Think aloud
In your journey through life, you’ve probably heard of karma and the karmic cycle. It’s probably got you curious, since you don’t really understand the concept fully, and wondering: What is a karmic cycle anyway?
Don’t worry, you’re at the right place.
The concept of karma isn’t quite new to us, but a karmic cycle is something else. At times, we won’t even be able to grasp it fully with our human mind.
For example, have you ever been in a situation where you could have sworn that you were the happiest person alive?
Everything was going in your favor and you really thought that nothing could ever go wrong. But then it does?
Out of the blue, things just turn around and you’re suddenly so down on your luck.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only one who experiences those things.
Almost everyone in this world goes through this, simply because life is a karmic cycle.
The law of karma works in a cycle that never ends.
Because of how many people it affects, let’s get into what the karmic cycle is about and how to end it.
What is karma?
The Sanskrit word karma has become a popular term in spiritual communities everywhere throughout the world.
Karma is considered a spiritual law that teaches us that nothing in life is a coincidence. Your actions evoke a reaction from the world.
Similar to the law of cause and effect, the principle of karma is based on how every single thing that we put out into the world will have a reaction.
Many people think of karma as the spiritual equivalent of Newton’s Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Every thought carries an energy that can impact what will come back to you.
Every thought, every action, every word you say – all of these things carry energy that comes right back to you accordingly.
A common misconception is that karma works right away.
Many people believe that karma will bring the same energy back into their lives within mere days.
But that’s not the case. There are many things that differ from the common misbeliefs about karma.
Sometimes, karma will take a minute to respond and sometimes it’ll accumulate the bad or good things you’ve done and bring the same into your life years later.
That’s exactly why karma in action is seen as cruel, more often than not. It’s definitely unexpected and we can’t always pinpoint what caused it.
We can’t grasp the concept of karma unless we completely accept it as a law of nature, like what you reap, you sow. It’s part of our human reality.
What is a Karmic Cycle?
When we understand karma, we also understand that every negative deed is a sin and every positive deed is goodness or merit.
While we live, we create positive or negative energy with our deeds that come back to us in different forms. But always under the same energy.
That loop of karma is called the karmic cycle.
These cycles can repeat themselves in as little as 40-minute cycles (galige in Kannada) or as long as 12-and-a-half years (Surya Kriya).
It always depends on the inner peace you feel or the state of your own consciousness.
The law of karma states that every action, positive or negative, will have an equal reaction on your own self.
Think of it as a record book for karma.
Every action has to be repaired in some kind of way. So if you fail to settle scores in your life, your debt is carried to your next life.
Okay, I know you probably think it’s weird how fast we moved on to reincarnation, but it really is intertwined with the law of the karmic cycle.
All this means is that the cycle isn’t limited to one lifetime.
A lot of people believe that karmic cycles operate from one lifetime to another. But it depends, because each soul is different.
There are different karmic patterns that repeat themselves within one year. Sometimes they even do so in a matter of minutes, hours, or days.
The good news is there’s a way to break the karmic cycle. One cycle takes force every 40 minutes, offering you many chances to break it during the day.
Karma and Reincarnation: Fail to settle the score and you’ll carry your debt into the next life
There isn’t a way to repay all your debt during this lifetime.
Sometimes people have a lot of debt and they keep on adding to it with their daily activities.
This means that they’ll most probably create new accounts alongside settling old ones. One lifetime isn’t enough for everyone to repay their debt.
The karmic cycle isn’t limited to just one lifetime and that’s exactly why it’s so vicious. It’ll come for your soul in the next lifetime.
People believe that every soul has a past, present, and future. So your soul had inhibited other bodies before it started using this current vessel.
The soul reincarnates into different bodies until it learns all the spiritual lessons it needs to.
Those lessons depend on each soul and every human being needs to learn them to grow beyond this materialistic world.
5 different stages of karmic cycles:
There are many different karmic cycles, some of which typically come in a time span of every 12 years.
These time spans are equal to a certain period in your life.
Let’s learn about all of them individually.
1. The childhood cycle
It happens for the duration of 12 years starting from birth – so from 0 to 12 years old.
Children are very easily influenced by their surroundings and can’t comprehend what’s going on around them.
Because of that, when we’re children, we’re unaware of our past karma. The experiences of our past lives are already designed into our personality.
In childhood, we’re the most vulnerable of all, considering the fact that the issues of our past life are at their strongest during this stage.
