The concept of karma – the spiritual law of cause and effect, or originally, of reward and punishment – was enthusiastically borrowed from Eastern philosophy and woven into various strands of New Age thinking. Its simplicity made it a perfect framework for explaining the general principles of the law of attraction: a picture of a just universe that always responds to human actions, rewarding good and punishing evil.

But as human consciousness expands and we discover ever-new dimensions of our own existence, it’s worth periodically revisiting widely accepted beliefs and confronting them with a fresh understanding.

The Law of Karma – A Refresher

Let’s start with a reminder. The concept of karma holds that every action exerts an influence that returns to the person in the form of equivalent energy. Karma originates in Hinduism and Buddhism, and reached us in an already somewhat diluted form, often linked to reincarnation: for good deeds, a person would be reborn in a better form, in better circumstances; for bad deeds, in a worse one.

This broadly makes sense, because the quality we create becomes the quality of our experience. In other words, if we create a warm atmosphere, we feel good in it. If we generate conflict, we experience more and more conflict over time.

Karma, however, is often framed as a system of reward and punishment. Good deeds generate good karma, bad deeds generate bad karma, and karma must be “discharged” – realized through experience – like accumulated energy. This is partly true, and partly not true at all. Here’s why:

Every action produces a reaction – we know this from basic physics. A positive action should produce a positive reaction, a negative one an equivalent negative one. Broadly speaking, this holds: someone dishonest probably moves in circles of similar people and sooner or later gets cheated or punished themselves. Someone who creates a positive atmosphere and is honest and trustworthy is more likely to be trusted and treated well.

But how many times have you seen good intentions lead nowhere? Or dishonest people laughing in others’ faces? Where’s the justice in that?

Some answer this by saying the reward or punishment will come later – in a few years, or maybe in the next life. But having studied the past lives of many people, I’ve observed that many have quite dark incarnations on record and haven’t necessarily had a difficult time in subsequent lives as a result. So what happened to all that karma?

What the Law of Karma Really Is

Karma depends on what beliefs a person holds about themselves. If someone carries guilt at a subconscious level, they will indeed attract situations through which they seek to atone. If someone carries no sense of guilt, however – regardless of what they may have done – they will not suffer karmic consequences beyond the direct effects of their actions.

Guilt generates karma. Self-forgiveness releases karma. Feeling innocent means there is no negative karma at all.

To develop this further and offer some material for reflection: we live in a world of duality. Through contrasts, we are able to perceive. We know what light is because we know darkness, and vice versa. In this sense, all events and actions provide us with reference points through which we can define ourselves and perceive reality.

It is through so-called “evil” that a person comes to understand what goodness and nobility actually are. Without this, we would not know who and what we really are – or who we want to become. To experience positive things, negative events must also exist in the world. In a certain sense, they do us a service: they allow us to discover who we truly are and who we want to be.

Should a soul be punished for this? It is an inseparable element of what allows us to create and choose who we are becoming. Without reference points, there would be no experience – and no consciousness, no self-awareness.

Karma as reward or punishment, therefore, cannot exist independently. It exists only when we ourselves assign that meaning to the effects of our experiences. If we decide it should be that way, that’s how it will manifest in our reality. But there is no top-down punishment or reward – only those we are, deep down, willing to assign to ourselves. And because we are, perhaps unexpectedly, often very harsh with ourselves, the negative effects of karma can sometimes feel very real.

Karmic Relationships and the Law of Karma

There exist what are called karmic relationships – a term we use to point to a person’s attachment to certain behaviors and patterns, typically rooted in specific people with whom we shared experiences in the past. Old traumas or old passions can resurface regardless of how distant the incarnation in which they occurred.

What does this tell us about karma?

Karmic bonds are vibrations with which a person identifies. A memory from another incarnation is usually triggered by meeting the person with whom that experience was shared – because in essence, each person is like a transmitter, broadcasting various channels. We suddenly pick up a familiar signal from a life we once shared; there is emotionally charged content and stimuli there, and we are pulled back into the whole situation – reliving it, or trying in some way to continue it. Old loves we can’t let go of, old conflicts whose echo produces unconscious reactions. All of this can seem to point to some overarching power of karma – which is why some attribute it almost divine authority, calling it an inescapable law.

And indeed – as long as we are attuned to the vibration represented by a given karmic event, we remain entangled in it. It continues to carry a charge, consequences, unfinished business – things that need, as people say, to be “worked through.”

But the moment you change internally, all that karmic drama dissolves as if it never was.

Karmic Bonds and Karma – Something You Can Easily Release

Understand this: you don’t have to work through it by suffering – though you can, and suffering is often our reflexive way of handling problems, because in the end, suffering eventually burns out our need to keep re-experiencing a given situation when we’ve finally had enough. But it’s the longer, less pleasant path. It resembles choosing to ride a rickety cart down a rough mountain road when a teleporter is standing right beside you, ready to take you exactly where you want to go. But we told ourselves: “teleportation doesn’t exist” – so we got in the cart and rode, jolted mercilessly, and arrived at the bottom bruised, because we lacked faith in other possibilities.

