Tragedy and Karma and Reincarnation

The thing I try to remember, in my sorrow, is that we choose to come here.  We know what we will face.  We plan what we are going to experience.  We plan how we are going to come in and to whom and with whom we will share the experience.  We know that it will probably be hard.  We have soul mates who choose to join us on the journey and interact with us through it. We do have choices about certain avenues to take, and we have different opportunities to exit and different ways to do so.  We choose.

I have to remind myself that we are here to learn and teach compassion.  We’re not here for punishment or to punish.  We’re here to become better souls, to evolve, to understand why killers kill and stealers steal, why people harm the helpless, how to turn all those things around and become inspirational, to help others, to serve, to share, to teach, to love, to better the earth and improve our journeys on it.

Some folks come to be martyrs.  I think of Michael Brown, who knew all the world would know his name; he said so two weeks ahead of time.  Abraham Lincoln had a dream that he would be assassinated.  Many folks get warnings; they know, at some level, that it’s time.

Some folks come to experience illness and other tragedies that they survive.  These are people who want evolve quickly.  Some of them, like autistic children, for example, or other people who need daily care, are here to teach their families and loved ones care, patience, compassion.  They appear to be “out of commission”, but really, they are completing the life journey to teach others about love, devotion, and unselfishness.

Some groups come to die together and give the world a wake-up call: tsunami victims, earthquake victims, even the 911 vicitms.  What’s the wake up call? Take care of the earth.  Look at what the government or the powers that be are doing.  PAY ATTENTION. Make a change. These are catalysts for change.

Some people come to do a combination of things: if they harmed someone before, they may be harmed this time, so they can feel what that’s like. We are here to experience both sides.  Why does the killer kill? What does it feel like to be a victim of that killer?  How many are hurt in those circumstances?  The victim, surely, but the families of both killer and victim are hurt.  Sometimes the killer has to see what he or she has done to his/her family.  Even if he dies, even if he is too ill to know what he has done, once he passes, he will see what he has done and who he has harmed, and he will see the wave of sorrow he has created, and then he will need to atone, and come back and do good for those people, even if they don’t recognize him.

There is the question of suicides.  They will see, after death, how they have hurt the family they have left behind and how much they were loved. Later, someone of her soul mates will choose to be a victim and leave HER, so she knows how it feels to lose a loved one to suicide—the pain, the guilt that often accompanies such an experience.

Abortions follow a similar path.  One who has an abortion may later try to come in to someone she truly loves, but then will experience the same rejection she received, all the while seeing and feeling all the reasons for the choices, on both sides.

In this way, we come to know how all individuals feel, until we become wise and recognize that love and forgiveness are the answers to personal growth, love, and fulfillment.

In the wake of all the shootings, all the wars, all the tragedies, let’s remind ourselves that there are reasons for them to occur that we don’t understand.  I choose to see the honor and angelic qualities of the victims, even if they have done bad things before, because they came into this life knowing they would die this way and make a difference.  They are catalysts for change, and we as humans who still live have to figure out what we can do to stop the killing, stop the suffering, as a result of that precious gift our beloved gave us.  We have to stand up, make a difference, say something—not in hate, but in resoluteness and with love and compassion for the rest of us that remain.

As for the chaos-makers, the killers, the bombers, the suicides…recognize the sorrow in THEM.  They may be sick people.  You have to be, to kill someone else.  Sick or in fear.  To steal, you have to be weak or desperate—or hungry!  You have to be.  These experiences didn’t come out of nothing.

A while back, I saw a program on fatherless sons and how they had continued begetting children and creating a legacy in which they weren’t there for their children, either.  It suddenly occurred to me that these were souls who had scattered families in previous lives, either by separating parents from children through war or slavery or by raping and leaving women pregnant with children in war, attacks, slavery:  they who create fatherless children must experience being fatherless.

Yes, there are always more specific stories there, so they may also be learning how to feel, or they have to learn how to bring families together, or perhaps they simply did not have the courage to say they loved someone of a different nation, religion, or culture.  Maybe now they must learn courage.  I believe men go to war to learn how to feel, to learn how to bond with other men.  There are other lessons to be learned there, and we humans always have a way of distorting things and confounding events and lives.  But this is part of our soul growth.

Some of the things I have said are not popular, not easy to hear, unpleasant to consider, and unfortunately how it is.

Many people say, I did not kill or hate in this lifetime; I don’t want to have to pay for what my ancestors did, even if I felt it was wrong.  But sometimes, we do have to pay.  If we were one of those ancestors, we may have to pay now.

So, also know that you don’t have to be afraid that you’ll have to pay.  What you must do is, do something different.  Where you see wrong, right it, without violence.  Where you see need, give help. Where you see injustice, speak up and fight it.  Don’t let your “friends” and family get away with saying racist or misogynist things.  Stand up.  Do something for the world.  That is how you correct your karma, so that maybe you won’t have to “go out” in a bad way, to balance a wrong done generations ago.  You have the ability, the option to choose.

When we go to die, we will review everything we have said and done to others, and we will feel their feelings.  We will feel their sorrow, their pain, and yes, their happiness and joy too, if we were nice to them.  There are no events too insignificant for us to review.  Then you will know what kind of job you did on earth.  How do I know?  Because it’s happened to me; I was just lucky enough not to die.  I tremble to go through that again, to experience the pain I caused others.  One thing you can rest assured of, though: if someone has hurt you, they will have to experience that too, when their time comes.  There is no escaping.  You could say, Payback’s a bitch, but just know YOU don’t have to do payback to anyone.  They do it to themselves as soon as they harm you.  That said, the deaths of recent innocents will be paid back; God and the universal laws will take care of it.  You don’t have to get revenge.  But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t let the experience change you.  Yes, that’s why that person died.  So it WOULD change you.  And us.  And the world.

I recommend the following books to better understand karma and reincarnation.

Your Soul’s Gift by Robert Schwartz

Your Soul’s Plan by Robert Schwatrz

Journey of Souls by Michael Newton books

Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton

All Brian Weiss books

Saved By the Light by Dannion Brinkley