The patterns of this karmic cycle are set to help us grow spiritually in order to one day redeem the karma from our past lives.
2. The cycle of youth
The youth cycle happens between the ages of 13 and 24.
During this period, we enter “life” entirely. We try to understand reason and make various decisions that may impact us later on in life.
Karma says that a person isn’t seen as an adult until the age of 24. This doesn’t depend on the maturity of the person, it’s a very set law.
This is also the time when your past karma starts showing itself more clearly.
Usually, something important happens that very obviously shapes your personality.
Karma doesn’t have to show itself in a dramatic way for everyone to see.
Sometimes, what shakes you up the most is something that happens inside of you.
At this stage of life, every flaw you have will be highlighted – until the point where you learn to better yourself.
This is the time when you’re most likely to work on yourself.
3. The cycle of adult creation
The period of adult creation is from ages 25 to 36 of a human’s lifespan.
It’s believed that as soon as an individual steps into this karmic cycle, their karmic pattern is done forming.
At this point in life, everything regarding our health, emotional, and physical state will align from the past life and manifest itself.
For example, a physical health problem from your past life will not be cured easily.
It’s the same thing with emotional and mental trauma a person may endure.
Those trials are hard and may even lead us to an early death.
Our karmic cycle might even bring financial problems or difficulty creating stable relationships from our past lives into the current one.
On the other hand, this also means that some parts of our lives might be absolutely beautiful and without any troubles.
Our past karma might have been good, so we now get to enjoy ourselves.
4. The cycle of adulthood
This karmic cycle takes place from ages 37 to 48. Karmic patterns take force at this stage of the karmic cycle.
This is also the stage where things reach their maximum complexity.
The reason for that is the fact that adults have a harder time changing and growing. And karma requires change.
You can be successful in your journey to overcoming the issues of your past and you’ll settle the score.
You’ll be rewarded for everything you’ve been through and find joy.
However, you can also be unsuccessful in your pursuit to clear the karma from your past life.
If that’s the case, then you’ll end up repaying your debt in the karmic cycle until you learn the needed lessons.
Whether it’s about physical suffering or some type of emotional pain, everything will deepen by repetition.
It won’t stop until you learn what you need to.
5. The cycle of old age
This cycle takes places between the ages of 49 and 60.
The symptoms of the things karma brought into your life are less intense.
It’s actually a great time to lessen your karmic burden because karma is at its weakest at this point.
In this cycle, individuals have either solved their issues or are delaying them for the next lifetime.
The human body is getting much weaker at this stage and even if karma does decide to put a great illness on them, it will most probably guide them to their end.
They won’t be able to learn a lesson from their suffering because they won’t have time to think about it.
How do you end a negative karmic cycle?
After having learned everything about karmic cycles, only one question remains – the most important of them all: How do you break the cycle of negative karma?
There are many ways you can end negative karma, but it always depends on you and the kind of nourishment you’re in need of.
1. Look for patterns
Everyone has karma. We experience it throughout each day, but we might not understand the patterns.
It’s extremely important for you to look for patterns in your life and understand them.
Is there an issue that you’re running into every once in a while? It always seems like this particular problem is following you whatever you do.
Sometimes, it even hits you unexpectedly.
This means that this particular issue needs special attention. That’s probably where your life feels the most stagnant and uncontrolled.
Sometimes the issue is in your relationships, romantic and platonic alike, or within your workspace.
The only thing you can do right now is to make a list of things that are constantly repeating themselves.
Try to understand them, and work on learning your lessons and bettering yourself.
2. Take responsibility for your actions
The karmic cycle won’t do you any good if you tend to put the blame elsewhere for the things that happen to you.
When you’re thinking about ending the cycle of negative karma, you really need to take responsibility for your life.
Alright, you might think that the person from your past life is responsible for it, but it’s still the same soul that resides inside your body.
Instead of blame-shifting, take responsibility for and feel the full impact of your actions.
Look at your own mistakes and think about what you can do differently next time.
Then when the pattern repeats itself, don’t just make the same mistake, learn from it and do better.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you need to constantly live in the past and live to change things.
Instead, simply be prepared to change the outcome next time.
3. Spend time with people you don’t like
You’re probably thinking I’ve gone completely out of my mind. However, it’s said that this is the easiest way your karmic cycle can be broken.
When you spend time with people you don’t particularly like, you have to forgive them their flaws, even if you don’t want to.
You have to learn how to appreciate everyone for their differences.
It’s also one way to suffer through difficulties and repay your debt.