There is a simpler path. Change. Simply – change. If a person decides – not just superficially, but with their whole being – to shift to a frequency that doesn’t generate guilt, karma evaporates. A human being is free. The only slavery that truly works, and works most effectively, is self-created: through the belief in one’s own powerlessness.

There is also no need to feel bad if not everything changes immediately – if we can’t shift or accept everything in ourselves right away. People often tie themselves in knots, worry, get frustrated, and criticize themselves: “I’m trying so hard and it’s not working. I’m useless. There must be something wrong with me.” From there, it’s only one step to: “Yes, I clearly deserve to suffer.”

Why add yet another burden by feeling bad about not being able to fully forgive yourself – or by loading yourself with guilt for not reacting the way you expect of yourself? Do your best, but not better than your best. That is: don’t carry the guilt of not being better than you currently can be. That’s a good starting point for genuine change – releasing the guilt of being who you are.

Remember – everything is relative. A person creates the meaning of their own life, interprets experiences, assigns them significance, and on the basis of that significance, chooses the next path and assigns the next meaning. Guilt is one of the most crushing – and at the same time most illusory – phenomena in the universe. Since everything has its place and is needed…

Karmic Bonds, Seeing Karma, and Releasing Karma

The ability to “see karma” or “remove karma” is in essence the removal of generated energy and patterns associated with guilt and everything a person may have “taken onto themselves.” In this context, karma is tangible energy – it exists not only as a concept but as an energetically perceptible form that some people can detect.

Removing such patterns – which a person has more or less consciously taken on – is necessary only as long as that person remains within the vibration of those patterns. Changing the frequency at which we resonate, and moving to a higher level of consciousness, automatically dissolves old patterns – a new awareness transforms them instantly. When burdensome patterns encounter the vibration of higher consciousness, they dissolve like icicles in spring sunlight.

Karma can seem very powerful – not because it is powerful, but because a person resonates strongly with the vibration it represents. Karmic bonds feel strong because they represent a strong resonance and vibration with certain patterns, often reinforced by nostalgia for the past. As long as that resonance endures, we speak of a strong karmic bond – one that a person may believe is impossible to shed. But for a thousand reasons, they are – subconsciously, at some level – simply not yet ready to let it go.

The hardest truth about ourselves is this: we often choose suffering for a very long time. Even while crying out for help, we are, in reality, not yet done punishing ourselves and experiencing things in this way. It can be difficult to accept – but the moment a person grasps this, even partially, they gain the chance to begin changing their life. And it’s worth starting with self-forgiveness: if not all at once or completely, then perhaps just a little – and even a little improvement in the outcome is worth it.

This is how we learn about ourselves – how we study and discover who we are. Without difficult experiences, we would not know how much goodness we have within us, how much nobility, love, patience, gentleness. Only when placed in difficult situations do we slowly come to realize all of this. And over time, with more awareness, we can say: “I no longer need these experiences. I know who I am, I know who I want to be – and I commit to being that person.” When the commitment is complete, the universe has no choice but to allow it.

Karmic Bonds and Karma Are an Effect of Human Sentimental Nature

The existence of illusory karma also stems, in large part, from the sentimental nature of human beings. This is most visible in karmic partnerships – the renewal of old romantic bonds from other incarnations. After all, it feels so romantic to find your love again, across millennia, and be together once more.

Except that after those millennia, the fit may resemble that of a thousand-year-old fist and a thousand-year-old nose. A person, owing to their sentimentality, tends to value “what is old.” We nurture old acquaintances, old loves – and while this can genuinely be beautiful and fulfilling, it equally often leads to trouble. Because one of the few constants in the universe is change. We change – and what once fit us may no longer fit at all, no matter how stubbornly we try to step back into old shoes. It is precisely the inability to see with an open mind unconditioned by past animosities that largely creates the consequences we commonly call karma.

Karma and Karmic Bonds – We Have the Power to Change This

Karma, whatever its source and however objectively real it may be, is susceptible to our inner attitude. According to one of the principles of the universe – that the universe, like a mirror, reflects our inner beliefs – karma is a reflection of our internal orientation. And it can be changed by shifting that orientation.

Every person has the right to self-improvement. One of its indispensable elements is self-forgiveness and self-acceptance – through which we can begin to use our past experiences constructively for further growth. By doing so, we have the opportunity to release old patterns and burdensome relationships, and instead create and attract genuinely new, light, and pleasant qualities into our personal lives.

Jakub Qba Niegowski – Extrasensory Awareness Development Specialist