Karma, much like forgiveness, is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the spiritual world. It is often reduced to a simplistic notion of fate, something predetermined, inevitable, and beyond your control. But this interpretation strips it of its real power and your divine purpose.
In a recent conversation on my LivingToBe podcast with Buddhist teacher and author Ann Tashi Slater, we explored a deeper and far more empowering understanding. In the Buddhist tradition, karma is not destiny. It is taking intentional action, and the ripple effects those actions create over time.
This shifts everything.
Rather than seeing life as something that “happens to you,” karma invites you to recognize that we are constantly participating in the shaping of our own reality. Every thought, every word, every action plants a seed. And those seeds, given time and conditions, bear fruit.
This is where agency enters.
If karma were fixed, we would be trapped in a script already written. But karma is dynamic. It unfolds in the present moment. And that means the present moment is always a point of power.
You are not just living out past causes; you are inevitably generating new ones.
A Christian Mystical Parallel
Interestingly, this understanding is not foreign to the Christian mystical tradition. While the word karma is not used, the principle of cause and effect appears in several profound ways.
Meister Eckhart spoke about the inner orientation of the soul as the determining factor of one’s experience of God and reality. It is not external circumstances, but your state of being that shapes what unfolds.
Similarly, St. John of the Cross emphasized that choices do matter. Purification and transformation come through conscious participation—through surrender but also through intentional alignment with divine love, kindness, and compassion.
In the New Testament, the principle is stated with striking clarity: “As you sow, so shall you reap” (Galatians 6:7). This is, in essence, a karmic law, not to be seen as punishment, but as a reflection of the deep coherence of creation.
From this perspective, karma or what is often misunderstood in Christian terms as sin, is not a cosmic bookkeeping system of reward and punishment. It is a spiritual practise and the evolving of consciousness.
From Victimhood to Participation
The misunderstanding of karma as fate often leads to passivity, shame, or even quiet despair:
“This is just my karma.”
“This is how things are meant to be.”
But a more accurate understanding empowers, restores responsibility, and possibility.
If your present circumstances are influenced by past causes, then your present actions are shaping your future experience.
This does not mean everything is controllable. Life is inevitably unpredictable, with waymarkers of loss, sadness, happiness, bliss, and mystery. But it does mean that how you respond is never predetermined.
And that response is itself karmically potent.
This is where karma and forgiveness meet.
Forgiveness interrupts cycles. It dissolves patterns that would otherwise continue repeating. In karmic terms, it is the conscious decision not to perpetuate a particular chain of cause and effect.
It is an act of profound spiritual authorship.
The Transformative Shift
To understand karma in this way is to move from a passive to an active relationship with life.
You are no longer merely the result of what has been.
You are a participant in what is becoming.
Each moment becomes an invitation:
What am I creating now?
What seeds am I planting?
Even the smallest shift in awareness can spark a new choice.
And a single new choice can begin to reshape your entire life.
You are not here to be carried by circumstance and fate. You are here to participate, to create, to transform.
Pause. Notice. Choose consciously.
The life you are living tomorrow begins with the action you take today.
Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast
P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading: Sages, Saints and Sinners Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where all good books are sold.
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