Those people might be mad at you as well, so in order for them to forgive you, you have to be truly sorry. You have to regain their trust.
If you’ve bad, toxic relationships during your lifetime that haven’t been dealt with, you’ll carry that karma into your next life.
And no one needs to have that type of burden.
4. Get rid of things and people that don’t serve you anymore
When you have a lot of things that don’t serve you, they accumulate a heap of karma for you.
You’re keeping them in your home, even though there’s someone out there who might need it more than you do.
Don’t accumulate clutter because it will keep you away from your actual mission in life.
This also applies to people who don’t contribute meaning to your life.
When someone only brings bad intentions into your life and you know that it’s not your fault, you need to leave them.
I know that I’ve just said how you need to spend time with the people you don’t like. This isn’t the same thing.
When someone brings nothing but pain and misery into your life, you have to take a few steps back.
They will make you say and do things that you don’t mean.
Without even realizing it, you’ll accumulate a lot of negative energy that you’ll bring with you into your next life.
You don’t need that. You need to work through those issues or completely distance yourself from these people.
5. Do things that bring you joy
In order to clear your karmic cycle of negativity, you need to do things that bring you joy.
This means that you’ll always look at the consequences of the things you’re doing.
It’s more than a mere momentary feeling of happiness. You need to do things that will guarantee you long-term joy.
That’s why the decisions you make are critical.
You’ll find many explanations for why this is so important, but to keep it simple: It’s the one thing you do from your soul and heart that shows you as an individual.
When you make a decision to do something that brings you joy, you always have to ask yourself, How will this benefit me in the future?
If the answer is simply that it’ll give you joy, therefore you’ll become a better person, then do it!
Do things that feel good to you. These things will inspire you when tough times come around and you have to fight for yourself.
When you’re doing something you love, it’ll give you strength.
It’ll make you put out positive energy into the universe and you’ll receive the same energy in return.
6. Keep a positive mindset
All the laws of the universe work together. So the law of attraction says that we attract what we focus on.
Because of that, it’s obvious that if you constantly think about the negative aspects of life, you’ll only attract negative things into your life.
When you focus on the negative aspects of the karmic cycle and what it’s putting you through, you’ll never be able to break it.
Instead of dwelling on all the bad things and poisoning your mind with negative thoughts, focus on the good things.
There is always something positive you can be grateful for.
Look around and you’ll see evidence of what I’m saying.
You probably have more than most people and that’s actually a positive thing the karmic cycle has brought you.
7. Do good deeds
The law of compensation tells us that we need to give to get something in return.
The only thing that can break a negative pattern is if we do something different.
If you do good things for the people around you, you’re automatically breaking a negative pattern.
Helping other people when they do and don’t ask for your help even improves your karmic debt.
You’re doing something beautiful that’ll make everyone happy.
It’ll help you become a better person, while at the same time make someone else happy that they don’t have to do this hard thing on their own.
Every good deed counts. Even the smallest acts of kindness that you think don’t carry any weight still improve your karmic debt.
So the next time you want to do something good for your friends, don’t hesitate! That same kindness will be returned to you.
8. Work on your shortcomings
There are different things that we can think of as our strengths or weaknesses.
We consider strengths to be the things that we have learned, gathered, and accomplished throughout life.
On the other hand, many people don’t see weaknesses and shortcomings as something that they can learn from.
They see those shortcomings as bad traits, something that leaves them vulnerable and unwanted.
But those same shortcomings are exactly the things that’ll help you break your karmic cycle.
Those weaknesses will help you become an amazing human being. It’s how we perfect ourselves.
All you need to do is realize where your shortcomings are and work on them.
Make sure to always be aware of the patterns in your life and never wait for things to settle themselves.
Actively make your life better and your soul lighter, so that when you get reborn, your karmic cycle is broken and you’re free.
9. Don’t hold on to anger
Anger, frustration, fury – all of those emotions are poisoning your heart and soul.
They lay heavy inside your chest and they don’t let you live your life to the fullest.
Emotions like these are not always necessarily bad, they’re often there to protect us from situations that might hurt us.
But in order for you to break the karmic cycle, you will have to let go of anger.
This means forgiving people and yourself for causing such emotions to arise inside you.
I know it’s not easy to let go of the grudges we hold, but we need to understand that we can’t hold on to them forever.
If we do, the bad karmic cycle will just keep on repeating itself.
Let go of these negative emotions and let yourself be reborn into joy and pure delight.
