s Possible Kind of Karma #2: Being Consistently Lied to By a Spouse
With all the talk these days about “narcissists” causing life’s ills and ruining love relationships, it’s only fair to mention the kind of Returning Karma that involves Being Consistently Lied to By a Spouse.
Sam’s Returning Karma has him meet cute with Gladys. She lies to herself incessantly. Being a big idealist who can’t measure up to her dreams, Gladys goes numb about all the ways that she doesn’t measure up.
* When dating Sam, she says she loves to take long hikes outdoors.
But after the marriage, Gladys can only walk a few feet before stopping. Trying to “birdwatch” although she doesn’t bring binoculars. And ostensibly she was taking Sam on a hike.
* When dating Sam, Gladys says that she adores listening to classical music.
After the marriage she sweet-talks Sam into paying for an expensive speaker system, a system for listening to CDs; Gladys also sweet-talks Sam into buying a large collection of music CDs.
Once this has been acquired, at Gladys’ expense, Sam NEVER listens to those CDs.
And if Gladys tries to listen to any of them, Sam always has a reason why she must turn that music off. Such as, “It’s too loud.” (Regardless of the volume that the CD is playing.)
Tiny frustration after tiny frustration.
Disappointment and confusion after disappointment and confusion.
Imagine that “just happening” to Sam, relationship after relationship and lifetime after lifetime.”
So there’s some idea of what these two kinds of empath “experts” might be setting into motion karmically.
MARTY and other Blog-Buddies, we can’t sweet-talk our way out of Karma. Better to speak and act with integrity!
Rose, thanks for Comments #6299-6306.
It’s helpful to learn (again) that we get Karma for what we say and do- not what we believe or feel.
Lately I have found it difficult at times to not let my intense feelings change or color what I do in a negative way… but then again, I don’t believe in making myself anodyne.
New wonderfulness here from OSCAR MANUEL. Thanks for what’s here so far. There will be more soon.
In the middle I’ll sandwich myself in to say, about making yourself anodyne? To use a technical term, that would be pukey.
And I don’t have the time to be messing around with my emotions in some twisty way before taking action.
I’m just doing my best given the circumstances and that will do.
I’ll have Returning Karma no matter what, and it will be exactly my Karma.
Wisdom!
This blog post and all the comments (at least the ones I read so far) are such helpful teaching, Rose. Thank you.
Reading the first page, I am thinking about my own life quite differently. Life can be so humbling, such a strange combination of beauty and pain. When I think about my own Returning Karma, I’m not sure if it comforts me, but it does explain.
MEG, thank you for this beautiful comment – so poignant and also so very human.
You’re a quick study. I do hope you’ll still keep reading at this article about “Karma. Made Spiritual But Not Religious.”
[Discussing Google’s motto until 2015, over at How to Live as a Spiritual Person in a World of AI]
In this Age of Awakening, the ancient term Karma has a slightly new meaning.
Folks living now have enough clarity to be able to accept the truth:
We receive Karma for what we say and do in objective reality, not what we think in our subjective realities – the home of excuses, why our roads are paved with “good intentions,” etc.
Regular readers of this Energy Spirituality® Blog know this:
For emotional growth and spiritual evolution, it’s vital to know the difference between Objective Reality and Subjective Reality. (Folks, I just linked you to a useful resource for thinking about this difference.)
What do you think about creating Karma, through, when your highest ethical standard is “Don’t be evil.”
Is or used to be, only until 2015.
By now, Larry Page – the co-founder of Google – is the second richest person in the world. Second only to Elon Musk.