Do you ever feel like you’re living in a weird Déjà vu life, where each day is the same? Date the same kinds of people? Experience the same or similar failures and hurt over and over again? It’s your karma to do so.
Karma Loops
Karma loops are the patterns and circles in which your life rotates. Karma can be good, bad, or indifferent. In a secular sense, it’s who you are. It’s your daily habits, and the direct cause and effect relationship between your actions, thoughts, and words. Plus the results they produce.
Everything in your life happens the way it does, for a reason. It’s the cycle you’ve put yourself in. and when I say put yourself in, I mean it. Everything is in your own hands. But, you also cannot escape your own destiny. You always reap what you sow and you repeat the same karma cycles until you yourself learn from your mistakes and make a conscious change.
For example, if you don’t care about others or think to create value for their lives, you cannot still expect others to help you. Then, once others don’t help you, or care about you, you won’t see the value in them or care about them either. Creating the full circle loop.
You cannot change others and by following this pattern, your life or karma will not change until YOU change it. Even then, you will still be at the mercy of the residual effects of your past actions. Like a long term smoker, quitting. Even those they aren’t putting poison in their bodies anymore, it still takes a long time to clean out their system whilst maintaining health habits.
The four Noble Truths
If you want to see a change in your life, you have to “Be the Change” as the famous adage goes. But, to break out of a cycle you must first be aware of it, know how it affects you and how to change it. Buddha taught this same lesson when teaching the 4 noble truths to end all suffering, which are:
- To know the truth of suffering
- Know the truth of the cause of suffering
- Understand the truth of the end of suffering
- To know the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering.
My story
These 4 steps can be applied to any area of your life. Here’s a personal example: I (Vick) frequently break or lose small possessions. Every time it happens I get very upset (suffering). But, it still happens all the time (karma loop). If we look at this experience we can see that I lose the items, which causes suffering. The reason why I lose the items is because I am careless with them and do not pay close attention to my actions. How to change is would be to be more careful and attentive to my possessions. The path leading to this is by changing my perspective to see the value of these small items in my life and practice appreciating and placing higher personal value on these items.
The 5th Element
This can be applied to any area of your life. The problem most people face is that they don’t know themselves well enough, or know what the better way is for them to be able to realize what to change in their lives. This is where some sort of daily meditation comes in handy.
Aur hasn’t missed a day of meditation since she was 8 years old, but the way she meditates is different from others. Each day, Aur personally reviews her previous day’s actions, choices, and words to see whether there could have been an improvement, and where she may have done wrong.
This helps her to improve herself each and every day, allowing her to quickly catch herself when in a destructive karma loop or pattern in her life.
The way forward
Now you know why your life keeps repeating the same patterns, and how to change it. First, learn to be aware of yourself and ask yourself every day, where are my karma loops that are holding me back? Keeping me in this hamster wheel of a life? Then apply the four-step process to find ways to break free of your loops.
Quick Tip
Many times it’s very difficult to know ourselves or be aware and admit our own faults. This is why it’s so valuable to have people around you who know you. As long as they can be straight forward with you and show you where you are wrong. Talk to people around you. Ask them to pull you up on any bad behavior or patterns you have. Listen to them, test to see if what they say is true about you. Use others to identify your own blind spots. Karma is very hard to break free from and we’re often blind or voluntarily blind to our own faults. Use other’s perspectives to help you on your way.